Portal:Chess

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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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Sir Philip Stuart Milner-Barry KCVO CB OBE (20 September 1906 – 25 March 1995) was a British chess player, chess writer, World War II cryptologist, and civil servant. He represented England in chess before and after World War II.

During World War II he worked at Bletchley Park, from autumn 1943 heading "Hut 6", the section responsible for decrypting German Army and Air Force messages which had been enciphered on the Enigma machine. He was one of four leading cryptologists at Bletchley Park to petition then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill for more resources for their work. (Full article...)

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General images

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

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

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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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Mechanical Turk	Alekhine, Alexander	Kristjánsson, Stefán
44th Chess Olympiad	Anderssen, Adolf	Lasker, Emanuel
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	En passant	Turochamp
	Endgame tablebase	World Chess Championship 1972
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