CHESS is a board game for two players. It is sometimes
called Western chess or international chess to distinguish it from related
games such as xiangqi and shogi. The current form of the game emerged in
Spain and the rest of Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th
century after evolving from chaturanga, a similar but much older game of
Indian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games,
played by millions of people worldwide.
CHESS is an abstract strategy game and involves
no hidden information. It is played on a square chessboard with 64 squares
arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player (one
controlling the white pieces, the other controlling the black pieces)
controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two
knights, and eight pawns. The object of the game is to checkmate the
opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check")
and there is no way for it to escape. There are also several ways a game
can end in a draw.
