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
I am fighting for the future of chess, for the integrity of the game I love. Only when it’s clean it can grow.
Garry Kasparov 2014
Magnus is playing fantastic and I play like I always play, pretty badly
Anish Giri 2017
I don’t particularly like being searched electronically. It is inconceivable that such a thing would happen in any other sport. It is fundamentally anti-chess, and I think the people who are behind this decision need their heads looked at! They are sick! They are ruining the very beauty that is chess.
Nigel Short 2016
When your house is on fire, you can’t be bothered with the neighbors. Or, as we say in chess, if your King is under attack, don’t worry about losing a pawn on the queenside.
Garry Kasparov
Carlsen is paying far less attention to opening theory than his rivals, he is happy to go down paths that may offer no advantage yet have the benefit of dragging opponents out of their “openings book”. Once beyond the reaches of computer-aided openings, Carlsen starts to turn the screw.
Judith Polgar FT, 2014