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 Janggi, 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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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...)

List of selected articles

General images

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

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

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2839
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2807
3	Fabiano Caruana	2784
4	R Praggnanandhaa	2779
5	Arjun Erigaisi	2776
6	Gukesh Dommaraju	2776
7	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2771
8	Alireza Firouzja	2766
9	Wei Yi	2748
10	Anish Giri	2748
11	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2746
12	Wesley So	2745
13	Viswanathan Anand	2743
14	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2742
15	Levon Aronian	2742
16	Vladimir Fedoseev	2739
17	Leinier Domínguez Pérez	2738
18	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2736
19	Hans Niemann	2736
20	Ding Liren	2734

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