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What on Earth is Chess?

Chess is a strategic game in which two armies of equal number of soldiers do battle. You must strategically place your men in sectors of the playing field, the board, in order to destroy the man in charge so that the rest of the army cannot be instructed. In this case, the leader is the king. The object is to make it impossible for the king to flee anywhere so that your army can destroy him. This is called checkmate . Checkmate is discussed in detail later on. For those who are curious, follow the link above.

Chess is one of the most complicated board games that I have ever played and I'm sure you'll find the same. It requires a great deal of knowledge. It is one of those "Easy to learn, impossible to master" type of games. It goes way beyond learning how the pieces move and can become very confusing if not read carefully or is not described properly. This is why chess has more literature written on it than any other board game, for players of all skills.

Things That You'll Need Before Playing

Chess requires very few things to play. All you need is a board, just like the one that is used to play checkers. 8 x 8, 64 squares.

If you don't have a chess or checkerboard, you can easily make one from paper or on any draw program.

Some other things that you may want to know about the board and its properties:

1. The board is composed of 32 squares of a light colour, such as a beige or white. The other 32 are of a contrasting colour, usually black.
2. The vertical rows of the chess board are known as files.
3. The horizontal rows of a chess board are known as ranks
4. The diagonal rows of a chess board are known as (please bear with me, this part is extremely difficult) diagonals (Pretty hard, eh?).

You will also need a chess set. These cannot easily be made as they are quite intricate so it is a good idea to buy them. They aren't really that expensive; you can usually pick a plastic set up for around $10.00 Canadian, but you can spend up to $200.00 Canadian for a hand-crafted set. There is no limit on the price you can spend.

Another, optional thing that you may want to buy as you begin to play chess more, if you continue that far, is a chess clock. A chess clock is really two clocks that are connected together. It has two push buttons on top which, when one is depressed, the other button is pushed up and causes that clock to begin ticking. After it is pressed, the other button pops up and begins ticking, and so on. The clock was created so that those playing are not allowed to take forever to think. This limits a person's time and makes the game much shorter as well as more interesting because if your clock runs out, you lose the game! There are also many different forms of timing which we will discuss later. Chess clocks, however, will burn a hole in your pocket, a pretty big one at that. Chess clocks run for about $70.00 Canadian to $120.00 Canadian for a classical wind-up style. You can also pick up a digital display clock, which although are more expensive, keep the time very exact (which we'll discuss at a later time) and are easy to use. They run for about $120.00 to $150.00 Canadian.

A chess clock, however, is not needed just yet. I suggest learning the game and playing for a while before you begin to time your games. It just makes everything a lot more confusing. Take as much time as you need and learn as much as possible from your first games.

That will be everything you need to play. As mentioned, you do not need a number of materials. It's time to begin the tutorial. Are you ready?

Let's get to work

lucky individuals have learned how to play better chess since this page hit the web on 06/28/97.