Rule of the Master

Transcription

Hi everyone, it's Jerry. This is a video for those of you who don't know how to play chess, but would like to learn. Everything you see listed here is what'll be covered. In the end if you find this video as a good source for learning, maybe you can pass it along to another so that they too can appreciate this great game. Hope you enjoy it. This is the initial set up for a game of chess. The player with the white pieces begins the game and makes one move, and then black makes one move. Play will alternate like this until the game ends. Now the first thing you'll want to make sure of, and this is especially for those who set up the board and pieces in person, is that there is a light square on your right. We'll see the significance of that in just a bit. Regarding the pieces...each side has a rank of pawns on this second and seventh ranks. The rooks belong in the corner squares. And now moving inward, this is the case for both sides now, the knights belong next to the rooks, then the bishops, and now since we have a light square on our right we can follow the "rule of thumb" which says the white queen goes on a white square and the black queen goes on a black square, and then finally the kings. If the board is set up correctly each piece will be opposite from one another. The queen across from the queen, the king across from the king et cetera. The rook moves in a plus direction or up, down, left, right direction any number of squares. It holds a value of five points and from this position can go to any of the following squares I have outlined in blue. When you capture an enemy piece in chess, you simply go to the square it occupies and remove it from the board. The bishop moves in an X-direction, or diagonally any number of squares. It holds a value of three points, and from this position can go to any of the following squares I have outlined in blue. The queen has the power of both rook and bishop. Or, in other words, she can move any number of squares in a plus direction just like the rook. Or any number of squares in an X-direction just like the bishop. The queen is worth nine points and can go to any of the squares I have outlined in blue. The objective of chess is to checkmate the king. The king moves one square at a time in any direction. From this position on f3 he can go to any of these squares I have outlined in blue. He doesn't have a particular point value. He's said to be priceless because if you lose the king you simply lose the game. The term 'check' simply refers to the king being attacked. In this position it's white to move. And if the rook goes to a3, the black king is in check. He's being attacked and needs to do something about it. When you're in check there are three ways you can try to get out of it. You can try to move to a safe square, block the check, or capture the checking piece. In this position black can do all three of those. He can move to a safe square. g2 is one of many safe squares. Here are the others...all of these squares I have outlined in blue are safe squares for the king to move to. As black you can also block the check. And by block I mean to place a piece in-between the checking piece and the king. Or you can also capture the checking piece. So again, from this position black can do all three of those. Move to a safe square, block the check, or capture the checking piece. If you're in check and you cannot do any of those three, you are in checkmate and the game's over. In this position if the white rook moves to b8, black is in checkmate. He's in checkmate because he cannot move away to a safe square, block the check, or capture the checking piece. He can't go to any of these three squares because the white king guards them. He cannot go to any of these three squares because the white rook guards them. The bishop is not in a position to capture the rook, nor is the bishop in a position to block the check. For these reasons the black king is in checkmate and the game's over. The knight from this position can move to any of these highlighted squares. The pattern it takes to get to each is in the form of an 'L'. Moving two squares and then one square just like that he would end up on f3. And if you flip that 'L' one way or the other, he would end up on any of these circled squares. The knight is the only piece that could jump over other pieces. Meaning if there were any pieces here right next to the knight, he's not bothered because he simply jumps over those pieces to arrive on these highlighted squares. The knight holds a value of three points. The pawns are worth one point each and have many unique qualities. Each pawn from its original square has the option of moving one or two squares forward. From that point on it can only move one square forward. So let's just say this pawn moves two squares and this pawn moves one. Each of these highlighted pawns now could only move one square forward. It's now white's turn. Let's say white plays their pawn up like so, and black goes two squares. It's now white to move. And you may be thinking that this pawn on g4 can capture this black pawn, but he cannot. Pawn are also unique in that they move in one direction, but they capture in a completely different direction. In fact this pawn on g4 simply cannot move or capture. He's stuck, has no legal moves. However this pawn does. The pawn on f4 can move forward or capture one square diagonally. There's nothing to capture on this square but he can capture the black pawn on g5. Now since they only move forward and never move backwards, what's going to happen if this pawn gets all the way down to this back rank, or if any of these black pawns get to this back rank? Well what happens is what's called pawn promotion. And what that means is that the pawn simply turns