Portal:Chess
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The Chess portal The game is played on a square chequered chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight square. 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 sixteenth century and has developed extensively. Chess today is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Viswanathan Anand is the current World Champion. Theoreticians have developed extensive chess strategies and tactics since the game's inception. Aspects of art are found in chess composition. Selected article of the week George Hatfeild Dingley Gossip (December 6, 1841, New York – May 11, 1907, Liphook, England) was a minor American-English chess master and writer. He competed in British and international chess tournaments between 1870 and 1895, playing against the world's leading players, such as Lasker, Steinitz, Zukertort, Tarrasch, Chigorin, Gunsberg, Pillsbury, Blackburne, and Bird. However, he had only modest success. G.H. Diggle calls him "the King of Wooden Spoonists" because he usually finished last in the strongest tournaments. Gossip was also a chess writer of some note. His treatise The Chess-Player's Manual—A Complete Guide to Chess, a 900-page tome published in 1874 after several years of work, was harshly received by the critics, largely because he had included a number of skittles games that he had (atypically) won against stronger players. As a result, Gossip developed a lifelong enmity toward chess critics, whom he often attacked ferociously in his books. However, his 1879 book Theory of the Chess Openings was well received. Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Chess Champion, wrote that the 1888 edition of The Chess-Player's Manual was one of the best available books on the game. Thanks in part to a 122-page appendix by Samuel Lipschütz, it became one of the standard opening works of the time. Gossip made his living primarily as a journalist, author, and translator. He wrote for publications in England, France, Australia, and the United States. At various times he resided in all of those countries, as well as Germany and Canada. Chess writers have often mocked Gossip's play, calling him a "grandpatzer" and the like. However, a modern assessment system, Chessmetrics, concludes that Gossip at his peak was close to grandmaster strength. One of his former critics, Kenneth Whyld, suggests that chess history may have given Gossip an unfair verdict.
NewsFor chess news, see 2011 in sports, the 2011 in chess category, the current sports events portal, or the Wikinews sports portal. Below is the July 2011 FIDE rating list of the top ten male and female players.
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