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 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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Kasparov in 2015

Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born Garik Kimovich Weinstein on 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion (1985–2000), political activist and writer. His peak FIDE chess rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by Magnus Carlsen in 2013. From 1984 until his retirement from regular competitive chess in 2005, Kasparov was ranked the world's No. 1 player for a record 255 months overall. Kasparov also holds records for the most consecutive professional tournament victories (15) and Chess Oscars (11).

Kasparov became the youngest undisputed world champion in 1985 at age 22 by defeating then-champion Anatoly Karpov, a record he held until 2024, when Gukesh Dommaraju won the title at age 18. He defended the title against Karpov three times, in 1986, 1987 and 1990. Kasparov held the official FIDE world title until 1993, when a dispute with FIDE led him to set up a rival organisation, the Professional Chess Association. In 1997, he became the first world champion to lose a match to a computer under standard time controls when he was defeated by the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in a highly publicised match. He continued to hold the "Classical" world title until his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. Despite losing the PCA title, he continued winning tournaments and was the world's highest-rated player at the time of his official retirement. Kasparov coached Carlsen in 2009–2010, during which time Carlsen rose to world No. 1. Kasparov stood unsuccessfully for FIDE president in 2013–2014. (Full article...)

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General images

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

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

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2837
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2804
3	Arjun Erigaisi	2782
4	Fabiano Caruana	2777
5	Gukesh Dommaraju	2776
6	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2767
7	R Praggnanandhaa	2767
8	Alireza Firouzja	2766
9	Wei Yi	2758
10	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2757
11	Aravindh Chithambaram	2749
12	Anish Giri	2748
13	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2746
14	Wesley So	2745
15	Viswanathan Anand	2743
16	Levon Aronian	2742
17	Vladimir Fedoseev	2739
18	Leinier Domínguez Pérez	2738
19	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2736
20	Hans Niemann	2736

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Reviewed 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