![]() This post will focus on the shapes and symbolism rather than the history of the pieces themselves.įor instance, The King and Queen are fairly obvious, but are they based on any royalty in particular? And did you have any idea the slit in the top of the Bishop represents the end of an Elephants’s trunk? No, neither did I so I want to look a bit deeper and find out if that is just hearsay or what the story is of how it came to be that way. There is an in-depth article on ChessQuestions looking back at the history and development of the game of chess over the centuries, but I thought it would be interesting to go a little bit deeper and look at the individual chess pieces, the styles we see today, why they are shaped the way they are and what, if any, symbolism is attached to the way chess pieces look. See Offer and Learn More The History of Chess Pieces Battles represent life of the times when battles were fought for control of lands and defense of territories. The King rules the land supported by his Queen and army making up 6 different chess pieces. What does the game of chess symbolize though?Ĭhess Symbolizes the characters of the highest courts and council in Medieval times. We have the King and Queen who are the most valuable and powerful pieces on the board and they seem relatively straightforward. It is reasonable to consider the way a standard set of chess pieces look, that they were designed to represent something. This article discusses the symbolism, shape, and design of chess pieces in order to answer some questions about why they look the way they do and what they represent. One set of chess pieces will not be exactly like another because there are many different styles that have developed over time to reflect regional influences or individual preferences. Each piece has its own name, meaning, and design. The pieces on the board represent various soldiers and military tactics. Feel free to inform me if there is a relevant system missing.⭐⭐⭐ Take 9 minutes to read and improve your chess game ➡️ : This article was first published on, and is Copyright of Ī game of chess is a battle between two armies. Starting square is the first (52) and ending square the last (54).ġ. This is the most international because the squares are strictly named and there is no symbols for the pieces. Sometimes this is considered hard to read but it’s useful because lots of old chess books have been written using this notation. B-QB4 meaning “bishop to queen’s bishop’s fourth”.ġ P-K4 P-QB4 2 N-KB3 P-Q3 3 P-Q4 PxP 4 NxP N-KB3 5 N-QB3 P-QR3 With the same principle the algebraic move 2. For example the square e4 (in algebraic notation) is K4 (on the black’s side K5) meaning “king’s fourth”. This notation uses the same symbols for the pieces than in algebraic notation but pawn is marked with ‘P’. First of all white and black have their own rank numbering and king side and queen side difference is very important. Again the chess board works like a coordinate system but the “values” are different. This is maybe the oldest way to describe chess moves. This is more international but it can be quite hard to draw the pieces. This is common with the chess programs the notation itself isn’t so easy to read by human being.Īgain using the same basic idea than in algebraic notation but now the piece-codes have been replaced with “pictures”.ġ. Using the same system than in the algebraic notation, coordinate notation is just more international because there aren’t any symbols for the pieces.ġ. This is anyway much longer than the shorter one and now days people tend to shorten it even more.ġ.e4 c5 2.Nf d6 3.d4 cxd 4.Nxd Nf 5.Nc a6 There is also so called long algebraic notation which is very similar, only starting square is included.ġ. ![]() The old ‘p’ symbol for a pawn has almost become extinct. Is this notation’s English version, N stands for a knight, B for a bishop, R for a rook, Q for a queen and K for the king. People thought that it would be easier to give names to pieces and so they developed the short algebraic notation.ġ. This “old system” didn’t become general because it wasn’t so easy to read the moves. In the original algebraic system you put ‘p’ in front of every pawn-move and pieces are given names according to the files they stand on.ġ. The name consists of two factors: the code of the file (a-h) and the code of the rank (1-8) the board is like a coordinate system in which you put points (values for x and values for y). In this system you give each square on the board a name. I am using the Sicilian Defence’s Najdorf Variation, a very popular opening, as an example.Īlgebraic notation is the most common and the official system to record a chess game. Other systems are different kind of variations of these. There are three main systems: algebraic, descriptive and numeric. There are so many ways to record a game of chess that I decided to create a short summary of these.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |