Combat Zone - The Chess Table

Chess, the most popular game in the world, has a long history dating back more than a thousand years. Board games similar to Chess have been discovered on ancient Egyptian sculptures. Handwritten manuscript, over a thousand years old, referring to Chess has been found. Remnants that seem to be chess units have been excavated in Italy, and some people believe they should be dated at the second century AD. People have been playing chess with objects on some kind of chess table for centuries, and the earliest version that has definitely been linked to chess is a game called Chaturanga, played in India almost 1600 years ago.

Chess is a form of intellectual productiveness and therein lies its uncharacteristic charm. A Chess game pits two "forces", evenly matched, across a simple chess table. Only pure skill and acumen decide who is victorious and who gets defeated. The sole purpose of the game is simple – Capture or kill your opponent's king, while protecting your own from being captured. You achieve that goal only by using strategy and tactical foresight. The Chess Board spread across the chess table has sixty-four squares arranged in eight vertical rows and eight horizontal rows. The squares alternate between one color and another, typically white and black. The Chess Board is so placed that each opponent has a white square at his right-hand corner.

Before anything else, the apprentice must learn the name or rather the two names of each of the squares on the chessboard and must practice recognizing the squares by their names. Just as the larger army usually has the advantage in a battle, so in Chess the player on the chess table with extra forces is more likely than his opponent to win the game. Albeit much of the fun lies in finding the exceptions to this law, the notion of material advantage is crucial to any understanding of the logic of the chess table. The normal protocol at the chess table is that one does not announce that one is about to checkmate the opponent. Although the old grandmasters from the last century were known to announce checkmates, it is considered unruly today.

Chess is a fun game that matches wits against wits and strategy against strategy. If you are able to plan your moves in advance, you will surely be victorious. This is the part of the strategy of chess that many fall short on. To be victorious, you must capture the opponents king. Then you rule!