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
” The fact that a player is very short of time is, to my mind, as little to be considered an excuse as, for instance, the statement of the law-breaker that he was drunk at the time he committed the crime.”
Alexander Alekhine
Fischer’s strength, among other things, was his ability to evolve the most efficient plan for the middlegame right after the opening.
Boris Spassky
Peter Svidler clearly needs to be more ambitious and take more risk. 12 draws out of 14 games, I mean, come on, that’s not a Champion’s attitude there!
Anish Giri
Chess is a game by its form, an art by its content and a science by the difficulty of gaining mastery in it. Chess can convey as much happiness as a good book or work of music can. However, it is necessary to learn to play well and only afterwards will one experience real delight.
Tigran Petrosian
If I’m thinking for more than 20 minutes about one move, it’s usually a waste. Sometimes you can come up with some amazing solution but most of the time you just end up looping: you consider a move, you reject it, then you’re desperate, you come back to the move, you don’t remember why you rejected it, you have to make a move so you make it – then your opponent replies and you remember why you rejected it. The longest wait I ever did between moves was one hour and five minutes – and the move was horrible.
Magnus Carlsen 2016
