Monday, May 01, 2006

Chess Terminology (B)

Chess Terms Starting With "B"

Back rank: a player's first rank (the one on which the pieces stand in the initial array); White's back rank is Black's eighth rank and vice versa.

Back rank mate: A checkmate delivered by a rook or queen along a back rank in which the mated king is unable to move up the board because the king is blocked by friendly pieces (usually pawns) on the second rank.

Bad bishop: A bishop which is hemmed in by pawns of its own color.

Battery: Two or more pieces of the same color supporting each other on the same file, rank or diagonal. There are three main types: queen and rook, queen and bishop, and two rooks.

Bishop: A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops, one light-squared and one dark-squared. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen. In algebraic notation the starting squares are c1 and f1 for White's bishops, and c8 and f8 for Black's bishops. The bishop has no restrictions in distance for each move, but is limited to diagonal movement, in any direction. Bishops cannot jump over other pieces. As with most pieces, a bishop captures by occupying the square on which an enemy piece sits.

Bishops on opposite colors: A situation in which one side has only its light-squared bishop remaining while the other has only its dark-squared bishop remaining. In endgames, this often results in a draw if there are no other pieces (only pawns), even if one side has one or two pawns extra, since the bishops control different squares; in the middlegame, however, the presence of opposite colored bishops imbalances the game and can lead to mating attacks, since each bishop attacks squares that cannot be covered by the other.

Bishop pair: In open positions, two bishops are considered to have an advantage over two knights or a knight and a bishop. (In closed positions knights may be more valuable than bishops.) The player with two bishops is said to have the bishop pair.
Blindfold chess: A form of chess in which one or both players is not allowed to see the board.

Blitz chess: A form of chess with a very small time limit, usually 3 or 5 minutes per player for the entire game. With the advent of electronic chess clocks, it is often the case that the time remaining is incremented by 1 or 2 seconds per move.

Blunder: A very bad move, an oversight (indicated by "??" in notation).

Blockade: A strategic placement of a minor piece directly in front of an enemy pawn, where it restrains the pawn's advance and gains shelter from attack. Blockading pieces are often overprotected.

Book move: An opening move found in the standard reference books on opening theory. A game is said to be "in book" when both players are playing moves found in the opening references. A game is said to be "out of book" when the players have reached the end of the variations analyzed in the opening books or if one of the players deviates with a novelty (or a blunder).

Break: A pawn advance that opens up a blocked position.

Brilliancy: A spectacular and beautiful game of chess, generally featuring sacrificial attacks and unexpected moves. Brilliancies are not always required to feature sound play or the best moves by either side.

Bughouse Chess: A chess variant played with teams of two or more.

Bullet chess: A form of chess in which each side has less than 3 minutes for the entire game.

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Copyright 2006 Chess Strategies Blog

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