How To Play Chess for Beginners | Shatranj ka Khel | Rules for Castle in Chess

“Chess is a war on the board. The object is to crush the opponent’s mind” Bobby Fischer

All Information About Chess Play

Chaturanga, Shatranj, xiangqi, shogi, and makeup are various names for chess play. Chess is an indoor recreational game. The modern form of chess originated in Southern Europe during the latter half of the 15th century.

In reality, the computer is serendipity while creating a chess-playing machine. The first computer named Deep Blue defeated world champion, Garry Kasparov, in 1997.

The chess machines available today are much more advanced than the brightest human mind because of this the chess theory has evolved deeply over the period.

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How To Play Chess for Beginners

Chess play as a board game with sixty-four squares. These squares are in the array of eight by eight in alternate black and white colours. The board is placed in such a way that the bottom right-hand side coloured square is always light or white-coloured.

Each square on the horizontal is termed with alphabets from a to hand the vertical squares are termed with numbers from one to eight.

Played between two players, each opponent handles one colour either black or white. Each colour has 16 pieces which comprise one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each piece has its own rules of movement on the board.

The rule of the game is to check to mate the king of the opponent. The king is facing immediate attack and has no way to break free. The game can be drawn in various ways.

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History of Chess Play

Chessplay has its antecedents in India and can be traced back to the 7th century when it was called Chaturanga. It means four divisions, especially of military viz. cavalry, chariotry, infantry, and elephantry. Infantry is represented by a pawn, Cavalry is represented by the knight, chariotry is represented by a rook, and elephantry is represented by the bishop in the game. 

It was from India that this game spread to various parts of the world. Many scholars across the world studied and associated chess with military strategy, mathematics, and gambling and even had vague connections to astronomy. 

Persians were introduced to the game during the reign of emperor Nushirwan with the book of Klieh via Demneh. It soon became the courtly education of Persians.

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During the rule of the Rashidun Caliphate, the game started being called Shatranj due to the lack of syllables in the Arabic language such as ch and ng. The game further evolved being called “Shah!” for check and “Shah-Mat!” for checkmate. As chess travelled to other lands, the evolved names took over.

Shatranj even made its way to Europe as the Islamic Arabian empire expanded. Byzantine Empire called it Zatrikion. By the end of the millennium, chess found its way to Southern Europe and that’s the place from where modern-day chess evolved. With figure pieces, chess found its carved its way to Northern Europe.

By the 14th century, Timur introduced Tamerlane Chess, which was an enlarged variation of the game. Earlier the game was played in white and red. Later it was played with white and black colours.

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Rules Of the Chess Game

Each piece has its way of movement on the board. The pieces can move either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally but each piece has a restricted way of movement. Except for knights and while castling, pieces cannot move over or jump over other pieces. Here is a list of rules on how each piece can move on the board in vacant spaces.

King: The King moves one space in any direction i.e., horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Queen: A Queen can move any number of spaces horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Rook: Rook can move any number of spaces horizontally or vertically.

Bishop: Bishop can move any number of squares but only diagonally.

Knight: A Knight moves in an L pattern. It cannot move on the same rank, file, or diagonal.

Pawn: Pawn can move forward in a straight line. It cannot move backwards.

Each piece can move to a vacant space. It takes the place of the piece only if it is of the opponent’s and is to be captured. A pawn can capture an opponent’s piece from either side of two squares diagonally but cannot move in a diagonal direction.

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Special Rules in Chess Play

Apart from the moves, chess has some special moves such as Castling, Pawn Promotion, and En Passant. The result of the game can be a checkmate or a draw.

1. Castling

Castling is a move in which King and Rook are involved. In this move, the king can move two squares toward the rook so that the rook is adjacent to the king. Only one piece is allowed to move.

Both the pieces cannot move at a time as the game is played only with one hand. It is allowed only once for each player. Castling too has three different kinds.

One is the King-side castling in which the king goes white king can move two spaces right and the white rook moves left while the black king can move two spaces left and the black rook moves right.

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Queen-side castling is similar to the King-side castling. The difference is in the direction of movement for the kings. The white king moves two spaces to the left while the black king moves two spaces to the right.

Castling is to make your king safe by taking it out from the centre and pushing to corners behind pawns. This move is done by moving king but not rook. The game is won or lost due to castling but the timing of the move is crucial.

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2. Checkmate

The pawn can move two spaces forward with which it can reach the opponent’s pawn on the same rank. The opponent can capture the pawn only during its next move. Only then it is considered to be a legal move. 

Check is which king is under attack by at least one of the enemy’s pieces. Even if the piece is unable to move to avoid placing its king in check can give a check to the opposing player.

If the opponent’s king is threatened but can be refuted then it is checked. The player can make a legal move and save their king. But if the king is under attack and cannot be refuted with any legal move then it is checkmate.

Checkmate can be done with two rooks or king and queen or rook or king and two bishops or with king and bishop and knight which is known as an Arabian mate. Other types of checkmates are scholar’s mate, smothered mate, back rank mate or Anastasia’s mate.

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3. Draw

A draw is when neither player wins nor loses which means the game ends in a tie. The two players can ask for a tie and win half a point each. There are two types of draws.

One is a stalemate in which your king is not in check but you are left with no legal move and the other is the dead position in which no legal moves are left for any of the players.

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Types Of Chess Opening 

With the different rules of the game, chess is started with a specific pattern of opening moves. It is known as chess openings. Some of the standard moves are known as Book Moves or simply Book.

The main reason for opening moves is for the proper development of pieces and to gain control of the centre of the board. It also ensures King’s safety and prevention of pawns. 

The various chess openings are open games and semi-open games. closed game, semi-closed game, symmetrical opening, opening systems, gambit openings, hypermodern openings, classical openings, flank openings, flank openings, tactical openings, positional openings, and reversed openings. 

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Benefits of Playing Chess

Chess is a recreational indoor board game. But the reality is playing chess improves brain functioning. It develops memory, cognitive skills, and strategic thinking, and improves attention span and IQ levels. These skills help in preventing various brain diseases like developed memory prevents Alzheimer’s. 

Chess improves overall intelligence in terms of fluid intelligence and processing speed. It helps to sustain the flow of involvement during the most challenging task. It elevates your creativity level and ability to see from other’s perspectives. Playing chess can also develop planning skills.

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These are the benefits of playing chess found through various studies. We cannot guarantee skill development.

These are the upsides of chess, but the downside of chess also exists. It can be immensely stressful to play chess and takes a lot of time to be an expert.

We hope this gives you a hang and feel about chess. Just like many other things, chess has a huge community. Go out there and be part of one of the biggest communities. 

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