In the diagrams, the dots mark the squares to which the piece can move if there are no intervening piece(s) of either color (except the knight, which leaps over any intervening pieces).

For other chess games or other uses, see Chess (disambiguation).

It is sometimes called Western or international chess to distinguish it from related games such as xiangqi.

The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin.

Today, chess is one of the worlds most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.

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 knights, two bishops, and eight pawns.

The object of the game is to checkmate the opponents king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in check ) and there is no way to remove it from attack on the next move.

Chess competition today is governed internationally by FIDE (International Chess Federation).

The first universally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Magnus Carlsen is the current World Champion.

A huge body of chess theory has developed since the games inception.

Aspects of art are found in chess composition; and chess in its turn influenced Western culture and art and has connections with other fields such as mathematics, computer science, and psychology.

In 1997, Deep Blue became the first computer to beat the reigning World Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov.

Todays chess engines are significantly stronger than even the best human players, and have deeply influenced the development of chess theory.

While the sets may not be literally white and black (e.g.

Each set consists of 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns.

The players of the sets are referred to as White and Black, respectively.

The 64 squares alternate in color and are referred to as light and dark squares.

The chessboard is placed with a light square at the right-hand corner nearest to each player.

Thus, each queen starts on a square of its own color (the white queen on a light square; the black queen on a dark square).

White moves first, after which players alternate turns, moving one piece per turn (except for castling, when two pieces are moved).

A piece is moved to either an unoccupied square or one occupied by an opponents piece, which is captured and removed from play.

With the sole exception of en passant, all pieces capture by moving to the square that the opponents piece occupies.

A player may not make any move that would put or leave the players own king in check.

If the player to move has no legal move, the game is over; the result is either checkmate (a loss for the player with no legal move) if the king is in check, or stalemate (a draw) if the king is not.

Chess Rules In Marathi