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
Fischer was the first to send me a telegram when I was in Amsterdam after I had defected, saying ‘Congratulations on the correct move’.
Vikor Kortchnoi 1986 NIC
It’s always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men
Savielly Tartakower
Do you realize, Fischer almost never has any bad pieces? He exchanges them, and the bad pieces remain with his opponents.
Yury Balashov
According to my experiences, in key events, normally the games’ quality is not as high as other major events. Most brilliant games are not found in championships at present.
Garry Kasparov 2014
Despite the ugliness of his decline, Bobby Fischer deserves to be remembered for the great things he did for chess and for his immortal games.
Garry Kasparov 2004
