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Chess Game – Just another one of those oldest, smart buzzwords you should use to sound smart in,  is it the real deal?

Maybe the question is what is Chess all about?

Another question you may be facing is that what are the chess components?

This is a step-to-step chess guide that had made Chess games simple for you to understand.

This Chess guide will show you what chess is all about.

First popularized as a term in the somewhat 16th century, but the chess has been much ancient than that.

That’s a long time, that chess had been started around the 6th century.

Chess Game – the game that was known as the world’s best brain games and is widely played boardgame in the world.

In the beginning, Chess is not in the form that we see in the present world, such as no digital chess boards, no chess rules, no chess clocks, no chess arbiters, no chess scoresheets,  many more that we use today in the chess.

Chess had evolved a lot to reach its present state and will also evolve a lot in the future.

When FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs) was formed, it has transformed a lot in the world of chess, and from here the chess rules and the modern era of chess begins.

Now, let’s discuss all the information about the chess game.

Information About Chess Game

If you are wondering what chess is… Chess is a multiplayer board game, played between two players on a checkered board consisting of 64 squares i.e., 32 black and 32 white squares arranged in 8*8 grids.

The meaning of chess in Hindi is Shatranj (शतरंज), and chess meaning in English is “surrounded by 100s of enemies”.

Or a simpler version…

Chess is a strategic board game, played between two players on a white and black checkered board.

I know that you are curious to know more about chess.

Because Chess is much more beyond its definition.

Chess is a game of Tactics, Calculation, and creativity to generate ideas. It is played more in the mind of the chess players than that on the chessboard.

Chess Game is an ancient game that is believed to have originated in northwest India, during the Gupta Empire.

Now let’s discuss what you will get to know here about the Chess game.

• Top 10 Benefits Of Playing Chess
• How Did Chess Game Become So Popular?
• Phases Of Chess Game

Here is the contents that we will discuss about the chess game.

Top 10 Benefits Of Playing Chess Game

You may know that sports have very benefits for health and also on individual life such as social life, personal life, professional life, health and in many other spheres of life.

Have you ever wondered that playing chess could have any benefits on the individual social, professional, personal life, or even on its health?

I bet you may be surprised to know that chess has also many positive impacts on your health as well as in your life, such as it will raise your IQ, improves your memory, improves your puzzle-solving skills, etc.

Here I will discuss some of the benefits of playing chess. The Major Benefits are given as follows:

Chess Helps To Raise Your IQ Level

As you all know that Chess is a brain game that surely can raise your level of IQ of your brain.

Playing chess requires a high IQ level but this can also help you to increase your IQ level as while playing chess you have to do a lot of calculations, have to make good plans, you have to make good chess strategies to make that plan successful.

There was a study conducted on 4,000 Students of Venezuela for 4 months that had proved that playing chess improves the IQ level significantly of both girls and boys.

Chess Helps You to Enhance Your Personality Traits

Chess is a brain game, but it could help you to enhance your personality traits.

That’s why this game could improve the overall personality traits of a child by focusing on the calculation skills, thinking abilities, creativity, etc.

It could help you to improve the personality traits such as the discipline, patience, sportsmanship, decision-making, etc, and improve their cognitive abilities.

Chess could be a good option for the children who want the overall development in their life.

Chess Exercises Both Hemispheres Of The Brain

As you all know that chess is a multi-functional game, it requires the power of both the hemispheres of the brain.

The left hemisphere controls the logical thinking and calculation ability of the brain, which is very important on each move in chess.

Whereas, the right hemisphere controls the creative thinking of the brain which is very important to make plans and generate ideas as well as for building strategies of the game.

By this, the game of chess helps you in the exercise of both the hemispheres of the brain.

Chess Helps In Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease

As Chess is a brain game, it helps a lot in improving the condition of Alzheimer’s patients.

Chess is a brain game associated with various mental activities such as critical thinking, problem-solving activities, tactical calculation, making plans and chess strategies, and main other brain exercises through chess.

This also gives your brain the power to fight against Alzheimer’s and help you to cure it.

That’s why if you are suffering from Alzheimer’s and also if you are an old-aged person, then you should play chess. It will help you a lot.

This has been proved in a case study that the persons who play chess are less prone to suffer from Alzheimer’s.

Chess Helps To Increase Your Creativity

As we have discussed above that the right part of the brain is responsible for creative thinking and helps us in making plans and generating creative ideas and chess improves the power of the brain to an extreme level.

