From the Persian word “shah” – king, The Persian word in this sense, after passing through Arabic, probably Old Spanish, and then Old French, came into Middle English as check about seven hundred years ago. Chess itself comes from a plural form of the Old French word that gave us the word check.
A position where the king is under attack by opponent’s piece or pawn. The king cannot remain checked, so this situation should be resolved immediately by 1) moving the king of the square attacked, 2) capturing the piece to have checked, 3) blocking the lane of attack by another piece. If it turns out to be impossible to get out of the check, then this situation is known as checkmate.
A player may not castle to relieve a check. According to many codes of chess laws at the begin of the 20th century, it was mandatory to announce a check orally. Modern-day chess regulations do not keep this rule. Some old regulations also contained a clause requiring a declaration of a “check to the queen”, “gardez” (from the French verb “to safeguard”), or check-rook.
In rapid chess, the game is lost if the player inattentively overlooks a check and does not get out of it.
The following game between H. Rebickova and M. Voracova of 1995, ended with a record of 74 checks by the black Queen.
ECHESSPEDIA
Quotes of the Day
It’s always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men
Savielly Tartakower
FIDE is now a political organization. And being a political organization, it, of course, means that people in FIDE have some other interests – that is, to sit in their positions for the next hundred years.
Silvio Danailov 2016
Chess needs Kasparov, he’s very important for chess, he’s a very important figure who can open a lot of doors for chess. And for Kirsan, of course, it was a joke.
Silvio Danailov 2013
With the modern computer age, there are some new ideas, but the principles are basically the same… I try not to over-focus on preparation.
Magnus Carlsen 2012
My relation with Korchnoi depends on whether he has slept well. If he had bad dreams, he speaks a lot of rubbish.
Anatoly Karpov 2005