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, 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 piece type 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 the International Chess Federation FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs). 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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Menchik in 1927

Vera Francevna Mencikova (Russian: Вера Францевна Менчик, Vera Frantsevna Menchik; Czech: Věra Menčíková; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in England. She was the first and longest-reigning Women's World Chess Champion from 1927 to 1944, winning the championship a record eight times primarily in round-robin tournaments. In an era when women primarily competed against other women, Menchik was the first and only woman competing in master-level tournaments with the world's best players.

Menchik was born in Moscow to a Czech father and English mother. She began playing chess competitively in school at age 14 not long before the Russian Revolution led her family to leave Russia and move to England in 1921. She joined the Hastings Chess Club in 1923, where she began training with James Drewitt and Géza Maróczy. Menchik established herself as the best female player in the country in 1925 by defeating the British women's champion Edith Price in two matches, and then the world by winning the inaugural Women's World Chess Championship in 1927. (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 2An 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 3Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 4Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 5Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 6Shams-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 7Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 8Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (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 10A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 11Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 12In 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 13Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 14Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)
Image 15Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 16Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran (from History of chess)
Image 17Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 18Some 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 19RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 20The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 21Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 22Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 23Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 24Current world champion Gukesh Dommaraju (from History of chess)
Image 25These 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 26John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 27The Chess Players by Henry Fox Talbot, 1847 (from History of chess)
Image 28Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)
Image 29Cocowood chess set (Philippines craft) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 30Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 31Two Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli, playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 32Gustaf Lundberg, 1775, Portrait of Gustav Badin, pastel, 74 x 57 cm, Nationalmuseum, Sweden (from Chess in the arts)
Image 33Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 34Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 35Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)
Image 36Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 37Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 38Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing White, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 39Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 40World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 41Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 42Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)

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FIDE world ranking

More information Rank, Player ...

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2840
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2810
3	Fabiano Caruana	2795
4	Vincent Keymer	2776
5	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2771
6	Alireza Firouzja	2759
7	Wei Yi	2754
8	Anish Giri	2753
9	Wesley So	2753
10	Gukesh Dommaraju	2748
11	Arjun Erigaisi	2745
12	Javokhir Sindarov	2745
13	R Praggnanandhaa	2741
14	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2739
15	Leinier Domínguez	2738
16	Richárd Rapport	2738
17	Hans Moke Niemann	2735
18	Lê Quang Liêm	2731
19	Jorden Van Foreest	2729
20	Levon Aronian	2729

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Did you know...

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

Reviewed articles

More information Featured articles, Good 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