into a queen, rook, bishop, or knight. And this has nothing to do with what pieces have been captured already. You can, in theory, have up to nine queens on the chessboard. You start out with eight pawns. In theory, it's quite unlikely but you can promote all of your pawns to queens if you would like to do that. In this position it's black to move. And if this pawn moves one square forward, we can capture it since pawns capture one square diagonally. There is however a special rule in chess called en passant. And this same pawn, instead of going one square, let's say it goes two squares trying to avoid this pawn from capturing it. Well this en passant rule says that we still have the option of capturing the black pawn as if it had only moved one square forward. We have that option on our very next turn, otherwise we lose that privilege altogether. So in this position the white pawn can still actually capture the black pawn as if it were on the h6 square, as if it had only moved one square forward. Now this is a special rule involving the pawns and the pawns alone. And it is not enough for example if black plays here and white doesn't capture immediately and instead makes a different move, and black makes a move. Now we can no longer capture. It's one of those now or never moments. You have to do it on your very next turn, or you can't do it at all. Now the conditions that must be met in order to use this special move are as follows. The pawn from its original square needs to move two squares, and then if you have your pawn right next to it on the same rank, you have the option on your very next move to capture it as if it had only moved one square forward. There's a special move in chess called castling and it involves the king and the rook. It's the only time you can move two of your pieces in one turn. Here's what it looks like. In this position it's white to move, and white can do what's called a kingside castle by moving the king two squares towards the 'h' rook. And the rook is now going to be placed on the other side of the king right next to the king. That's kingside castling. Queenside castling, similarly the king moves two squares towards the 'a' rook, and the rook is now placed on the other side of the king right next to the king, just like that. That's queenside castling. Now there are a couple conditions which must be met in order to castle successfully. In order to castle kingside, the king and the kingside rook cannot have moved at all. In order to castle queenside, the king nor the queenside rook can have moved at all. Those are just a couple of the conditions. There are however three more. In this position if white, instead of castling, makes a pawn move. If this rook comes over to e7, the white king is now in check. And when you are in check, you cannot castle out of check. That is one rule that must be followed. You cannot castle out of check. Here's another one. If the rook plays here and is controlling c1, you cannot queenside because you cannot castle into check. And lastly, you cannot do what's called castle through check. In this position you cannot castle queenside. And if this rook decided on playing over here, you would not be able to castle kingside since the rook is controlling this square. So all three of those conditions would prevent white from castling. Whether he be in check, you cannot castle out of check, you cannot castle into check, and you cannot castle through check. A chess game can end as a draw or a tie in other words. Here's an example of a draw by stalemate. In this position it's white to move. And if the queen plays to f7, this is considered a stalemate position, or a drawn position. Stalemate occurs under the following conditions. It's your turn to move, your king is not in check, and you have no legal moves by any of your pieces. In this position it's clearly black to move, black is not in check, and has no legal moves. All three of these squares are covered by the white queen. And this pawn is not able to move. This is an example of stalemate. This is a position neither side is likely to win, and a draw is usually agreed upon. However if play continues the game will usually still end as a draw, only this time by the 50-move rule. The 50-move rule basically states that if both players make 50 consecutive moves without making any pawn moves or any captures, the game ends as a draw. A game can also end as a draw by perpetual check. In this position it's black to move. And if the queen plays to e1, the king is in check and has only one legal move. King to h2. The queen can come back to h4. The king yet again has only one legal move. And this pattern here will repeat itself, and the game will end as a draw by perpetual check. A game could end up drawn by threefold repetition which means that if the same position shows itself at three different points in time during the game, then the game is a draw. As an example in this position it's white to move. If the bishop plays here, take note of the pieces. This is the first time we're seeing this particular arrangement. If the bishop plays here and white goes back like this. This is now the second instance of this exact position. And if it happens one more time, at this point right here if white moves the bishop back like so. This is the third instance of the same position. Or in other words the game is drawn by threefold repetition. Here are just a few quick examples of a game being drawn by insufficient material. If it's a king and bishop versus a king, there's no way to win and the game is drawn. If it's a king versus a king and knight, this too is drawn. There's no way to give checkmate in this position. And of course if we are stripped down to just king versus king, the kings could never move next to each other. And the game is a draw.