Chess: A complete guide to Chess and Chess strategies, helping you to master Chess fast!

By Michael West

CHESS

This book aims to serve as a beginner’s guide to playing Chess. Inside, you will learn everything you need to know to become a proficient Chess player. 

This book begins with the basics, such as the rules, what movements each Chess piece is allowed to make, and how Chess notation

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ingram Publishing
• Release date: Dec 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781761031472

Michael West

Dr. Michael West is the Chief Executive Officer of AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. AgeX Therapeutics is focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics targeting human aging. He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1989 concentrating on the biology of cellular aging. He has focused his academic and business career on the application of developmental biology to the age-related degenerative disease. He was the founder and first CEO of Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, California and from 1992 to 1998 he was a Director, and Vice President, where he initiated and managed programs in telomerase diagnostics, oligonucleotide-based telomerase inhibition as anti-tumor therapy, and the cloning and use of telomerase in telomerase-mediated therapy wherein telomerase is utilized to immortalize human cells.

Book preview

Introduction

Thank you for taking the time to pick up this book all about the game of Chess!

This book aims to serve as a beginner’s guide to playing Chess. In the following chapters, you will learn everything you need to know to become a proficient Chess player.

We start with the basics, such as the rules, what movements each Chess piece is allowed to make, and how Chess notation works.

After that, we will learn about the three different stages of a chess match, as well as strategies you can implement in each of these periods.

This book provides several scenarios that you can use to practice and hone your chess skills. With the help of these scenarios, and some diligent practice, you’ll be a formidable chess opponent in no time!

Once again, thanks for choosing this book, I hope you find it to be helpful!

Chapter 1: The Basics of the Game for Beginners

In this chapter we will cover the very basics of chess. It should be noted early here in this book that the rules of the modern game of chess are published by none other than the chess federation FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs). Their rules were recently revised back in 2017.

However, note that there are other chess organizations around the world, such as national organizations of each country and non-affiliated chess organizations, which have setup their own specific rules. What we will cover here are only the most basic the rules of the game. After all, we’re just after the fundamentals in this book, to help you gain a grasp of the game really quickly.

Setting Up the Chessboard and the Starting Positions

To begin with, you must first know how to setup your chessboard. Notice that the board itself has a checker pattern on it with boxes in alternating colors of black and white. It has a total of 64 squares and they are arranged in a matrix of eight columns and eight rows.

Note that chessboard colors will be different depending on the manufacturer. Some have dark green and white squares, brown and light brown squares, and so on. The important thing is that the squares are alternate in dark and light colors. In any case, we still refer to the lighter colored squares as white squares and the darker colored squares of the board as black squares.

Chessboards also differ in construction. A lot of them are made of wood, but manufacturers also make boards using different materials. Some materials that are used by the makers of chessboards include metal, plastic, marble, cardboard (for the really cheap ones), and others.

Here are the different parts of the chessboard:

Center – the four center circles of the chessboard are called the center. These are strategically essential squares in this game.

Rank – rank refers to the horizontal rows of the board. In chess notation they are numbered from 1 to 8, going from the one that is closest to your side going up to the opponent’s side.

File – this refers to the eight vertical columns of squares on the chessboard. In chess notation they are marked using the letters a to h going from left to right.

Diagonal – judging by the name, diagonals refer to a straight line of squares at an angle or diagonally across the board. Diagonals are always of the same color.

Identifying Board Positions

Now that we have gone over the ranks and files on the chessboard, here’s a little bit about chess notation. In chess, we identify squares on the board through their rank and file names. They are named file letter first, followed by the rank number.

For instance, the a1 square is the black square on the lower right corner of the board. That is, it is on the first file and first rank. The white square beside it is designated as a2. As a bit of an exercise, grab a chessboard and find the squares e4, d4, e5, and d5.

Take