You have seen that chess players have a special ability that helps them a lot to generate creative ideas in their life also as they do on the chessboard.

There is a case study that proves chess improves your creatives skills to an extreme level.

A study was conducted among the students of grades 7 to 9 play chess regularly and they had shown a great improvement in creative thinking than that before.

This proves that Chess is the best medium to improve your creative skills.

Chess Helps You To Improve Your Concentration Power

Chess helps you to improve your concentration power. As you all know that the game of chess needs a lot of concentration to play effectively and to make the plans.

Here I want to share my own experience with you so that you could understand this in a better way.

It would be very beneficial to you if you improve your concentration power, such as you could think more effectively, can take the decisions of your life more effectively, you could also inert the ability to control your thoughts, this will also sharpen your mind, improves your self-confidence and many more other benefits.

This also ultimately improves your chess skills.

Chess Teaches You The Right Way Of Planning 

As you all know that Chess is a strategic game that is played based on planning and strategic thinking.

If you play at least one chess game regularly, then you would able to make good plans and strategies to achieve those plans.

I am talking not only about chess games but also in your life, you could gain the ability to set good targets and can make good strategies and would not lose anywhere in the real-life.

This is because chess develops the part of the brain that is responsible for planning, judgment, self-control, and many more psychological skills that are controlled by our brain.

Chess Is A Great Educational Tool For Students

Chess could be a great educational tool for students to improve their performance in every sphere of life and can help in the overall development of the students.

As we have discussed above Chess is very beneficial for the overall development of the students.

You all may glad to read that the Government of many countries understands the value and importance of chess in the development of students.

That’s why governments of many countries all around the world decided to make chess a compulsory subject in school education.

There are various reasons for this that we have discussed above.

Chess Teaches You How To Handle Pressure Situations

Yes, you have read correctly.

Chess Teaches you to handle the critical situations in case of intense pressure.

Suppose you are playing a very important match and had lost almost everything, your time is running out, say only 15 seconds remaining in the most crucial moment of the match, and everything is going against you.

I had experienced these situations a lot of times in my whole chess career. I will discuss one of them with you.

It was the Year 2019, and I was playing the most crucial match of the tournament, and I have a positional disadvantage, and only 13  seconds remaining with 5 seconds remaining, and I have to think of the most crucial Move of the Match.

As I had learned to handle the pressure situations, I got successful in saving that match.

For that, you have to play a lot of chess tournaments and have to gain a lot of experience in handling such situations.

The same is with Life!

We all have to face difficulties in life, such as deadlines, presentations, interviews, competitions, tests, difficult times, etc.

In those situations, we have to remain calm, and by playing chess you would be able to do so.

Chess Teaches You How To Accept Win And Lose

Chess Teaches You How To Accept Win And Lose

The main problem with the people of all the ages, that they do not accept the win or lose.

Chess teaches people how to accept the win or lose in their life or the game.

It is the worldwide accepted truth that everyone likes to win in every sphere of their life, but no one wants to accept their loss.

It is good to win each match but that’s not possible that every player wins each match, one player will lose and another will win the match.

And also remember my wordings that:

“There is never a loss in life, either victory or learning.”

You should learn from your loses and mistakes to do better next time and perform better.

If you won the match then you should look at two things, first is that which mistake you opponent had made, and second which good move you had made in the match.

If You lose that match then you should look for just the opposite things, which mistake you made and good move your opponent.

The same is with your life. You should analyze your failures and try next time with a better experience.

You should win with grace and lose with regret.

I will give a list of these benefits of chess in the last phases of this guide.

That’s why we could say that playing chess is very beneficial for you.

How Did Chess Become So Popular?

There is a belief that Chess is derived from the Indian ancient Game Chaturanga (Sanskrit) approximately before the 7th century. Chess old name in Telugu is the Chadarangam.

Chaturanga is something like the Eastern strategy Games Xiangqi (Chinese Chess), Janggi (Korean Chess), and like the Shongi (Japanese Chess).

As Chess was originally developed in India, it is nowadays played worldwide. But the process was very systematic.

By the 9th century, the game of Chess reached Europe, due to the accession of the Umayyad dynasty over the region of Hispania.

The current properties of the pieces were assumed in Spain in the late 15th century. Later, in the 19th century, the modern rules were also standardized.

It is estimated that chess will spread all over the world in the future.

Phases Of Chess Game

Have you ever wondered that chess is a brain game? Then, there must be any system or any division of the game in chess based on the play and way of learning.

