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Chess Tournaments

An Overview of the 21st Century Chess Tournament and Online Chess Tournament Play

In this day and age, there are a number of different types of chess tournament and online chess tournament options or systems that are commonly used and engaged in by chess aficionados. Through this article, you will be provided with an overview of some of the more common types of chess tournament and online chess tournament option that commonly are utilized in today’s world. In addition, this article will provide a basic and yet essential overview of some of the more fundamental chess tournament and online chess tournament rules that are widely in use in the 21st century.

The Knockout Chess Tournament

In a knockout chess tournament of a knockout online chess tournament, players are situated together in groups. The winner in one group advances to play the winners from other groups of chess tournament players. The winner of the knockout chess tournament is the individual who wins in the final group.

The Swiss Chess Tournament

Most chess tournament events in the brick and mortar world and even some online chess tournament events use the Swiss Chess Tournament system. In this regard, according to the rules of the Swiss chess tournament system, players are matched or paired up with people of similar ability at the commencement of the chess tournament. Players advance through elimination until a final chess tournament round.

The Round Robin Chess Tournament System

In a round robin, players in a chess tournament (or an online chess tournament) are divided into sections. In round robin play, the players in each section play all of the players in that section with the competitor with the top score or best record at the conclusion of sectional play advancing forward in the chess tournament.

Satellite Chess Tournament and Online Chess Tournament Events

In satellite chess tournament competition (and, by definition, in online chess tournament competition) the chess tournament itself is conducted at different locations. People commence the tournament and are located at different venues during the course of the tournament.

Heads Up

A head up chess tournament (and even when it comes to some online chess tournament “events”) is one in which two players are pitted directly against one another — normally for some sort of more important or significant chess tournament title.

Rebuy Knockout Chess Tournament

A rebuy chess tournament is one in which a person pays a certain amount of the privilege of playing in the chess tournament. If a person loses during an early round of chess tournament play, a person has the option of a rebuy — or paying money — to have another chance at playing yet another game in the chess tournament. This is becoming a bit more common when it comes to online chess tournament play. In many instances, a rebuy is coupled with knockout play in a chess tournament. Knockout play occurs in a chess tournament when a person simply is booted or knocked out of competition with even one loss.

A Basic Look at Essential Chess Tournament and Online Golf Tournament Rules

In this day and age, most professional chess tournament events follow the chess tournament rules that have been established by the World Chess Federation. Indeed, this holds true for online chess tournament events as well as chess tournament events that are held and conducted in the brick and mortar world.

There are some very basic chess tournament rules that include the manner in which the different chess pieces can be utilized and moved during chess tournament and online chess tournament play. Chess tournament rules provide that the player with the white pieces commences play. Under the World Chess federation chess tournament rules, the player is said to “have the move” when his or her opponent has made his or her own move.

Of course the fundamental rule of chess tournament and online chess tournament play is to place the oppositions king piece under attack to prevent that player from having any legal or appropriate move for his king piece. This is deemed to be “checkmate” under chess tournament rules of play.

Each player in a chess tournament commences the competition with sixteen individual pieces:

– one king — one queen — two rooks — two bishops — two knights — eight pawns

One rule of chess tournament play that is strictly enforced is that each move must be made with one hand only. A player simply cannot “fiddle” with anyone of his or her pieces during the course of chess tournament play. However, there is one exception to this rule: according to chess tournament rules, a player may announce “I adjust” and adjust the position of one or more of his or her chess pieces on respective square or squares when that player does have the move.

The general chess tournament rule is that if a player having the move deliberately touches one of his or her own pieces on the chess board must move that piece; he or she must move the first piece touched when he or she has the move.

Similarly, if a player touches one or another or his opponent’s pieces (according to chess tournament rules) he or she must capture that piece if it is capable of being captured legally.

