1. What is Chess?

2. History of Chess
3. Objectives
4. Terminologies

CHESS
The game of chess is played between two opponents who
move their pieces alternately on a square board called a
"chessboard". The player with the white pieces commences
the game. A player is said to "have the move", when his
opponent's move has been made.

A board game of strategic skill for two players,

played on a checkered board. Each player begins the game
with sixteen pieces that are moved and used to capture
opposing pieces according to precise rules. The object is to
put the opponent's king under a direct attack from which
escape is impossible (checkmate).

Chess, one of the oldest and most popular board

games, played by two opponents on a checkered board with
specially designed pieces of contrasting colors, commonly
white and black. White moves first, after which the player’s
alternate turns in accordance with fixed rules, each player
attempting to force the opponent’s principal piece, the King,
into checkmate—a position where it is unable to avoid
capture.

Chess is a recreational and competitive board game played

between two players. It is sometimes called Western or
international chess to distinguish it from related games such as xiangqi. The current form of the
game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from
similar, much older games of Indian and Persian 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.
Chess is an abstract strategy game and involves no hidden information. It is played on a
square chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. 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 for it to escape. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw.
Organized chess arose in the 19th century. Chess competition today is governed internationally
by FIDE (International Chess Federation). The first universally recognized World Chess
Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Magnus Carlsen is the current World
Champion. A huge body of chess theory has developed since the game's inception. Aspects
of art are found in chess composition; and chess in its turn influenced Western culture and art and
has connections with other fields such as mathematics, computer science, and psychology.
One of the goals of early computer scientists was to create a chess-playing machine. In 1997, Deep
Blue became the first computer to beat the reigning World Champion in a match when it
defeated Garry Kasparov. Though not flawless, today's chess engines are significantly stronger
than even the best human players, and have deeply influenced the development of chess theory.

HISTORY OF CHESS
The original word for "chess" is Sanskrit chaturanga "four members of an army" -- elephants,
horses, chariots, foot soldiers. This is preserved in Spanish ajedrez, from Arabic (al) shat-ranj,
from Persian chatrang, from the Sanskrit word.

Chess first appeared in India about the 6th century AD and by the 10th century had spread from
Asia to the Middle East and Europe. Since at least the 15th century, chess has been known as the
“royal game” because of its popularity among the nobility. Rules and set design slowly evolved until
both reached today’s standard in the early 19th century. Once an intellectual diversion favored by
the upper classes, chess went through an explosive growth in interest during the 20th century as
professional and state-sponsored players competed for an officially recognized world championship
title and increasingly lucrative tournament prizes. Organized chess tournaments, postal
correspondence games, and Internet chess now attract men, women, and children around the world.

The origin of chess remains a matter of controversy. There is no credible evidence that chess
existed in a form approaching the modern game before the 6th century CE. Game pieces found
in Russia, China, India, Central Asia, Pakistan, and elsewhere that have been determined to be older
than that are now regarded as coming from earlier distantly related board games, often
involving dice and sometimes using playing boards of 100 or more squares.

One of those earlier games was a war game called chaturanga, a Sanskrit name for a battle
formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. Chaturanga was flourishing in northwestern
India by the 7th century and is regarded as the earliest precursor of modern chess because it had
two key features found in all later chess variants—different pieces had different powers
(unlike checkers and go), and victory was based on one piece, the king of modern chess.

How chaturanga evolved is unclear. Some historians say chaturanga, perhaps played with dice on a

64-square board, gradually transformed into shatranj (or chatrang), a two-player game popular in
northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and southern parts of Central Asia after
600 CE. Shatranj resembled chaturanga but added a new piece, a firzān (counselor), which had
nothing to do with any troop formation. A game of shatranj could be won either by eliminating all an
opponent’s pieces (baring the king) or by ensuring the capture of the king. The initial positions of
the pawns and knights have not changed, but there were considerable regional and temporal
variations for the other pieces. The game spread to the east, north, and west, taking on sharply
different characteristics. In the East, carried by Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road traders, and others,
it was transformed into a game with inscribed disks that were often placed on the intersection of
the lines of the board rather than within the squares. About 750 CE chess reached China, and by
the 11th century it had come to Japan and Korea. Chinese chess, the most popular version of the
Eastern game, has 9 files and 10 ranks as well as a boundary—the river, between the 5th and 6th
ranks—that limits access to the enemy camp and makes the game slower than its Western cousin.