The Chess Experts understood this concept. That’s why they divided the game of chess into 3 major parts.

These 3 parts or phases of chess are:

1. Chess Opening
2. Chess Middlegame
3. Chess Endgame

This is the basic division of the game of chess.

Now, we will discuss this division in more detail that was given by the chess experts.

Chess Openings | First Phase of Game

Chess openings are the first moves of the game of chess.

Chess Openings are the major component of the chess game. This is also a favorite among the chess players, as some openings are very theoretical and are based on some tactical ideas.

The Chess opening is known as the development phase of the chess game.

Development of chess pieces, I mean that the chess pieces should acquire more useful positions as per their requirements.

The openings consist of the 10-20 moves and the chess master’s play these moves in their official matches only by memorizing these opening moves.

There are a lot of chess openings that exist in chess. Some of them are very aggressive, while some are purely defensive openings.

The main idea of the opening is the development of the pieces, as the pieces can start the attack only from the aggressive squares of the game.

The Major Objectives of chess openings

If you do anything in Chess, there must be some logic and objectives. There are the some objectives of Chess openings also.

Let’s discuss these objectives one-by-one.

• The Development of chess pieces
• King Safety (such as by castling)
• Control over the center
• To reach a good position

If these objectives are reached, then you are successful in the opening phase of the chess game.

There are many chess openings principles, that every chess player must follow to get a better position in the openings.

This is all about the Chess Openings that makes it one of the important phase of the Chess game.

Chess Middlegame | Second Phase of Game

Chess Middlegame is a portion of the game of chess that is played between the other two phases of chess { i.e., Chess Openings and Chess Endings }.

The Middlegame phase starts when both the players complete their development process and the players have been successful in king safety.

This is the phase of the game in which the players build an attack, make plans and strategies to win that match.

As the Middlegame starts when the development completes and ends when only a few pieces left on the chessboard due to some exchanges and capture between the chess pieces, and a transition to the endgame starts.

There are a lot of middlegame patterns and chess positions that every chess player should know to win the game, such as open positions, closed positions, semi-open and semi-closed positions, closed center but open flanks, open center but closed flanks.

You should make different stategies to deal with the different situations.

The Major Principles Of Chess Middlegames

There are various principles of the middlegames. Now we will discuss these objectives one-by-one.

• You should centralize your chess pieces that enable a better range of mobility and attacking possibilities.
• Trade your flank pawns in exchange for the central pawns, in order to get better control over the center and open flank files for their Rooks.
• Avoid the Pawn Weaknesses and build a solid pawn structure by avoiding doubling of pawns and get rid of the backward and isolated pawns.
• Avoid Creating the Weak Squares in your positions and try to create some weakness in your opponent’s camp to generate some opportunities for building a solid attack against his weak king.
• Try to create some open files and occupy them with your Rooks to penetrate into the opponent’s camp.
• Try to keep the Bishop pair to build a strong attack. For that, you should try to keep your position open and keep your bishops on the open diagonals pointing towards the opponent’s king.

These are some of the principles of chess middlegames and also some chess tips to play the middlegame more effectively.

You should follow these chess principles to perform better in the middlegame phase of chess.

Chess Endings | Third Phase of Game

The Chess Endings is the last stage of the chess game, starts with the end of the middlegame phase.

It starts when there are only a few pieces left on the chessboard, but still, there are no such strict and crisp criteria to determine the beginning of the endgame by the chess experts.

There is only one indication that confirms the presence of the endgame presence that is if there are only two or fewer pieces for each side on the chessboard other than the pawns and kings, then it could be considered as the endgame phase of the chess game.

There are different strategies and styles to play different types of chess endings which could differ with the change of chess pieces such as King-pawn endings, Knight endings, Bishop endings, Queen endings, Rook endings, etc.

Now I will discuss some principles of Chess Endings that you must use while playing this endgame phase of Chess.

10+ Principles of Endgames That Every Chess Player Must Follow

Chess Endgame is a very static part of Chess that could be played based on the theory and principles. Here I will give you 10+ Principles of Endgames that every Chess Player must follow.