According to chess tournament rules and online chess tournament rules, there actually are two ways in which the game of chess can be won. As was mentioned a moment ago, checkmating the opposition’s king is one way in which a game of chess can be one. Additionally, according to chess tournament rules, a game of chess also can be won if the opposition declares that he or she resigns (gives up) the game.)

According to the chess tournament rules and online chess tournament rules, a game of chess is considered at a draw when a player who has the move has not move that he or she can legally complete and who does not have a king in check. When this stalemate occurs (after a prior legal move) the game is considered to be at a draw.

The rules governing chess tournament play indicate that a draw can also occur when an identical position on the board has occurred at least three times. A game can be considered at a draw when during the last 50 consecutive moves there has been no movement of a pawn of the capture of any piece by either player. Additionally, in that the chess tournament rules recognize that chess historically has been considered a gentleman’s game, the parties actually have the ability to agree to a draw during the course of the game.

Pursuant to the chess tournament rules and the online chess tournament rules, time really is of the essence. A chess clock is used during all tournament play and must be followed to the second.

1970 Boris Spassky vs Bobby Fischer

The top chess players have become the top chess players because of chess tournaments.  The individuals in our list are individuals who have gone to live chess tournaments and been on top for years because of their brilliance and strategy.

Bobby Fischer is the first name that comes to mind when comparing top chess players.  Bobby Fischer was recently highlighted in a film to tell of his life and how he learned to be one of the top chess players.  Bobby Fischer didn’t start out at top of the line chess tournaments.  Instead he would play chess tournaments with others in a park to learn about the game and have a little fun.  Still, he was the youngest of the top chess players that made it to official chess tournaments and still managed to be more brilliant than other players.

Now the system for picking the top chess players is based on the ELO system.  This is how to rate the players.  It was created in 1978 by Arpad Elo.  Many of the top chess players on the list have not had training.  Jose Raul Capablanca would be one of them.  Capablanca has been in chess tournaments, but he didn’t have a private lesson teacher to help him learn the game.  Currently his standings are the point system as the top chess players.

Mikhail Botvinnik and Emanuel Lasker are second on the list of top chess players as defined by the chess tournaments points and the Elo rating system.  They have been in chess tournaments several times over the years, so only their top scores are listed.  Bobby Fischer beat out the system with a 2780, but this record has since been beaten.

The last chess tournaments that Bobby Fischer was rated for was in 2004 with a 2785.  Garry Kasparov of Russia is the current of the top chess players.  Kasparov has a 2851 as of 2007.  To become one of the top players you must play in the chess tournaments.

These tournaments are available every year and you can be a top qualifier once you learn the game and practice a great deal.  The live tournaments are different than online tournaments which can change who the top players are if you are only concerned with online play. Kasparov and Bobby Fischer among others have played in live tournaments to be national and world champions.

When you look for the top ten best players in chess you have a list, which is shown below.

1. Garry Kasparov
2. Anatoly Karpov
3. Bobby Fischer
4. Mikhail Botvinnik
5. Jose Raul Capablanca
6. Emanuel Lasker
7. Viktor Korchnoi
8. Boris Spassky
9. Vasily Smyslov
10. Tigran Petrosian

These are the top ten chess players in the world throughout the history of the Elo system.  They are more than just the best players because of their scores though. They are also the best because of their strategy and ability to play the game without becoming phased by the things around them.

Places to Play Chess

Chess is a fascinating game of the mind.  You have to have a great deal of knowledge and be able to think on your feet while playing the game of chess.  You have several places to play online chess as well as other opportunities. The tournaments of chess are timed and require you to use a clock.  These are for hard core players.  If you are about playing the game for fun then chess software and online chess are going to be the better ways to get your chess fix into the mix.  Chess software can be found for online chess as well as computer chess.

The chess software will offer you a teaching method for how to play chess.  They will also allow you to play against the computer.  Chess software can be found in almost any electronic store.  At the store you should compare the chess software for what it will do and whether you can play online chess.  Most of the chess software will let you play the computer as well as other players that are online.

