The Everything Chess Basics Book (9 page)

There are two different types of chessmen: the pieces and the pawns. The pieces include the king, rook, bishop, queen, and knight. They all capture the way they move and can operate in any direction. The pawns are very different creatures.

Types of Pieces

The five types of pieces can be divided up in several ways. One way is by function:

• King—The most important piece in the game

• Queen, rook, bishop, and knight—Helpers

Another way is by types of move the pieces are capable of. In which case, there are:

• Queen, rook, and bishop—Long-range

• King and knight—Short-range

Another way to divide up the pieces is by their strength:

• Major pieces—Queen and rook

• Minor pieces—Bishop and knight

You’ll notice that the bishop is both a long-range and a minor piece. The reason is that, although its immediate power can be overwhelming, it can handle only half the squares on the chessboard during the life of any game.

The Pawns

These little peasants or foot soldiers are the plodders of chess. They move slowly, one square at a time, and only forward, never backward. In addition, they have many exceptions to the way they move, making them the toughest guys to master, despite their admitted weakness. It hardly seems worthwhile to put the time and effort into learning the moves!

The colors of the pieces can be whatever you like as long as they offer good contrast between the White and Black pieces. They don’t actually have to be white and black; beige and red or cedar and maple are two possibilities.

But the pawn also represents upward mobility and democracy. Americans could well have invented it if it wasn’t already in use by the time the New World was discovered. The pawn is everyman, and each one has a chance to make a difference in the game, if only he survives long enough.

Basic Move

The pawns can move to the nearby dotted squares or capture any piece or pawn standing on the nearby X squares.

The pawn’s basic move is simple enough. Each pawn (each player starts out with eight of them) has the ability to move forward one square along a file or to capture one square forward along a diagonal. The capture is carried out by moving the pawn from its current square to one diagonally forward one square, removing the enemy piece or pawn there, and taking its place on that square. Right there we have a break from the pattern of the pieces, which move and capture in the same way.

Initial Two-Square Advance

The first time a pawn is used in a game he can move one square forward, as usual, or he can move two squares forward. Thereafter, the option is gone, whether or not it was used. Each pawn has this option whenever he is first moved, regardless of how many moves the game has gone.

Since the pawn moves forward on a file in this optional move, no capture is possible. The two-square-forward-along-a-file option is thus there to speed up play, nothing more. (The other exceptions, promotion and en passant, are explained in Chapter 5.)

Chapter 4
Ending the Game

Now that you know how a game is played and the basic moves of the various pieces and pawns, it’s time to learn how to get at what we are aiming for. And that, of course, is the king.

Check

The king is the whole game. Capturing the king, whether by accident or design, would end the game, perhaps prematurely. So the people who developed chess came up with a little insurance to make sure the game wouldn’t end accidentally. Every time the king is threatened with capture, he is warned. This gives him a fighting chance to escape the fate of the other pieces and pawns. This warning is referred to as
check
.

The Black king on g8 is in check from the White bishop on c4.

The White king on e1 is in check from the Black knight on d3.

The White king on g1 is in check from the Black rook on g8.

The Black king on d5 is in check from the White pawn on e4.

The White king on a1 is in check from the Black queen on e5 along the a1-h8 diagonal.

A check is a situation where the king would be in danger of being captured if that were allowed. Instead, the player whose king is in check must drop everything and find a way to get out of check. Any piece or pawn is subject to a similar situation, but no warning is required and the player can ignore the threat to his piece or pawn if he wishes or if he is inattentive.

It sometimes happens that neither player noticed a check for several moves. When this is discovered, the players are required to retrace the moves until the king was first in check. It also sometimes happens (in the games of very inexperienced players) that both kings are in check. Such a situation is of course not allowed and the moves must be retraced to a point where only one king is in check.

Three Ways Out of Check

When your king is in check, you must find a way out. There are only three possible ways to get out of check. They are:

1. Capture the attacker.

2. Move the king.

3. Block the attack.

The first way is often the best way. By capturing the piece or pawn delivering the check you not only get out of check so the game can continue, you also remove something valuable to your opponent from the board. Killing two birds with one stone is always good strategy in a game you are trying to win.