boards in the Staunton design are more popular at higher levels of competition, but a typical tournament set can be made of plastic pieces in classic white and black. The board is generally of a vinyl roll-up variety with white and green squares. “Why not black squares?” you may justifiably ask. “Headaches,” I would answer. I’ve learned that staring at a high-contrast board is not advisable. Miniature traveling sets are the only exception. It doesn’t matter what color they are, because the makers assume that you won’t be staring at them too long (especially if you’re driving!).
If price is no object, wood pieces and boards are the way to go. Wood boards provide the most soothing background possible, and the weight and feel of wood pieces are generally far more satisfying to the touch. In case you’re really getting into chess and admire sets meant to be looked at rather than played with, collectible sets have a small cottage industry of their own, and these sets vary in design as well as in quality.
Getting up close and personal with your board
After you pick up your soon-to-be-beloved chessboard and set, you need to get familiar with them. The first thing to notice about the chessboard is that all the squares are the same size but alternate between two colors (a light color and a darker color). Colors are important in chess (bishops are confined to only one of them, knights go back and forth between them, and so on), which is why chess players insist that a white square needs to be in the lower right-hand corner at the start of the game. Start by whipping out the board and making sure it’s facing the right direction in front of you – Figure 1-1 shows the correct orientation (if you set this book on your lap and look at the figure, you get a better idea).
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FIGURE 1-1: The correct orientation of a chessboard.
Consider a few fun facts while you’re scoping out your chessboard:
❯❯ It’s made up of 64 squares evenly divided between 32 light squares and 32 dark squares.
❯❯ It’s symmetrical and square – in the geometric sense.
❯❯ The square comprises eight ranks and eight files (and a bunch of diagonals), which you’d normally call rows and columns (and diagonals!), but chess people shun such conventional language. (Using clear, easy-to-understand terms would be too easy, right?)
In the following sections, I go into more detail on the ranks, files, diagonals, and squares.
Recognizing the ranks
Ranks are rows that go from side to side across the chessboard and are referred to by numbers. Each chessboard has eight ranks, which are numbered from the bottom of the board (where the white pieces start) on up; see Figure 1-2.
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FIGURE 1-2: The ranks of a chessboard go from side to side.
Figuring out the files
Files are columns that go up and down the chessboard, and each board has eight of them. Because numbers indicate ranks, letters indicate files, which are labeled from left to right. Figure 1-3 shows the files.
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FIGURE 1-3: A chessboard’s files go from top to bottom.
Naming individual squares
The naming convention for ranks and files allows you to give a unique identifier to every square by using what chess people call the file-first method. For example, the lower right-hand square (which is white, of course) is called h1. This name is shorthand for h-file, first rank. Figure 1-4 gives the name for every square.
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FIGURE 1-4: The squares are marked to show the letter of the file and the number of the rank.
Digging those diagonals
As you probably expect, diagonals have names, too. Unlike ranks and files, diagonals are defined by their starting and ending squares. The starting square is conventionally given as the one with the lower rank. For example, Figure 1-5 shows the h1-a8 diagonal. Diagonals are always composed of like-colored squares. You can have light-squared diagonals and dark-squared diagonals – but never two-toned ones.
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FIGURE 1-5: The diagonals on a chessboard always contain like-colored squares.
Piecemeal: Putting the Pieces on the Board
To depict the chessboard in a way that everyone around the world can understand, chess players have developed a set of symbols to represent the chessmen. Each may be represented by a one-letter abbreviation or by an icon. (See Table 1-1 for a list of all the pieces and their symbols.)
TABLE 1-1 Chess Pieces and Their Symbols
I use the piece symbols here to show you how to set up the board, and I use them throughout this book to demonstrate various moves and positions. You may find it helpful to set up your own board piece by piece.
Start with the corners. The rooks go on the corner squares, as shown in Figure 1-6.
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