Websites that have online chess will also have chess software.  The chess software in this case can be a little different than what you pick up in a store.  A lot of the online chess will offer you free chess software to play.

The best places to play online chess is ChessBoss.com and its FREE.  This online chess site has the chess software.  The first one will allow you to play for free.  It is a java site so it can be a little longer in the playing than other software programs.  The chess club for online chess offers you a yearly fee to play on their servers against some of the grandmasters of chess.  It’s not bad if you can afford the 70 dollars per year as well as playing against some of the best online chess players in the industry.

Some chess sites to play online chess offer several different games.  They will also require tokens.  You have to have tokens in order to play a game. If you don’t have the tokens you either have to win some in free games or purchase more tokens.  The tokens can also be redeemed for cash prizes.  You do have to have a java browser in order to get the game to load.

You have to know what type of chess you want to play and whether you are ready to play against someone else to find best game for you.

It is better to start off with learning software if you have never played the game before.  While some don’t mind teaching you while you play, most are there for fun and not a free tutorial.  They also want to play against someone who knows the basic rules or has a better average of winning.

5 Tips

Chess strategy can be the difference in winning or losing the game.  If you don’t have the right chess strategy you can very well lose the game within five minutes of starting the play.  With our five chess tips below you should be able to learn enough as a beginner to have a successful game. You can always build on the chess tips below to create a better chess strategy as you learn more about the game and play more opponents.

The first in chess tips is concentrate on your opponent’s moves.  You don’t want to over concentrate for the chess strategy to work, but a certain concentration is needed. The point of this tip is that you don’t want to get so lost in your own plan, which we will discuss later in chess tips that your chess strategy doesn’t change when needed.  Chess strategy is about having a plan for the game, but it is also about adapting to the other players moves.

Chess tips number 2 says that you must have a plan.  This plan is a basic chess strategy for how you are going to win the game.  Sometimes you can have five moves that will win you the game; however it is more often that the other player will negate your moves by moving differently.  This is when watching your opponent supersedes the move plan.  As we mentioned there are two different types of plans in chess tips.  The second type of chess tips related to a plan is how you will use the chess strategy you have.  In other words it is the adaptability of your strategy that is important.

The third chess tips is move the best possible move. There will be other moves you can make within your chess strategy, however not all moves are going to be the best.  Instead one move could cost you more than the better move.

Chess tips number 4 is know what the pieces are worth.  The pieces have different value because of how they can be used.  In chess you can get some pieces back when you get a pawn to the opponents last square; however you shouldn’t bet on this in a game.  So by knowing the value of the pieces you are losing you can assess the damage control you need to make to your plan.

Above all other chess tips you need to keep your king safe at all costs.  This is about knowing what pieces to trade in the chess strategy so that the king will remain unharmed and safe for you to continue playing.

In Chess the game is over when the King is in checkmate.  By being alert and thinking about the endgame you can be more successful in wins than at any other point in your learning how to play chess.  These tips are pretty basic and as you get more advanced you may find a strategy that works the best for you in almost every game.

How to win in chess

To play chess you have to know how to win.  It is not just about the game rules that tell you how to win in chess.  It is also about having the ability to play chess with success of winning through your own merit.  Chess is of course a game of strategy, which means to win in chess you have to be able to adapt that strategy and come out victorious.  To win in chess is not about specific sets of moves when you play chess.  It is how you can use any moves within a strategy to win in chess.

Let’s explain a little further.  Some guides will tell you have to win in chess with three moves.  Sure it is possible when you play chess to win in chess with three moves.  It is not always probably that you will be able to do so.  A lot of factors go into the game such as the opponent, their moves, and how you have to counter.  A good chess player with make you play chess on the defensive.  In other words you are always a step behind in defending your position rather than attacking the opponent.

If you start off as black you go second.  This is a disadvantage as white moves first.  Right there you are already on the defensive if you are black when you play chess.  However you can turn the tide by studying your opponent’s moves for error and thus you can win in chess no matter how you start.  All players have errors; it is just whether you notice them are not.

