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    Chess Made Easy
    Chess Made Easy
    Chess Made Easy
    Ebook104 pages58 minutes

    Chess Made Easy

    By C. J. S. Purdy

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    About this ebook

    This book will teach you to play chess in two hours. Studied more carefully it can make you an average player. Both the authors have world-wide reputations as a chess player, writers and teachers. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateJan 15, 2013
    ISBN9781447482918
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      Book preview

      Chess Made Easy - C. J. S. Purdy

      BACKGROUND

      Chess is a war game, 14 to 18 centuries old. Chess played on 64 squares originated in Ancient India. The pieces then represented the four main parts of an army (infantry, calvary, elephants, and war chariots) plus the king and his counsellor.

      Chess may have been a Buddhist invention, designed as a bloodless substitute for war. Anyway, an early Indian writer remarked, after a long era of peace, Armies are now seen in action only on chessboards.

      Today, the quaint jumble of names that the various languages (including English) give the chessmen, smack of the paradoxical, fairy-tale world of Lewis Carroll, rather than of the grim realities of total war. All over the world, people like chess that way, and ignore attempts to modernise the names.

      In English the elephants have become bishops. The cavalry, carved like horses’ heads, have their mediaeval name, knights. The pieces in the corners were the war-chariots; these are carved as towers, and were long called castles, but now rooks. Rook is a corruption of the Persian Rukh, meaning a war-chariot. The counsellor is now a queen.

      OBJECT OF THE GAME

      Every unit, with one exception, is subject to capture by any opposing unit. That exception is the King, who is exempt from this indignity.

      Yet the object of the game is the virtual capture of the King. This is called checkmate (Persian shahmat, the King’s death), universially abbreviated to mate.

      You will find this paradox resolved on p. 12, under the heading Check and Mate. Check is a threat to capture the King, and mate is a check from which there is no escape.

      Much of the fascination of chess stems from the special end its inventor gave it. It gives chess a unique, mystical quality.

      THE BOARD

      The board consists of 64 squares. These are called black and white, but may be of any two colours. Always place the board so that each player’s right hand corner square is white, that is, the lighter colour.

      There is no point in having squares the same colours as the pieces. Black and white (or cream) are quite good colours for the pieces, but for the squares a sharp contrast is too dazzling. One of many satisfactory combinations is dark brown and buff.

      The rows of squares are called lines. Cross-lines are ranks, vertical lines are files. Lines of squares of the same colour are called diagonals".

      A natural question for prospective players is, what size should a board be? A good answer is that the squares should each be roughly 1 1/2 times the length of the base diameter of your largest piece, which is always the King. If the squares are a little larger than that, no matter; but if they are substantially smaller, the pieces will be crowded. This looks ugly and makes the game harder.

      For starting chess, a small, cheap set is adequate. For big events, the King is usually 3 1/2″ or 3 3/4″ high and the squares 2 1/8″ or 2 1/4″.

      Staunton pattern is a stylised design, accepted internationally for all tournament play. Plastic Staunton sets, now in general use, are cheaper than wooden ones. Ornamental sets are for decoration.

      THE PIECES

      Diagram 1

      Original Position

      Each player has eight Pieces, which start on the back rank, posted behind the eight Pawns — see Diagram 1.

      Each player has two Rooks (in the corners), two Knights next to the Rooks), two Bishops (next to the Knights), and in the centre the King and Queen. Note that the Queen always starts on a square of her own colour.

      Take careful note of one ambiguity in talking and writing about chess. The word pieces can be used to denote all the units including the pawns, e.g. in the heading that tops this page, or it can be used for only the major units as distinct from the pawns. It is so used in the first paragraph of this page, also in the heading in the second column, and indeed nearly everywhere in this book.

      The word piece is often used in a still more limited sense. Winning a piece always means winning a Bishop or Knight. Strictly, these two pieces, which are about equal in value, are called minor pieces, and the Queen and Rooks major pieces but these expressions are seldom used.

      THE PIECES’ MOVES

      The players move alternately, one unit at a time. White moves first.

      The first thing to know about the moves is that no unit, with the single exception of the Knight, can jump over another unit, either friend or foe.

      The Rook moves forwards, backwards, or sideways, in one straight line — that is, along rank or file, and as many squares as

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