CHESS

"The royal game"

 CHESS

• Chess is a board game played between two players.

• The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the
second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older
game of Indian origin.
• Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions
of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in
tournaments.
• The game is played on a chessboard, which is a square-checkered board
with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid.
– checkered - šachovnicový
 CHESS

• At the start, each player (one controlling the white pieces, the other
controlling the black pieces) controls sixteen pieces: one king, one
queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns.
• The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby
the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way to
remove it from attack on the next move.
• The tradition of organized competitive chess started in the 16th
century.
• Chess today is a recognized sport of the International Olympic
Committee.
• Theoreticians have developed extensive chess strategies and tactics
since the game's inception.
– Inception - vznik
 MOVES
• Each chess piece has its own style of moving.
• The Xs mark the squares where the piece can move if no other
pieces (including one's own piece) are on the Xs between the
piece's initial position and its destination.
• If there is an opponent's piece at the destination square, then the
moving piece can capture the opponent's piece.
• The only exception is the pawn which can only capture pieces
diagonally forward.
 CASTLING

• Once in every game, each king is allowed to make a special move,

known as castling.
• Castling consists of moving the king two squares along the first rank
toward a rook, then placing the rook immediately on the far side of
the king.
• Castling is only permissible if all of the following conditions hold:
– * Neither of the pieces involved in the castling may have been
previously moved during the game;
– * There must be no pieces between the king and the rook;
– * The king may not currently be in check, nor may the king pass
through squares that are under attack by enemy pieces. As with any
move, castling is illegal if it would place the king in check.
 CASTLING

Castling is done by moving the

king two squares towards the
rook, while the rook hops over
the king, landing on the square
next to the king.
 CASTLING STRATEGY

• Castling is an important goal in the early part of a game, because it

serves two valuable purposes:
– it moves the king into a safer position away from the center of the board,
– it moves the rook to a more active position in the center of the board (it is
possible even to checkmate with castling).
• The choice as to which side to castle often hinges on an assessment
of the trade-off between king safety and activity of the rook.
• Kingside castling is generally slightly safer, because the king ends up
closer to the edge of the board and all the pawns on the castled side
are defended by the king.
– Hinge – záležet
– Trade-off - kompromis
PROMOTION / END OF THE GAME

• When a pawn advances to its eighth rank, it is exchanged for the

player's choice of a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color.
• Usually, the pawn is chosen to be promoted to a queen, but in some
cases another piece is chosen, called underpromotion.

• Chess games do not have to end in checkmate — either player may

resign if the situation looks hopeless.
• If it is a timed game a player may run out of time and lose, even with
a much superior position.
• Games also may end in a draw (remíza) (tie). A draw can occur in
several situations, including draw by agreement, stalemate (pat), or
a draw by impossibility of checkmate.
 TIME CONTROL

• Besides casual games without exact timing, chess is also played

with a time control, mostly by club and professional players.
• If a player's time runs out before the game is completed, the game
is automatically lost.
• The timing ranges from long games played up to seven hours to
shorter rapid chess games lasting usually 30 minutes or one hour
per game.
• Even shorter is blitz chess with a time control of three to fifteen
minutes for each player, or bullet chess (under three minutes).
• Timing is most often controlled using a game clock.
NOTATION FOR RECORDING MOVES

• Chess games and positions are recorded using a special notation,

most often algebraic chess notation.
• Abbreviated (or short) algebraic notation generally records moves in
the format abbreviation of the piece moved - file where it moved -
rank where it moved, e.g. Qg5 means "queen moves to the g-file
and 5th rank (that is, to the square g5).
• If there are two pieces of the same type that can move to the same
square, one more letter or number is added to indicate the file or
rank from which the piece moved, e.g. Ngf3 means "knight from the
g-file moves to the square f3".
• The letter P indicating a pawn is not used, so that e4 means "pawn
moves to the square e4".
CHESS
 STRATEGY AND TACTICS

• Chess strategy consists of setting and achieving long-term goals

during the game — for example, where to place different pieces —
while tactics concentrate on immediate manoeuvre.
• These two parts of chess thinking cannot be completely separated,
because strategic goals are mostly achieved by the means of tactics,
while the tactical opportunities are based on the previous strategy of
play.
• A game of chess is usually divided into three phases: opening, usually
the first 10 to 25 moves, when players move their pieces into useful
positions for the coming battle; middlegame, usually the fiercest
(nejdivočejší) part of the game; and endgame, when most of the
pieces are gone, kings typically take a more active part in the struggle,
and pawn promotion is often decisive (rozhodující, rozhodný).
 FUNAMENTALS OF STRATEGY

• Chess strategy is concerned with evaluation of chess positions and

with setting up goals and long-term plans for the future play.
• During the evaluation, players must take into account numerous
factors such as the value of pieces on board, control of the center
and centralization, the pawn structure, the king safety, the control of
key squares or groups of squares (for example, diagonals, open-
files), etc.
– Concern with - starat se o; zajímat se o
– Evaluation – vyhodnocení, odhad
 FUNAMENTALS OF TACTICS

• In chess, tactics in general concentrate on short-term actions – so

short-term that they can be calculated in advance by a human
player or by a computer.
• The possible depth of calculation depends on the player's ability or
speed of the processor.
• In quiet positions with many possibilities on both sides, a deep
calculation is not possible, while in "tactical" positions with a limited
number of forced variations where much less than the best move
would lose quickly, strong players can calculate very long
sequences of moves.
 OPENING

• A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a game (the "opening

moves").
• Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings
and have been given names such as the Ruy Lopez or Sicilian
Defence..
• There are dozens of different openings, varying widely in character from
quiet positional play (e.g. the Réti Opening) to very aggressive (e.g. the
Latvian Gambit).
• In some opening lines, the exact sequence considered best for both
sides has been worked out to 30–35 moves or more.
• Professional players spend years studying openings, and continue
doing so throughout their careers, as opening theory continues to
evolve.
 OPENING

• The fundamental strategic aims of most openings are similar:

– * Development: To place (develop) the pieces (particularly bishops
and knights) on useful squares where they will have an optimal impact
on the game.
– * Control of the center: Control of the central squares allows pieces to
be moved to any part of the board relatively easily, and can also have a
cramping effect on the opponent.
– * King safety: Keeping the King safe from dangerous possibilities. A
correct timing for castling can often enhance this.
– * Pawn structure: Players strive to avoid the creation of pawn
weaknesses such as isolated, doubled or backward pawns, and pawn
islands – and to force such weaknesses in the opponent's position.
 MIDDLEGAME

• The middlegame is the part of the game when most pieces have
been developed.
• Because the opening theory has ended, players have to assess the
position, to form plans based on the features of the positions, and at
the same time to take into account the tactical possibilities in the
position.
• Middlegame is also the phase in which most combinations occur.
• Middlegame combinations are often connected with the attack
against the opponent's king; some typical patterns have their own
names, for example the Lasker—Bauer combination.
 ENDGAME

• The endgame (or end game or ending) is the stage of the game
when there are few pieces left on the board. There are main
strategic differences between earlier stages of the game and
endgame:
– * During the endgame, pawns become more important; endgames
often revolve around attempting to promote a pawn by advancing it to
the eighth rank.
– * The king, which has to be protected in the middlegame owing to the
threat of checkmate, becomes a strong piece in the endgame. It is often
brought to the center of the board where it can protect its own pawns,
attack the pawns of opposite color, and hinder movement of the
opponent's king.
• Hinder – bránit, překážet
The END