The ultimate win in chess comes from a check mate of the king.  So let’s describe that for when you play chess.  To play chess the king must be protected.  This is where you need to create a defensive line that if it is gotten through your king will not be in checkmate.  Check mate is when the king does not have any more possible moves without still being in check.  This is the end of the game and if you are not the one in checkmate how you win in chess.

New players to the chess game tend to play chess with a false assumption.  They will closely surround the king so that the king has only one or two methods of retreat.  While it is a good defensive line the wrong piece taken out can end the game with a loss.

So when you play chess to win in chess have a strategy that is adjustable.  By being able to change your mind based on the errors or moves of the other player you can move your pieces.  You can’t have a five step plan and expect to keep it because the opponent can usually see this plan and counteract against it.

Your other option in chess is going to be a stalemate. While no one wins you are at least safe from losing the overall round

Learn Chess

Chess is a great strategy game that can lend hours of fun for you once you learn to play chess.  The chess game has some basic moves and instructions to help you learn to play chess in five minutes.  The basic strategy while quick to learn will not have you winning against an opponent that has been playing for years.

To learn to play chess in five minutes you need to understand what the pieces are and where they can move.  To help you in your chess game this and more will be explained below.  In the chess game you have pawns.  The pawns will be in the first row of defense.  They can move two spaces to start and then one space after that time.  To take out an opponent in a chess game with a pawn the piece must be to your diagonal left or right.  You can never take out a piece that is behind and diagonal.  In other words the pawns will only move forward in a chess game.  When you learn to play chess the rules are extremely important.

Next in our learn to play chess guide we will talk about the rooks.  The rook moves horizontally or vertically, forward or back, through any number of unoccupied squares.  The piece cannot move diagonally.  As you can see the rules of the pieces when you learn to place chess are imperative.

The Knight in a chess game has a specific L pattern that it can make,  can move two squares horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. The complete move therefore looks like the letter ‘L’.  It just depends on the other pieces in the chess game.  To learn to play chess you also need to understand strategy, but for a five minute learn to play chess guide these rules are more important.

The bishop in a chess game has a diagonal line it can follow.  This will either be black or white squares depending on which bishop you are playing in the game.

The last two pieces in the chess game are the King and Queen.  The other pieces need to protect the King in the chess game.  This is where strategy when you learn to play chess will come in handy.  The king can move in any direction, but only one step at a time. The queen can move in any direction and as many spaces as needs be in the game of chess.

The best strategy is keeping the King surrounded by a fleet of different pieces.  To learn to play chess the first rule is never back your king into a corner where he can’t move at least one step out of the way from a check.  Check mate is when the king has no moves left and must fall to the other player.  By having a winning strategy after learning how the pieces move you can have more success.

Chess Lessons

The best chess lessons are going to teach you how to play chess like a professional.  There are ways to learn chess from an online tutorial.  Even in this article there will be a few tips for how to win, but that doesn’t mean you are actually able to learn chess to succeed in a tournament or against most players.  The best chess lessons teach you more about strategy, yourself, and how to read your opponent rather than sure fire ways of winning.

There is a strategy you can learn online for how to play chess.  This way to learn chess is not going to succeed every time.  The strategy is winning the game in three moves.  However, the opponent you are playing must be able to fall into the trap.  Since this method of strategy is everywhere for how to learn chess chances are they are going to be able to get around those moves.  There are some very decent places to learn chess online.  These places will offer paid lessons for you to learn chess.  These are the best chess lessons you can find online in most cases.  There are also some free chess lessons that can be the best chess lessons for beginners.

The best chess lessons for beginners are ones that will teach elemental strategy and then allow the student to learn chess in an intermediate class.  The best chess lessons are not going to be a quick guide on how to learn chess with easy moves for beginners.  The best chess lessons explain the pieces and how they can move.  The next lessons will then allow you to learn chess strategy such as some moves that will allow you to win more often.  These moves will still be important under the conditions in which you are playing chess.

