Portal:Chess

Welcome to the Chess Portal

Introduction

Left to right: white king, black rook, black queen, white pawn, black knight, white bishop

Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no elements of chance. It is played on a square board consisting of 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The players, referred to as "White" and "Black", each control sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns, with each type of piece having a different pattern of movement. An enemy piece may be captured (removed from the board) by moving one's own piece onto the square it occupies. The object of the game is to "checkmate" (threaten with inescapable capture) the enemy king. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw.

The recorded history of chess dates back to the emergence of chaturanga in 7th century India. Chaturanga is also thought to be an ancestor of similar games like Janggi, xiangqi and shogi. After its introduction to Persia, it spread to the Arab world and then to Europe. The modern rules of chess emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, becoming standardized and gaining universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, with millions of players worldwide.

Organized chess arose in the 19th century. International chess competitions today are governed by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs), the International Chess Federation. The first universally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Gukesh Dommaraju is the current World Champion, having won the title in 2024. (Full article...)

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In chess, the endgame tablebase, or simply the tablebase, is a computerised database containing precalculated evaluations of endgame positions. Tablebases are used to analyse finished games, as well as by chess engines to evaluate positions during play. Tablebases are typically exhaustive, covering every legal arrangement of a specific selection of pieces on the board, with both White and Black to move. For each position, the tablebase records the ultimate result of the game (i.e. a win for White, a win for Black, or a draw) and the number of moves required to achieve that result, both assuming perfect play. Because every legal move in a covered position results in another covered position, the tablebase acts as an oracle that always provides the optimal move.

Tablebases are generated by retrograde analysis, working backwards from checkmated positions. By 2005, tablebases for all positions having up to six pieces, including the two kings, had been created. By August 2012, tablebases had solved chess for almost every position with up to seven pieces, with certain subclasses omitted due to their assumed triviality; these omitted positions were included by August 2018. As of 2025^[update], work is still underway to solve all eight-piece positions. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various chess-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Chess Set by Man Ray (from Chess in the arts)
Image 2RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 3These seven ivory chess pieces are the oldest known, dating to about 700 CE. The ivory came from India. They were excavated in 1977 by archaeologist Yuriy Buryakov, at Afrasiyab in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. They are housed today at the Samarkand State Museum. Photographed during a loan of the pieces to the Silk Roads Exhibition at the British Museum. (from History of chess)
Image 4Current world champion Gukesh Dommaraju (from History of chess)
Image 5John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 6Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)
Image 7Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 8Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 9A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 10Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 11The Chess Players by Henry Fox Talbot, 1847 (from History of chess)
Image 12An illustration from a Persian manuscript "A treatise on chess". The Ambassadors from India present the Chatrang to Khosrow I Anushirwan, "Immortal Soul", King of Persia. (from History of chess)
Image 13Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)
Image 14Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 15Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)
Image 16Some of the earliest examples of chess-related art are medieval illustrations accompanying books or manuscripts, such as this chess problem from the 1283 Libro de los juegos. (from Chess in the arts)
Image 17In 1975, former President of Pakistan Zulfi Bhutto gifted a carved ivory set of chess to the former United States President Gerald Ford. (from Chess in the arts)
Image 18Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran (from History of chess)
Image 19The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 20Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (from Chess in the arts)
Image 21Two Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli, playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 22Gustaf Lundberg, 1775, Portrait of Gustav Badin, pastel, 74 x 57 cm, Nationalmuseum, Sweden (from Chess in the arts)
Image 23Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 24Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 25Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 26Niccolò di Pietro, 1413–15, The Conversion of Saint Augustin, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (from Chess in the arts)
Image 27Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 28Shams-i Tabrīzī as portrayed in a 1500 painting in a page of a copy of Rumi's poem dedicated to Shams (from History of chess)
Image 29Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 30Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 31Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 32Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 33Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing White, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 34Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 35Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 36Cocowood chess set (Philippines craft) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 37Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 38Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 39Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 40Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 41World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 42Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2840
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2810
3	Fabiano Caruana	2795
4	Vincent Keymer	2776
5	Arjun Erigaisi	2775
6	Alireza Firouzja	2762
7	R Praggnanandhaa	2761
8	Anish Giri	2760
9	Wei Yi	2754
10	Gukesh Dommaraju	2754
11	Wesley So	2753
12	Viswanathan Anand	2743
13	Richárd Rapport	2741
14	Leinier Domínguez	2738
15	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2734
16	Ding Liren	2734
17	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2732
18	Lê Quang Liêm	2731
19	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2730
20	Levon Aronian	2729

Did you know...

... that there have been attempts to make chess an Olympic sport since at least 1924?

Reviewed articles

Featured articles	Good articles
First-move advantage in chess	42nd Chess Olympiad	Goryachkina, Aleksandra
Gossip, George H. D.	43rd Chess Olympiad	Guramishvili, Sopiko
List of female chess grandmasters	Abdumalik, Zhansaya	Kazarian, Anna-Maja
Mechanical Turk	Alekhine, Alexander	Kristjánsson, Stefán
44th Chess Olympiad	Anderssen, Adolf	Lasker, Emanuel
	Belenkaya, Dina	Mammadzada, Gunay
	Bindrich, Falko	Milner-Barry, Stuart
	Blübaum, Matthias	Modern Benoni
	Budapest Gambit	Muzychuk, Anna
	Bughouse chess	Nadanian, Ashot
	Carlsen, Magnus	Rudolf, Anna
	Chess in Armenia	Rules of chess
	Cramling, Anna	Staunton, Howard
	Deep Blue (Chess computer)	Steinitz, Wilhelm
	En passant	Turochamp
	Endgame tablebase	World Chess Championship 1972
	Fischer, Bobby	Zhou, Qiyu