If you were to ask a chess master to look briefly at a chess game that is already in progress, by this I mean that there are about 20 pieces still in play. What you will find is that a chess master is able to recall the locations of virtually all the pieces. When this is compared to a good chess player, the good player remembered much less.

If the chess board was randomly set up and there was no game in progress; neither the good chess player or the chess master could remember whether pieces were.

The conclusion is that a chess master might have a better short-term memory but he has a much higher and developed long-term chess memory. A good chess player remembers about 2,000 patterns whereas a chess master remembers around 50,000 patterns.

The first move a pawn can make is either one square forward or two screens squares forward. After the initial move the pawns move one square forward. If there is another piece in front of the pawn, the pawn cannot move. The way the pawn takes is by taking diagonally forward.

Should a pawn reach the final row then it can become any piece except the king or another pawn.

When it comes to taking another piece the pawn can take any piece except the king. If the pawn is attacking the king and the king cannot move then it is check mate.

There is another very complicated rule surrounding the pawn and this is called the En Passant rule. For more information read my article on the En Passant rule.

I have tried to figure out why a person would move the rooks’ pawn first, and the conclusion that comes to me is that they are trying to get the rook into play as soon as possible.

But what about your other pieces. Even thought the rook is a more powerful piece, in the first few moves the bishop has a lot more influence then the rook does. If you make your first move the Kings pawn or the Queens pawn this will free up your bishop to it can move and take control of the center of the board.

Then after you move your knight you have a lot of power around the center of the board. In three moves you can have your pawn, bishop and knight influencing the middle of the board. This will set you up in a much more powerful position to dominate your opponent.

So while a beginner is wasting his moves to try and get one powerful piece into action, develop your pieces faster and you have set up a winning position for yourself.

As you become better at chess, you skill will improve. Those people who have attained a level of skill such that he can usually beat a ‘chess expert’, he will become a ‘chess master’. A ‘chess expert’ typically will nearly always beat most amateurs.

When the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) was established as the world chess body it created titles awarded to those who achieved set requirements. These titles are ‘FIDE Master’, which is the lowest master title it awards, the ‘International Master’ and the ‘Grandmaster’.

The way this is done is via the ELO rating system. This is a system to set up to calculate the relative skill levels of players in two player games.

To achieve the level of the ‘FIDE Master’, a player needs to achieve the FIDE Rating of 2300 or more. The October 2009 FIDE ratings list records 5561 FIDE Masters.

It’s harder to achieve the title of ‘International Master’. To do this a player needs three favorable results in international chess tournaments which involved other International Masters and Grandmasters. An ‘International Master’ usually has a rating between 2400 and 2500.

Another way of getting the title of ‘International Master’ is through specific performances. For example, the runner up at the World Junior Championship will be awarded the ‘International Master’ title.

After the title of ‘World Champion’, the title of ‘Grandmaster’ is the highest title a chess player can attain and once attained it is held for life. The title is awarded to players who achieve a rating of above 2500.

Men and women who play in international chess competitions  are able to receive a title.

Bughouse Chess is also know as Tandem Chess or Twin Chess. To play, you are required to have 4 players and 2 chess boards.

The way you play this is by separating into two teams and setting up the two chess boards. You will sit next to your team member and opposite will be your opponents. Each team member has a different color, so if you are white, your team member is black.

You will then start playing chess as normal. As soon as you take one of your members pieces you give it to your team mate. Your team mate has the opportunity to put this piece anywhere on his board, the only exception is that pawns cannot be placed on the first or last row. Placing a piece on the board counts as a move.

The winning team is the one that first checkmates on either of the boards.

Her path to becoming the Women’s World Chess Champion started at the age of five when her father taught her to play. In 2001 she reached the final of the World Women’s Chess Championship. She was only 17, but was defeated by Zhu Chen.

In November 2004 she was the 10^th woman to receive the international grandmaster title, the highest title of the World Chess Federation, FIDE. Despite being the Women’s World Chess Champion she is 11^th on the April FIDE women’s Elo Rating list. Her rating is 2516. The Fédération Internationale des Échecs or World Chess Federation is an international organization that connects the various national chess federations around the world and acts as the governing body of international chess competition. On the top of this list is Judit Polgar with a rating of 2680. Judit has never competed for the Women’s World Chess Champion despite being the top rated female.

Two of Alexandra’s mottos have been “chess is cool” and “beauty and intelligence can go together”. She has been promoting chess as an ambassador and fashion model around the world. She has been compared to Russian tennis beauty Anna Kournikova. The big difference is that Kosteniuk has won individual tournaments, a feat Kournikova cannot claim.

Cannibal Chess starts as normal and the rules are the same. In other words, the pawns move as pawns, the knights move as knights etc…

The variation comes when you piece takes another piece. When this happens it takes on the characteristics of that piece and moves as if it were that piece. As an example, if your Bishop takes the Knight, your Bishop turns into the Knight.

Kings: The King when taking another piece takes on the characteristics as the piece it has just taken it. It moves as per that piece, however it still remains the King. In other words, it is still the piece that needs to be mated.

Castling: normal castling rules apply and you can only castle with original rooks.

Note: To make it easier, use a 2nd chess board so you can change to the actual piece.

So this got me thinking, how many possible combinations of chess games are possible. After doing a little research I was amazed to find out that the number of unique chess games is greater then the number of electrons in the universe. It is estimated that there are 1079 electrons in the universe, the number of unique chess games is 10120.

If there are 12 zeros in a trillion, the number of unique chess games is a thousand followed by 9 trillions. That’s 112 zero’s. Here it is
1000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

You will be long dead before you can play every possible combination of chess game.

Understanding pins and fork, then applying them also help. However, if you are still in the early stages of your chess career and developing your skills, I have a few rules that I apply. There rules are so effective that you will win most of your games, the only people that will beat you are people that are seasoned professionals.

These rules are
1. At the beginning of the game, develop your pieces.
2. When you are up, even if it is one pawn, swap, swap, swap. As you do this its amazing how one pawn up becomes a knight, bishop, rook and queen up.
3. If you are behind, don’t swap for the same reason as for rule 2.
4. When swapping, or not swapping, make sure you are on the right side of the swap.

So how do you know when you are up or down. This is done by knowing the value of your pieces. If we take the pawn as the smallest piece and give it a value of 1, what value do you put to the bishop, knight, rook and queen.

These are the values I use
Pawn = 1
Knight and Bishop = 3
Rook = 5
Queen = 9

If you were to swap a bishop and knight for a rook and two pawns, you would be down one pawn. Putting my rules to work, then I would not swap my pieces. If I were your opponent, I would start swapping.

These are general rules that I apply when I play a game of chess and by applying these rules you will beat a beginner every time.