Overall when you are taking the best chess lessons you are looking for a guide that will eventually teach you how to play chess like a tournament player or grandmaster.  The grandmasters are able to more than move their pieces.  Chances are these individuals went to masters to learn chess.  They probably are a part of a chess club and have been in tournaments before.

Now these online chess lessons are for the best chess lessons for beginners.  To become more than that you should seek an individual who will offer private lessons.

Private lessons can be taught online, but if you truly want to be a master at chess you need to learn from private lessons face to face.  With a face to face learning strategy you will learn how to read the opponent’s face as well as their moves.  This can be just as important as the moves.  The face can tell a person if they made a mistake in their plan, and thus you can follow the logic of the game to come up with a new strategy that helps you win.

Chess Strategy

To be a good chess player, the basic requirement is to understand the importance of chess strategy. The game of chess is not just about moving a single piece on the board. It is the development of position of strength on the board by the combined placement of all the pieces. Each and every move has to be evaluated to get an edge over the opponent and to check mate his King.

The chess strategy also requires short term adjustments called tactics. These moves are essential to make adjustments to the overall game plan in relation to opponent?s performance. To achieve this, one should evaluate each and every move made by the opponent, analyze its implication on the chess strategy and make necessary changes, if warranted.

Phases of chess game

Chess can be classified into three distinct stages as given below. Good chess strategy should address all these stages.

1. Opening game
2. Middle game
3. End game

Opening game

The chess strategy in the opening game is to achieving a position of strength by trying to place the pieces in the best possible positions on the board.

The best possible position aims at achieving the following essential position on the board:

1. Safeguard the king from exposure to opponent attacks
2. Achieving decent mobility to all the pieces on the board that can help to make offensive moves in the middle game
3. Sound pawn structure on the board without restricting movement of other pieces

Opening chess strategies can be formulated to suit one?s preferences. Ranging from defensive opening to very aggressive beginning, standard options are well documented and analyzed in many good chess books.

Middle game

The middle game in chess develops when the actual attack on the opponent is initiated after gaining positional advantage on the board through the opening game chess strategy. Trading off of pieces, sacrifice of pieces to get advantage on the board, pinning the opponent mobility are some of the motives of the middle game chess strategy.

Middle game involves lot of tactical adjustments to counter opponent?s moves. Every move of the opponent has to be watched to understand his chess strategy for effective counter action.

End game

The player who has more power and better positional advantage on the board will have distinctive advantage in the end game. The basic objective of the end game is to immobilize the opponent king and gain victory. This is the primary motive of any chess strategy.

Chess strategy in the end game can take different options depending on the position of strength obtained in the middle game. Two such situations are:

1. To score a win for the position of power

2. To salvage a game into a draw from a position of weakness, thus scoring a moral victory

Chess requires lot of home work and planning before the commencement of the actual game. Formulating an effective and flexible chess strategy and implementing it on the board in relation to the opponent?s response and reactions are crucial for success in a game of chess.

Chess Tactics

Tactics plays a crucial role in winning a chess game. Chess tactics can be defined as the two or three moves a player makes to gain immediate advantage over the opponent. Tactical moves in chess result in immediate results. Results such as: opponent losing crucial power, restriction of the movement of pieces and even check mating the opponent king.

Tactics Vs Strategy

A chess game is a judicious mixture of strategy and tactics.

Strategy is an overall game plan to achieve victory over the opponent in the game of chess. A strategy is generally formulated from a series of games played against an opponent. Thus it has significance over a longer period.

Chess tactics, on the other hand is concerned with the immediate task on hand on the board. It is a short sequence of moves planned by a player for getting tangible results that are favorable over the opponent. It thus has a short term focus

Strategy may be fixed or marginal changes in the series played. On the other hand tactics keep changing many times within a single game.

