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 goes back to at least the emergence of chaturanga—also thought to be an ancestor to similar games like xiangqi and shogi—in seventh-century India. After its introduction in 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, with standardization and 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. Chess competition today is governed internationally 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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The Queen's Gambit is a 2020 American coming-of-age period drama television miniseries based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis. The title refers to the "Queen's Gambit", a chess opening. The series was written and directed by Scott Frank, who created it with Allan Scott, who owns the rights to the book. Beginning in the mid-1950s and proceeding into the 1960s, the story follows the life of Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a fictional American chess prodigy on her rise to the top of the chess world while struggling with drug and alcohol dependency.

Netflix released The Queen's Gambit on October 23, 2020. After four weeks it had become Netflix's most-watched scripted miniseries, making it Netflix's top program in 63 countries. The series received critical acclaim, with particular praise for Taylor-Joy's performance, the cinematography, and production values. It also received a positive response from the chess community for its often accurate depictions of high-level chess, and data suggests that it increased public interest in the game. (Full article...)

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General images

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

Image 1Cocowood chess set (Philippines craft) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 2Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)
Image 3Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 4Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran (from History of chess)
Image 5World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 6Current world champion Gukesh Dommaraju (from History of chess)
Image 7Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 8Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 9Niccolò di Pietro, 1413–15, The Conversion of Saint Augustin, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (from Chess in the arts)
Image 10Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 11Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 12Some 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 13Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 14Shams-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 15Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 16RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 17Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 18Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 19The Chess Players by Henry Fox Talbot, 1847 (from History of chess)
Image 20Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 21John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 22Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 23An 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 24In 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 25Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)
Image 26Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 27A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 28Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 29Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (from Chess in the arts)
Image 30Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing White, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 31Two Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli, playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 32Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 33The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 34Chess Set by Man Ray (from Chess in the arts)
Image 35Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 36Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 37These 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 38Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 39Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)
Image 40Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 41Gustaf Lundberg, 1775, Portrait of Gustav Badin, pastel, 74 x 57 cm, Nationalmuseum, Sweden (from Chess in the arts)
Image 42Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2837
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2804
3	Arjun Erigaisi	2782
4	Fabiano Caruana	2777
5	Gukesh Dommaraju	2776
6	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2767
7	R Praggnanandhaa	2767
8	Alireza Firouzja	2766
9	Wei Yi	2758
10	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2757
11	Aravindh Chithambaram	2749
12	Anish Giri	2748
13	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2746
14	Wesley So	2745
15	Viswanathan Anand	2743
16	Levon Aronian	2742
17	Vladimir Fedoseev	2739
18	Leinier Domínguez Pérez	2738
19	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2736
20	Hans Niemann	2736

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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