Chess Terminology (C)

Chess Terms Starting With "C"

Castling: A special move involving the king and one rook.

Centre/Center: The four squares in the middle of the board.

Checkmate: A position in which a player's king is in check and the player has no legal move (i.e cannot move out of check). A player whose king is checkmated loses the game.

Closed game: Any chess opening that leaves the players few open files or diagonals. They often begin with the moves 1.d4 d5. See also Open game and Semi-open game. Called such because these openings tend to restrict tactical interplay of line pieces, leading to a more positional game during the opening and early middle game.

Combination: A clever sequence of moves, often involving a sacrifice, to gain the advantage. The moves of the other player are usually forced, i.e. a combination does not give the opponent too many possible lines of continuation.

Connected Passed Pawns: Passed pawns on adjacent files. These are considered to be unusually powerful (often worth a minor piece or rook if on the sixth or above and not properly blockaded) because they can advance together. Also see connected pawns.

Counterattack: An attack that responds to an attack by the other player.

Cover: To protect a piece or control a square. For example, to checkmate a king on the side of the board, the five squares adjacent to the king must all be covered.

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Copyright 2006 Chess Strategies Blog

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

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

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".