Chess tactics fundamentals

A novice to the game of chess will find it difficult to understand the sequence of moves made by good chess players. Without clear understanding of Chess tactics used by players, novices will not cherish the game

Serious beginners of chess should understand that most of chess tactics are general concepts and ideas skillfully used by good players. These players adjust and adopt their chess tactics to suit specific situations on the chess board.

The general concepts and ideas are introduced here for learners of chess so that they can understand chess tactics and play the game better.

Double threat

Double threat is the most fundamental and important of chess tactics. Double threat is a single move made by a player on the chess board to present his opponent with two dangers.

The opponent is forced to make his next move to overcome one danger that is perceived by him as the one of higher order. The net result is that the first player can make his next move to execute the second threat.

Double threat is a chess tactic that generally involves two moves.

Illustration:

One of the player moves his piece to keep a check on the king, threatening at the same time to conquer another important piece. The opponent in his next move has to safeguard his king. In this process he is forced to lose one of his major pieces.

Double threat types

The variations of double threat chess tactic that are used by chess players are:

• Forking

�  When one of your pieces is used for double threat it is called forking
�  Most commonly used double threat chess tactic
�  Fork acquires name on the basis of the piece you use for forking
�  Knight fork is quite common and confusing to novice opponents as its move is difficult to comprehend
�  Queen fork, bishop fork, rook fork and pawn fork are other variations

• Discovered attack

�  Double threat chess tactic develops when a piece is moved out of the way of the other
�  One threat is by a moved piece and another by an unmasked piece
�  Always two pieces are involved in this form double threat chess tactic
�  Note that knight cannot be unmasked as it can never be masked

• Pin

�  Pin occurs when one player?s pieces is threatening opponent king (or any other valuable piece such as queen) and another opponent piece is blocking the way
�  Effect of pin is pinning or arresting the movement of the blocking piece of the opponent �  Pin is the chess tactic that effectively makes an opponent piece useless on the board
�  Pin requires maneuvering of other pieces by opponent to mobilize the arrested pieces
�  The other option is to move the valuable piece at the back and sacrifice the pinned piece

• Skewer

�  Skewering is a double threat chess tactic where one piece threatens two pieces of the opponent with the valuable opponent piece in the front
�  Note that in pin, a valuable piece is at the back but in skewer it is in the front
�  Opponent is forced to move the valuable piece
�  The exposed piece can be captured

• Removing the guard or undermining

�  Chess tactic where one of the opponents guarding piece is threatened or removed
�  This exposes the opponent?s guarding piece and the guarded piece
�  Undermining generally results in exchange of pieces by both the players

Zwischenzug

Zwischenzug is a chess tactic that is commonly adopted by many players. This is a tactic by which a player creates his own counter threat instead of clearing a threat created by his opponent in an earlier move.

Sacrifices

Sacrifice is another chess tactic that can often be seen in chess. This can be used to gain advantage by introducing an element of surprise. If a player sacrifices a piece when it was least expected by his opponent, this chess tactic can give distinctive advantage.

Combination

Combination is the term used to represent chess tactics used by a player with combinations of fundamental tactics to get relative advantage in typically five of six moves.

Any chess tactics used by a chess player will be countered by tactics by the opponent. Combination has to take care of counter moves by opponent

As an example as chess tactic a player creates a knight fork.

Opponent can respond in many ways that could be typically:

• One straightforward response is to safe guard the more valuable piece in the fork
• Second response could be to build up protection for his more valuable threatened piece.
• Third response could be to create his own fork or threat, Zwischenzug.

First player has to now respond keeping in view the implications of opponent?s move that could be a sacrifice move or another threatening move and the game proceeds further.

First player has to aim to get advantage in four or five moves. This chess tactics the first player uses is typically called combination, a group of basic moves made to get specific advantage.

Chess tactics used by good chess players in their games are interesting to watch and follow. Learners of the game can learn a lot by analyzing these games in terms of the tactics used by both the players.