OBJECTIVE
The objectives of chess are to either win or to draw, depending on your circumstances

The primary objective in chess is to checkmate your opponent's King. When a King cannot avoid
capture then it is checkmated and the game is immediately over. The game is drawn when the player
to move has no legal move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in 'stalemate'.

The objective of each player is to place the opponent´s king "under attack" in such a way that the
opponent has no legal move which would avoid the 'capture' of the king on the following move.

The player who achieves this goal is said to have "checkmated" the opponent´s king and to have won
the game. The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game.
If the position is such that neither player can possibly checkmate, the game is drawn

The chessboard is composed of an 8x8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the "white"
squares) and dark (the "black" squares).

The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way that the near corner square to the
right of the player is white.

At the beginning of the game one player has 16 light-coloured pieces (the "white" pieces); the other
has 16 dark-coloured pieces (the "black" pieces):

These pieces are as follows:

A white king, usually indicated by the A black king, usually indicated by the
 
symbol symbol

A white queen, usually indicated by the A black queen, usually indicated by the
 
symbol symbol

Two white rooks, usually indicated by Two black rooks, usually indicated by
 
the symbol the symbol

Two white bishops, usually indicated by Two black bishops, usually indicated by
 
the symbol the symbol

Two white knights, usually indicated by Two black knights, usually indicated by
 
the symbol the symbol
 Eight white pawns, usually indicated by Eight black pawns, usually indicated by
 
the symbol the symbol

CHESS TERMINOLOGIES

The Pieces

 The King: The king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to capture the
opponants King. The King can move one square in any direction. The King may never move into check.
Each player starts with one king.
 The Queen: The Queen is the most powerful piece. She can move any number of squares in
any direction if her path is not blocked. Each player starts with one queen.
 The Rook: The Rook can move any number of squares vertically or horizontally if its
path is not blocked. Each player starts with two rooks, one on each end of the row at the
end of the board.
 The Bishop: The Bishop can move any number of squares diagonally if its path is not
blocked. Each player starts with two bishops, one on each side of the King and Queen.
 The Knight: The Knight’s move is special, as it can jump over other pieces. It moves two
squares horizontally or vertically and then makes a right-angle turn for one more square. The Knight
always lands on a square opposite in color from the color of the square it left. Each player starts
with two knights, between the bishops and the rooks.
 The Pawn: The Pawn moves straight ahead (never backward), but it captures diagonally. It
moves one square at a time, except on its first move, when it has the option of moving forward one
or two squares. Each player starts with eight pawns.

The Outcomes

 Check: Check is when the King is in a position such that he is threatened with capture.
 Checkmate: Checkmate is when the King is in check and there is no way to escape .
 Stalemate: A position in which the player whose turn it is to move has no legal move and his
king is not in check. A stalemate results in an immediate draw. The game ends without victory for
either player.
 Resign: To concede loss of the game. The traditional way to resign is by tipping over one’s
king.

For older Scouts, you can go into some of the more complicated terms such as board
notation and special moves:
 Board Notation

 Algebraic Chess Notation: The columns (called files) are labeled by the letters a to h
from left to right from the white player’s point of view, and the rows (called ranks) by the numbers
1 to 8, with 1 being closest to the white player. (See diagram) Board notation is important when
recording the moves in a game on score sheets.

Special Moves

 Castle: The king moves two squares toward one of its rooks and then the rook is placed on
the other side of the king. Castling consists of moving the king two squares on its first rank toward
either one of the original rooks, then moving the rook onto the square over which the king crossed.
Castling is allowed only when neither the king nor the castling rook has previously moved, when no
squares between them are occupied, when the king is not in check, and when the king will not move
across or end its movement on a square that is under enemy control.
 En Passant: This is a special pawn capture which can occur immediately after a player
moves a pawn two squares forward from its starting position, and an opposing pawn could have
captured it, had it moved only one square forward. The opponent captures the just-moved pawn as if
taking it “as it passes” through the first square. The resulting position is the same as if the pawn
had moved only one square forward and the opposing pawn had captured normally. The en passant
capture must be done on the very next turn, or the right to do so is lost. This is the only move in
chess in which a piece does not move to the space of the piece it captured.
 Promotion: When a pawn advances to his opponent’s side of the board, as a part of the
move it is promoted and must be exchanged for the player’s choice of 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; this is called under promotion. There is no restriction placed on the piece
that is chosen on promotion, so it is possible to have more pieces of the same type than at the start
of the game (for example, two queens).