Today we’ll learn some vocabulary related to the game of chess.
The chessboard consists of 64 squares. At the beginning of the game each player has 16 pieces.
I started by moving my piece [man] two spaces forward. I always start by moving one of my pawns.
There were just the two knights left in the game, besides the kings naturally. We were not sure whether the game should end in (a) stalemate.
He sucks at chess. First he was trying to move his rook [castle] diagonally because he thought it was his queen and now his knight is trying to capture his own bishop.
The game was very quick. After just the third move he said ‘Check!’. Yes, my king was in check that soon. And his next move resulted in checkmate. My king was checkmated in the fourth move. Shame on me!
Here’s the vocabulary summary:
| chessboard | a board used in chess that has 64 squares in two colors |
| square | any of the squares on a board for playing games (such as chess and checkers) |
| piece / man | one of the small movable objects in a game like chess or checkers |
| pawn | one of the eight small pieces that have the least value in the game of chess |
| knight | a chess piece shaped like a horse’s head |
| king | the most important piece in the game of chess |
| stalemate | a situation in chess in which a player cannot successfully move any of the pieces and neither player can win |
| rook / castle | a piece in the game of chess that looks like a castle tower |
| queen | the most powerful piece in the game of chess that can move any number of free squares in any direction |
| capture | to take (something, such as a chess piece) by following the rules of a game |
| bishop | a piece in the game of chess that moves across the board at an angle |
| check | a situation in the game of chess in which a player’s king can be captured on the opponent’s next turn and must be protected or moved |
| checkmate | a situation in chess in which a player loses the game because that player’s king is in a position from which it cannot escape (also used as verb) |
