Back in the middle ages, there were several different renditions of pawn promotion. Originally, the pawn would promote to the queen piece, but back then the queen could only move […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: Now with moving pieces!
According to the Guinness World Records, the biggest playable chess set was made in Canada in 2009, with a king that was about 4 feet tall! Try moving that chunk […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: Identifying the board square by number.
Identification please! Did you know that there have been numerous cases of mistaken identity for the masters of chess in print? There are so many that websites have even devoted […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: JustChess, shaken, not stirred….
Well, I suppose the Bond reference does sound a bit out of place here, but perhaps if we break it down it will not seem to be so. In the […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: Touching up the User Interface….
My uncle once told me that a good paint job will sell a bad airplane. He’s right. As an airplane mechanic, he knew the value of the planes that he […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: Keeping the king safe!
The word “Checkmate” in Chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the King is dead.” While in the starting position, there are eight different ways to checkmate in […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: Perilous times for pawns!
Did you know that the piece with the lowest survival rate is the white queen’s pawn at d2? That’s right, out of 2.2 million master level games, this pawn survives […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: Keeping the King on the move!
When it comes to king moves, the most interesting is castling, for which I did manage to find a few statistics on the web, based on official games: White castles […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: Quickly created Queens
Ah, the most powerful piece in the game. The queen. She can move in eight directions over great distances, she can outmaneuver any single piece on the board, she is […]
Fool’s Mate Friday: Building Bishops
Did you know that Bobby Fischer’s favorite piece was the king side bishop? Well, at least it is according to Grand Master Mihail Marin in his book, “Learn From the Legends: […]