MADRID — The world’s top female chess player has given up her last game to protest being paired against mostly female players at a major tournament where male contestants outnumbered them.
The first international tournament was held in London in 1851. This first tournament was not officially sanctioned, so the winner of it, a German named Adolf Anderssen, was known unofficially as the world’s best player. It was not until 1866 that the first official international chess tournament was held, also in London. Wilhelm Steinitz from Bohemia won this tournament, and was the first official World Champion.
There are some other situations in chess that novice players might not be aware of. For instance, a game can very easily end in a draw. This can happen when neither side has enough material to checkmate the opponent. This would happen if one player had a Bishop and King while another had … Read More
The game we call Chess goes so far back into the murky dimness of history that no one is really sure about the specifics of its origin. But scholars generally believe that it originated in what are now Northern India and Afghanistan. The oldest written reference to the game is circa 600 in India. But this game was not the modern day game we know. This version of the game had pieces representing elephants, infantry, cavalry and boatmen, all commanded by a Rajah. There is evidence that it was played on a board similar to the one used today, a board of 64 squares of alternating colors.
The game of Chess is made up of two sets of 16 pieces, including one king, one queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, and eight pawns. All of the 16 pieces have specific positions on the chess board. The chess pieces themselves come in a variety of different styles and designs and the names of each piece did not traditionally start out as the names we use today. Chess pieces come in a variety of different materials and of course vary in prices. Often choosing the chess pieces for yourself when setting up your own board can be a very difficult task with so many options being on offer. There are traditional offerings as well as novelty pieces all of which are incredible to look at but the choice comes down to a personal one.
MOSCOW: Viswanathan Anand has been crowned the World Chess Champion after he beat Israel’s Boris Gelfand 2.5-1.5 in a tense tie-breaker at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
New York, Feb 5 (IANS) The Facebook app that enables your conversations with your friends on the popular social network has now made it simple to play chess from a computer or a smartphone.