How to play chess

There are lots of indoor games that are entertaining, but the most stimulating of them all is Chess. Chess is a simple game involving logical thinking and strategy. It improves the mental ability of the player and makes one more patient. An enthusiastic beginner is bound to get addicted to it and in this game like any other practice makes perfect.

Though appearing to be confusing at first the rules of Chess are quite easy to learn. Chess is a game for two played on a board of sixty four alternate black and white squares. The two opponents are called White and Black. The goal of each opponent is to attack the other opponent’s King so that it has no escape. Players take turns to move one piece at a time to strengthen their own position and to weaken their opponent's that is each move enables the player to battle out the other player’ army.

Chess pieces are similar to a medieval army. Each player has a King and a Queen denoting monarchy, two Rooks (the castles), two Knights (the horsemen), two Bishops (the churches), and eight Pawns (the foot soldiers). The first player to start is the white and consecutive moves are made till one army defeats the other’s king. The board is set between the players with the pawns facing each other head first with the other pieces and the king and queen right behind them.

The pawns move first (either one or two places). The Knight are the pieces with the trickiest move in chess they move one square horizontally or vertically in any direction, then diagonally one square away from the starting square, literally in an L- shape. The Rooks can move any number of squares along its rows or its columns vertically or horizontally while the bishops move any number of squares diagonally. The queen, most powerful of them all can move any number of places in any direction from its place while the same goes for the king but one step at a time.

Many simple strategies can lead to a clear victory in chess, but doing it in the minimum number of moves requires skill.