The Everything Chess Basics Book (5 page)

Chapter 2
The Chessboard

The game of chess takes place on a square board divided up into sixty-four smaller, equally sized checkered squares alternately colored light and dark. While the board can be almost any size and the squares can be almost any color, it is best to keep within the standard size of about 16 to 22 inches to a side for the board with 2 to 2½-inch squares.

The Battlefield

Everyone has sixty-four squares to work with. Half of sixty-four is thirty-two. Therefore, a rule of strategy immediately springs to mind: If you control thirty-three squares, you will have an advantage. Thus you already have an idea of how to plan an attack before you know how the pieces move. Keep this strategy in mind as you learn more about chess, and the rewards will be gratifying.

Here is a diagram of a chessboard. Note the checkered squares and the light square at the right-hand corner at the bottom.

Light on Right

When setting up the chessboard, always make sure a light square is at your far lower right corner. Your opponent, who sits opposite you, will also have a light square at his or her far lower right corner. (If you prefer, you can think of this as a dark square always being at your left; it works just as well.) There is perhaps no reason other than tradition for this rule, but it makes sense to always set the board up the same way for all chess games.

You should be able to spot the many instances where chess is used in advertising without a modicum of research. Look around you at store windows, magazine ads, posters, television shows, and movies. Notice how many chessboards are set up with a dark square in the lower right-hand corner. You have found another case of homework gone undone!

Blind Your Opponent

An old piece of advice to chess players came up in a sixteenth-manuscript by the Spanish bishop Ruy Lopez. He counseled his readers to place the board so that the sun shines in their opponent’s eyes. Not a very nice bit of advice, but how nice can you be when the object of a game is to destroy your opponent? Nevertheless, such behavior is considered unsportsmanlike nowadays.

Following the principles of good sportsmanship, the board should not have shiny squares. A smooth surface, easy on the eyes, with lots of contrast between the light and dark squares, is ideal.

The material of a chessboard can be almost anything. Wood, plastic, paper, cardboard, and vinyl are common. Some chessboards are even virtual: they appear only on your computer screen. So long as there are sixty-four alternating light and dark squares, you have a useable board.

Checkered Squares

The distinctive appearance of the chessboard, aside from the sixty-foursquare grid, is the alternating light and dark squares. This is so unique that any time a checkered pattern appears with contrasting light and dark colors, people automatically think of a chessboard (or checkerboard, which is really the same thing).

Has the chessboard always been checkered?
The surprising answer is no. Older versions of chess in India and the Middle East were played on a board with the grid dividing it into sixty-four squares, but without contrasting colors.

The colors of a chessboard can be whatever you like as long as they offer good contrast between the light and dark squares. The red and white of the traditional checkerboard is a bit gaudy. Better is the soft green and beige of many vinyl roll-up boards or the walnut-maple squares of some wood boards.

Using All Squares

In chess, both players use all the squares of the board. This is in contrast to the many versions of checkers, in which each player uses only half of the squares. It also gives special meaning to the appearance of the chessboard in terms of game planning. There are advanced strategies known as
weak-color complexes
, where a player cannot get sufficient control of the squares of one particular color. There is even a chess piece that operates on only one color, which you will learn about in the next chapter.

Preventing Visual Monotony

There is one other reason for the alternating light and dark squares on the chessboard: It prevents a visual monotony, thus helping players to quickly and accurately distinguish between the various squares on the board. To go along with this, it allows players to easily visualize the various highways that cross the board.

The squares of the chessboard do not exist in isolation. They touch or intersect at various points. Straight rows of such bordering squares are called
ranks
,
files
, and
diagonals
.

Ranks

As you sit at the chessboard, with a light square at your lower right and a dark square at your lower left, there are eight horizontal rows of eight squares bordering at the sides stretching from your left to your right. They begin nearest you and wind up nearest your opponent. These rows cover every square on the chessboard, and they are called
ranks
.

Rank Names

Each rank has a name based on how far away it is from you, assuming you are playing the White pieces and your opponent is playing the Black pieces. The rank nearest you is called the
first rank
. The next rank out is called the
second rank
, the next the
third rank
, and so on until you get to the rank nearest your opponent, which is called the
eighth rank
. If you are playing the Black pieces, the rank nearest you is the eighth rank and the rank nearest your opponent is the first rank.

Ranks

Rank Properties

Each rank contains four light squares and four dark squares, which naturally alternate. Each light square borders on a dark square, and each dark square borders on a light square.

It’s not enough to place the board with a light square in the right-hand corner. You also have to set up the White pieces on the first rank and the Black pieces on the eighth rank. Otherwise it will become very difficult to keep score of a game; something you will learn to do shortly.

All ranks are not equal. Notice that the first and eighth ranks each border only one rank, while all the other ranks border two ranks. The edge of the board can be a severe restriction in chess, and the first and eighth ranks represent part of that edge.

White sets up his pieces on the first rank and his pawns on the second rank, while Black sets up her pieces on the eighth rank and her pawns on the seventh rank. (The chess pieces consist of the kings, queens, bishops, knights, and rooks. They are all taller and stronger than the little pawns.)

Files

As you sit at the chessboard, with a light square at your right and a dark square at your left, there are eight vertical rows of eight squares bordering at the sides and stretching between you and your opponent. These rows of eight squares stretch from your left to your right and cover every square of the board. These rows are called
files
.

File Names

Each file has a name beginning with a letter and ending with “file.” Assuming you are ready to play the White pieces, counting from your left the files are the a-file, the b-file, the c-file, and on to the file furthest to your right (the one with the light square), which is the h-file.