Chess Board Games

Win At Chess With These Special Moves
By Lee Dobbins

The game of chess has many interesting moves and some that can only happen under certain circumstances. In order to play the best game you can, it is wise to know about all the moves so that you can best outwit your opponent.

In order to effectively talk about chess a special method of notation has been devised. This helps identify the squares and positions without having to have a board and pieces always in front of you to illustrate. In this notation the columns (or files as they are called in chess) are identified with a letter and the rows (or ranks) are identified with a number. If you are looking at a chessboard from the perspective of the white player, the leftmost file is 'a', the one next to it 'b' and so on until the last file which is 'h'. The back or closest rank for white is 'rank 1', the next one (the one the pawns are on) is 'rank 2' and so on until the last rank, which is the back row for black and is 'rank 8'. So the when using chess notation, the leftmost back square for white would be called 'a1', the square directly above 'a2' an so on. See how easy that is?

Now that you know how chess notation works and you have a chess board visualized in your head, we can talk about some of the special chess moves.

En Passant

If you have played even only 1 game of chess you know that pawns have some special rules. For example, they can only capture a piece that is placed diagonally in front of them. Also, on it's initial move, a pawn can move up two squares instead of just one. However, there is a special case for this - if an enemy pawn could have captured it had it only moved 1 square, the enemy is still able to capture.

This move is called 'en passant' and can only be used on the very next move after the pawn is advanced 2 spaces - if you do not capture then, you cannot do it at a later move.

Here's an example - BLACK has a pawn at d4; WHITE moves his e2-pawn to e4; had WHITE moved to e3m the BLACK d4 pawn would have been able to capture so now he can capture en-passant on his next move. But if BLACK decides to make another move instead, he gives up his right to capture.

Castling

The King can make a special chess move called 'castling' and it is, in fact, recommended that you do this during the opening phase of the game. This is a defensive move which increase thesafety of the King. Castling has two forms - 'short' and 'long'. Here's how it works:

Say the white King is on e1 with the white Rook on h1 (this is the initial setup at the start of the game). You can make the move called short castling by moving the King to g1 and the Rook to f1. This move does have some restrictions - the squares in between the Rook and King must be empty, neither the Kind or Rook can have been moved before and the King cannot be in check. Note that even though you move two pieces, this is considered to be one move.

Long castling has the same rules and is a similar move but uses the Rook on the a file instead. In this scenario, the King ends on c1 and the Rook ends on d1.

Promotion

You might think the pawns are not very useful but if you can get your pawn to the other side of the board he can be promoted. This means the you can replace the pawn with any same colored piece you want with the exception of a king or pawn. Needless to say most people choose to replace the pawn with a queen.

There are some other situations in chess that novice players might not be aware of. For instance, a game can very easily end in a draw. This can happen when neither side has enough material to checkmate the opponent. This would happen if one player had a Bishop and King while another had only a King - no matter how many times you try you cannot get the opponent into checkmate so the game ends in a draw.

The chess game might also end in a draw if you have to repeat the same move 3 times as their are no other choices, if no advance or pawn capture has happened in the last 50 moves or stalemate. Stalemate can happen when a player who is not in check has no valid moves. If a player can continuously checkmate another player any time he wishes then he can claim a draw by "continuous check".

Lee Dobbins writes for many online publications. Visit http://www.chess-moves.info to learn more about the game of chess and see this article in more detail and with diagrams of the special moves.

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Chess Rating Calculation in FIDE (World Chess Federation)
By Bohdan Vovk

You may know the name of the famous chess player Garry Kasparov who hit the highest rating in the history of FIDE at 2849. You may also know that the FIDE rating is calculated by the Elo system. But do you know how?The Elo system is named after Dr. Arpad Elo who improved the original one developed by Kenneth Harkness. It has been in use in the USA since 1960 and was taken on by FIDE in 1970. The system is twofold:

1. It shows how strong the player is: Player A rated 2400 is stronger than Player B rated 2300.
2. It also calculates the results of a game, tournament, or event as numerical Elo results.

Originally designed as a chess rating system, nowadays it is also being used in a number of other sports and computer games.Each chess player has chance to win a game. The stronger player, the more chances to win. FIDE uses a special winning probability table for a game which is based on the rating difference between the two opponents.

If the rating difference between the two is 0, each player has equal chances to win, and his or her winning probability is 0.50. If the difference is 100, the stronger player has the winning probability 0.64 while the weaker 0.36. Please remember 100, 0.64, and 0.36.Let's imagine that Player A rated 2400 and Player B rated 2300 are to officially play 100 games. The rating difference being 100, the expected result for Player A is therefore 0.64 and for Player B 0.36. And now the main idea... If Player A is really playing as strong as 2400 and Player B as 2300, at the end of the event Player A will score 64 and Player B 36 for sure. If Player A scores only 55 (but not expected 64) and Player B 45 (more than expected 36), the Elo system will change their new ratings.The system uses the K-factor which is necessary for rating calculation. The K-factor is assigned to the player, and its possible values in FIDE are 10, 15, and 25 as follows:
- 25 for players new to the rating list, until they have completed events with a total of at least 30 games.
- 15 for players with a rating under 2400.
- 10 once the player has reached 2400 and been registered for at least 30 games. Thereafter it remains permanently at 10, even if the player's rating is under 2400 at a later stage.The current rating of the chess player changes after each game. The one-game Rating Change depends on:
- The player's K-factor.
- The player's score (1, 0.5, or 0).
- The player's Expected Result for a game.Example 1. With the K-factor 10, Player A rated 2400 defeated Player B rated 2300.

The Rating Change for Player A is therefore calculated as this:
K-factor x (Result - Expected Result)
10 x (1 - 0.64) = 10 x 0.36 = 3.6

Example 2. With the K-factor 10, Player A rated 2400 lost to Player B rated 2300.
In this case, the Rating Change for Player A is calculated as this:
K-factor x (Result - Expected Result)
10 x ( 0 - 0.64) = 10 x (- 0.64) = - 6.4

Example 3. With the K-factor 10, Player A rated 2400 made a draw with Player B rated 2300.
The Rating Change for Player A is now calculated as this:
K-factor x (Result - Expected Result)
10 x (0.5 - 0.64) = 10 x (- 0.14) = - 1.4The new rating of the chess player is calculated based on the rating change. Updated, the FIDE rating list is available online on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July, and 1 October.

Bohdan Vovk is a chess supporter, and chess rating calculation is one of his hobbies. He runs a handful of websites and is the Author of an elo calculator program and some other products.

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