5:12 p.m. - 2008-03-31
Chess tactics styles etc
This site makes every effort to explain everything in words, but when describing a series of chess moves it often is convenient to use abbreviations to describe them. Those abbreviations are known in chess as notation. This site generally uses the “algebraic” notation employed in most chess books, though with a small difference explained below. Despite the unpleasant label, it's very easy to understand. Make of it can be figured out as you read, but here is what you need to know about how it works:

1. Squares are named by their coordinates—a4, e5, h8, etc.; these should be self explanatory, since every diagram includes numbers running up the side of the board and letters along the bottom. The numbered horizontal rows are called ranks. The vertical columns named by letters are called files.

2. Pieces are named by their first letter. Q = queen; R = rook; etc. The only exception is the knight, which is referred to as “N” to distinguish it from the King (“K”). Pawns are named by their squares, so that “d4-d5” means the pawn on d4 moves to d5. Sometimes in this book (and routinely in other books) a pawn move is described without bothering to name the square it came from: one simply says "1. d5," and everyone understands this means that the pawn on the d-file moves to d5.

3. Captures are described with an “x” between the names of the pieces capturing and being captured. So QxB means queen takes bishop; Rxa5 means the rook captures the pawn on a5; and h7xN means the pawn on h7 captures the opposing knight.

This last point is the way that the notation here varies from the usual algebraic notation in other books. Algebraic notation normally describes a capture by just referring to the square where it occurs. Thus if White’s queen takes Black’s rook on the f6 square, most chess books would say “Qxf6”; but on this site we will say “QxR.” The reason for the difference is that this site is meant primarily for people who haven’t read other chess books before (as noted before, it's a chess book for people who don't like chess books), and for that audience the notation used here will be more intuitive. It's easy to understand that “QxB” means “queen takes bishop”: easy to imagine, and easy to find on the board. “Qxf6,” however, has to be translated into “queen takes bishop” by looking at the board, finding f6, and seeing what piece is there. That’s easy when you know instinctively where f6 is, but most readers of this project probably will find it faster to locate the bishop than to locate f6. The real benefits of naming captures by the squares where they occur come when describing long sequences, and few of the sequences here will be all that long. (The approach used here is similar to the one used in Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, a well-executed book for beginners.)

This approach to describing captures should be easy to follow for readers already used to ordinary algebraic notation; anyone can understand what QxB means even if they are used to reading Qxf6. The gripe I anticipate from those who get worked up about these things is that if readers become used to this approach they will find it hard to read algebraic notation in other books: they will see, say, “Qxf6” elsewhere and have trouble remembering that the other author means to say the queen captures whatever piece is on f6, not that the queen captures the f6 pawn (as it will mean here). I regard this as a trivial complaint; the reader of this site who does move on to other books should have no trouble making the transition if the above explanation is kept in mind (or just figuring it out on the fly; for this explanation makes the whole business sound more confusing than it is in practice). It's not that big a deal.

4. Turning back to the notation rules, castling is indicated by writing 0-0 (if it's on the side of the board where the king starts) or 0-0-0 (if it's on the queenside: long castling, as it is called).

5. Now a couple of minor points that don't come up often; you probably don't need to worry about them, but for the sake of completeness: if a capture is made en passant, that's indicated by writing "ep" afterwards or some variant. (I'm assuming you know what an en passant capture is, but if you don't, I'll explain it if it ever gets used here—and in the meantime you easily can find an explanation of it elsewhere on the web.) Second, if one of your pawns reaches the opponent's back rank, it gets promoted to some other more powerful piece of your choice—usually the queen, though very occasionally some other choice works better. We indicate promotion with an equal sign: f7-f8=Q means the pawn on f7 moves to f8 and becomes a queen. Again, I'll say more about this wherever it pops up.

Finally, if more than one piece could be indicated by a description (in other words, if I refer to "R" but there are two rooks on the board and it's not obvious which one is meant), sometimes the coordinate of the piece will be given as well. So Rc8xN means the rook on c8 (not some other rook) captures the opponent's knight. Occasionally this approach also will be used just for clarity's sake even if there is no technical reason for confusion.

6. Sequences of moves are described in pairs, with the White move first. Thus a game might begin 1. e2-e4, e7-e5 [again, this could have been written "1. e4, e5"]; 2. Nf3, Nc6; 3. Bb5, a7-a6; 4. BxN, d7xB. This means that White started by moving his e-pawn forward two squares, and that Black then did the same; then on White’s second turn he moved his knight to f3, and then Black moved his knight to c6. White brought out his bishop. Black chased it with his pawn on the a-file. White replied by taking Black's knight. Black recaptured with pawn on c6. The position on the left illustrates the result.

When we look at positions from the middle of a game (as we generally will) we will describe White’s first move in that position with the numeral “1” (as something like “1. Nf5,” for example). We call it “1” because it’s the first move in the pictured position, even though it’s not the first move in the game.

If we want to start by describing a move of Black’s, we do it by saying something like: “Black can play 1. …Nf5.” The “1” followed by the three dots indicates that we’re looking at the first pair of moves in the position but that we’re starting with the second half of the pair: in other words, with Black’s move.

7. A plus sign after a move (like this: Rh8+) means that the move checks the enemy king. A "#" sign after a move (like this: Rh8#) means that the move is checkmate (or simply “mate,” as we more commonly say).

8. It often happens that a player can sacrifice a knight or bishop to win an enemy rook. Since rooks are more valuable than knights or bishops, a player who does this is said to have “won the exchange.” If we reach a stage of the game where I have, say, a bishop and a rook and you have a bishop and a knight, I am said to be “ahead the exchange.”