I have listed these Chess Endgame Principles below:

• You should master the Basic Checkmates because to win any chess game to have to checkmate the opponent’s king, the material advantage is not enough.
• You should master the basic techniques of the chess endgames, such as how to make a passed pawn, how to queen a passed pawn, basic tactics in chess endings, etc.
• You must push the passed pawn, whenever it is possible to do so, to convert it into a more powerful piece. In the Chess Endings, the passer was the key to victory.
• In the endgame, the king is the most powerful piece as there are fewer pieces in the endgames so the king has to play the role of the dominative pieces. If your king is not active in the endgame, you would probably lose that game.
• Always take care of the Zugzwang positions to win or handle the endgame situations. Zugzwang is a position in which you want to skip the move but are unable to do so.
• Never miss the chance to play the Zwischenzug moves, as they could convert the match in favor of you by winning some additional material. Zwischenzug is an intermediate move { i.e., the move between the major capture move to take some advantage }.
• Always analyze the position for at least 5 minutes and make a plan before start making any move in the endgames.
• For making any plan in the endgames, firstly you should consider the pawn majority on the chessboard and try to use it to exploit the weakness of the position.
• Always remember the “Principle of Two Weaknesses” while playing the endgames. According to this principle, if your opponent has one weakness in its camp, then try to create one more mistake as it is more difficult to handle two weaknesses instead of one.
• Remember one thing that as there are a few pieces in the endgames, so there is less room for mistakes in the endings. You have to make every move in a correct manner after making any concrete plan.
• Last but not least, you should be concrete and make all the calculations while playing the endgames as you have to make exact moves that could be approved by the chess engines. As in the Endgames, most of the players lose due to lack of calculations, that’s why you must master the calculation skills in the endgames.

These are some of the major principles that I use while playing chess endgames.

If You want to perform better in the chess endings, then you must follow these endgame principles that I use in my games.

Way Ahead: So these are three phases of the chess game that are classified on the basis of their playing style, their objectives, their principles, etc.

FAQs Related To Chess Game

What is the main objective of chess?

The main objective of chess is to checkmate the opponent’s King to win the chess match.
When the King is in the check { a situation when the king is directly attacked by any of the opponent’s piece } and he had no other square or any other option to escape, then the king is said to be checkmated.
But in the absence of Check, if there is no more move for the player, the game is said to have been stalemated.

How is the game of chess played?

The game of chess is played on the basis of the following guide
1. At the beginning of the game, the chessboard is laid out so that each player has the white (or light) color square in the bottom right-hand side.
2. Then You have to set up the chessboard with white such as pawns on the 2nd rank, Rooks on the corners, followed by knights and Bishops, then the Queen stands on the square of its own color and king on the remaining square. Then Set the same for Black also.
3. Then You Could Move the Chess Pieces as I have described on Chess Rulers.
By following this and reading the chess Guides on The Chess Rulers,  you would be able to play chess.

Who invented chess?

The Chess came into existence in the 6th century AD.
The Chess Game is an ancient game, approximately 1500 years old. This game originated in northern India in the 6th century AD as Chaturanga and spread to Persia.

Does chess make you smarter?

Yes, Chess could make you smarter as there are various benefits of playing chess. Let me discuss some of them.
1. Chess Helps To Raise Your IQ Leve
2. Chess Exercises Both Hemispheres Of The Brain
3. Chess Helps To Increase Your Creativity
4. Chess Helps You To Improve Your Concentration Power
5. Chess Teaches You The Right Way Of Planning
6. Chess Teaches You How To Handle Pressure Situations
7. Chess Teaches You How To Accept Win And Lose
8. Chess Helps You to Enhance Your Personality Traits
These are some of the factors that prove that chess makes you smarter.

What is the best opening move in chess?

As there are a lot of openings in chess that could be considered as the best opening move as per the choice of different players.
But here I will tell you those opening moves that are considered as the best by the majority of the chess player
The Best Opening Moves For White
1. Italian Openings
2. Queen’s Gambit
3. King’s Gambit
4. King’s Indian Attack
The Best Opening Moves For Black
1. Sicilian Defence
2. King’s Indian Defence
3. Caro-Kann
4. Nimzo-Indian Defence
These are some of the best Chess Opening Moves as per the Majority of chess players.

Conclusion

In this chess guide, we have discussed a lot of things about the chess game.

Here we have discussed the benefits of playing chess, various phases of chess, some tips, and principles to perform better in each phase of the game of chess.

If I have missed any tip or Chess Principle then please tell me in the comments, so that I could add them in the upcoming Chess guides.

Also, tell me which one of them you are using in your chess games and are part of your chess strategy.

If you found this chess guide useful for you, then please share this guide with your friends and family members.

Please tell me What you have learned from this Chess guide.

I would be very happy if I had been successful in creating any chess player through my articles and that’s my dream to build a world of chess players.

Thanks for Reading!