Chess

Chess
	Pairt o a Staunton chess set (frae left tae richt):; a white keeng, a black ruik, a black queen,; a white pawn, a black knight,; an a white bishop
Years active	c. 6t century – present
Genre(s)	Board gemme ; Abstract strategy gemme
Players	2
Setup time	c. 1 minute
Playin time	Casual games usually last 10 tae 60 minutes;; toornament gemmes last onywhaur frae aboot ; ten minutes (blitz chess) tae sax oors or mair.
Random chance	None
Skill(s) required	Strategy, tactics

Chess is a twa-player strategy board gemme played on a chessboord, a checkered gameboard wi 64 squares arranged in an aicht-bi-aicht grid. It is ane o the warld's maist popular gemmes, played bi millions o fowk warldwide at home, in clubs, online, bi correspondence, an in toornaments.

Baith player begins the gemme wi 16 pieces: ane keeng, ane queen, twa ruiks, twa knights, twa bishops, an aicht pawns. Ilkane o the sax piece types muives different. Pieces is uised tae attack an captur the opponent's pieces, wi the objective tae 'checkmate' the opponent's king bi placin it unner an inescapable threat o captur. In addeetion tae checkmate, the gemme can be wan bi the voluntary resignation o the opponent, that teepically occurs whan ower muckle hantle material is lost, or gif checkmate appears unavoidable. A gemme mey result in a draw in several wyes, whaur neither player wins. The coorse o the gemme is dividit intae three phases: openin, middlegame, an endgemme.

The first offeecial Warld Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; the current Warld Champion is Indian chess Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand. In addeetion tae the Warld Championship, thare the Weemen's Warld Championship, the Junior Warld Championship, the Warld Senior Championship, the Correspondence Chess Warld Championship, the Warld Computer Chess Championship, an Blitz an Rapid Warld Championships. The Chess Olympiad is a popular competeetion amang teams frae different nations. Online chess haes opened amateur an professional competeetion tae a wide an varied group o players. Chess is a recognised sport o the Internaitional Olympic Committee an internaitional chess competeetion is sanctioned bi the Warld Chess Federation (FIDE), which adoptit the nou-standard Staunton chess set in 1924 for uise in aw offeecial gemmes. Thare mony chess variants an aa, wi different rules, different pieces, an different boords.

Syne the seicont hauf o the 20t century, computers hae been programmed tae play chess wi increasin success, tae the pynt whaur hame computers can play chess at a vera heich level. In the past twa decades computer analysis haes contributit significantly tae chess theory, parteecular in the endgemme. The computer Deep Blue wis the first machine tae owercome a reignin Warld Chess Champion in a match, whan it defeatit Garry Kasparov in 1997.