9. A piece is said to be “loose” if it has no defenders. It is “hanging” if it is exposed to capture; you hang your queen if you leave it where your opponent can take it for free. This also is known as leaving a piece en prise.

Chess Anecdotes

"Talent? What is talent? It is 99 percent labor and 1 percent natural." --GM Gata Kamsky

A pointless check only to postpone defeat is known as a spite check. It raises eyebrows.

There's a funny chess saying I want to share with you. It reads: "Monkey sees a check, monkey gives a check." Most beginners tend to give check at every opportunity. You lose tempo if the checking piece is forced to retreat. You must have a good reason for doing this. Winning material or forcing a checkmate will make a point. You might not realize how precious tempo is. It's like allowing your opponent to have two moves in a row.

Each page is linked to the next page in a logical order so you may read straight through all of the rules. I also make available (by ordering through Amazon.com) various books on chess…just in case you would like more in-depth knowledge on the subject under scrutiny. Some books are for beginners but many are for advanced players.
Ways of losing tempo:
(a) making a move that forces the opponent to do something he would have done anyway;
(b) placing an important piece on a square where it can be attacked

Usual Tactics

Tactics take short-term opportunities to trap or ambush enemy pieces, hence you gain an advantage in force. Open your game carefully. When the time is right, launch a brutal attack against your opponent's army. If you choose the right tactic , the threat will prove successful.

Use your line piece against your opponent's lined up pieces: The Pin, The Skewer, The Fork/Double Attack.

A surefire approach: Destroying the Guard.

Harass the enemy king and win material: Discovered Check/Discovered Attack.

Force the king to move: Double Check.

This is a weak point. Use your eyes; spot and exploit: Overworked Piece.

How to trick greedy players: Decoying.

Keep his piece in your place: Trapping.

Loose piece + sacrifice + double attack = Sham Sacrifice

Instead of the obvious move, you make an intermediate move and then calmly go back to business as usual: The In-between Move.

Chess has long been considered the sport of kings and aristocrats. It has only been recently that chess has become popular among all levels of society. And no wonder. Chess is great exercise. No, there are no head smashing, helmet scarring football tackles or exotic tumbles on a gymnastic mat. Rather the players exercise their minds.

The mind, like the body, will atrophy if left unused too long. Also like the body, it will get stronger if used in a constructive fashion. A game of logic, Chess exercises the mind by requiring players to think logically. Players are forced to think ahead and to analyze complex individual, yet interdependent factors. It has been said that Chess is a good way to learn about life. A person with the facility to win at Chess is ready to conquer any complex problem on either a personal or business level.

Chess was originally invented in India around the 6th century AD. The game has changed only slightly since then with the advent of the queen in the 15th century and some minor movement adjustments in the 1800s. So those who play the game today share a link to a long and storied past, a link to men and women who lived and breathed the history of their day.

This site is dedicated to publishing the official rules of Chess in a graphical format that can be easily understood by the beginning chess player and referred to on occasion by the more experienced player.
First, we collected lists of great chess players from a number of other sources. Then we used an arbitrary cutoff on each list to determine the top players, we combined the lists into a single database, and we standardized the names across all lists. Finally, we selected the players who appeared on more than one of our original lists.

All of our original lists were based on rating, so it's natural that our first source was The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present (Batsford 1978) by Arpad Elo, the creator of the modern rating. Two appendices to Elo's book were an 'All-Time List of FIDE Titleholders' with 590 names (see the link box for more about FIDE) and an 'All-Time List of Great Untitled Players' with 197 names. Both lists were the result of Elo's calculations into the relative strength of the top players and included results through the end of 1977.

Our second source was a spreadsheet that we downloaded some time ago and which contains partial FIDE rating lists from the 1980s and 1990s. The rating lists, which have 234 different players, are not complete and someday we hope to replace these with more complete versions of those years. For now that is the best data we have covering the end of the 20th century.

Our third source combined FIDE top-100 rating lists published in The Week in Chess (link box again). The January lists from 1995 through 2003 yielded 942 entries with 219 different players.

Next we added a list from Chessmetrics by Jeff Sonas (link box again). The home page links to other Chessmetrics pages for 'everyone who has ever been a top-five player', as calculated by Sonas, and has exactly 100 names.

Finally, we used the official list of FIDE Grandmasters (GM) from the end of 2000. This covered 712 players.

These lists combined gave us the names of about 2000 players. We reduced that number by using a cutoff. We cut Elo's lists at a 2500 rating, the FIDE 1980-1999 & GM lists at 2650, and the FIDE 1995-2003 list at the top-25 on each list; Sonas's list was left uncut.

The combined short lists gave us 380 entries for 215 different players. Finally, we selected any player whose name appeared more than once. This gave us 111 names.

If you're paying attention to the numbers, you noticed that the published list has 112 names. Where did the extra name come from? When we examined the list of 111 names, Ruslan Ponomariov's name was missing. Since he's the current FIDE World Champion, we couldn't leave him off. We added an override list to our database to give him the required second nomination.

We admit that the method to produce the list is not completely fair. Players who reached their peak between 1978 and 1993 are underweighted, while players who were active after 1993 are overweighted. There are some names missing who should be there : Robert Huebner and Lev Polugaevsky are two glaring examples; and there are a few names that might leave you scratching your head : Vladimir Makogonov and Gustav Neumann would not be on our personal A-list.

One final note : the register includes only over-the-board (OTB) players. Correspondence players, composers, writers, teachers, organizers, politicians, and other personalities who have had a profound impact on chess are not yet included. Some day we hope to add these names as well as more of the many great players who are missing completely.

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