Shahgoshah and go: a beginner's guide to chess and go

An independent beginner's guide to chess and go. It is not a club, federation or gaming service and is not connected with the former website on this domain.

Reference

Reference

This page explains in plain words the terms that come up in any description of chess and go. We have deliberately avoided the strict wording of the official rules: what matters is understanding what a word means and recognising it on the board, not memorising a definition.

An idea you can name is easier to spot on the board. That is why a glossary is just as useful as puzzles.

— Editor's view

Chess

Check
An attack on the king. A side whose king is in check must deal with it at once: move the king, block the check or capture the attacking piece.
Checkmate
A check with no defence. Checkmate ends the game with a win for the player who delivered it.
Stalemate
A position in which the side to move has no legal move but is not in check. The game ends in a draw.
Castling
A special move of the king and a rook made at the same time. It helps tuck the king away and bring the rook into play; it is allowed only when several conditions are met.
Notation
A way of recording moves with letters and numbers based on the names of the squares. A record is needed to review a game and is compulsory at most competitions.

Go

Liberty
An empty point directly next to a stone or a group of connected stones along a line. As long as a group has at least one liberty, it stays on the board.
Capture
Removing from the board stones whose last liberty has been filled by the opponent. Captured stones count in the final scoring.
Territory
Empty points surrounded by stones of one colour. At the end of the game, territory is counted to decide the winner.
Komi
Compensation points given to White because Black moves first and gains a small advantage. The amount depends on the rules in use.
Ko
A position in which the players could keep recapturing a single stone from each other forever. The ko rule forbids recapturing immediately: you must first play elsewhere.

Tournaments and time

Time control
The time each player has for the game, counted down by a chess clock. It can be slow, fast or very short; slow time controls are more useful for beginners.
Swiss system
A way of running a tournament with many players, in which each round pairs players with the same or similar scores. That way everyone plays opponents of roughly their own strength.

Where these terms appear

  • Guides

    How to review your own game and find the key mistake: steps, pitfalls, checklist. Plus the article catalogue.

  • Questions

    Short answers about chess, go, learning and fair play over the board and online.

  • Getting started (in Russian)

    A note on the old home page address and a primer on how to get started in chess and go.

  • Collections

    Reading paths: your first month of chess, your first month of go, strategy board games with a child.

  • Questions

    Short answers about chess, go, learning and fair play over the board and online.

  • Collections

    Reading paths: your first month of chess, your first month of go, strategy board games with a child.

  • New

    A dated feed of new material in the guide, with topics.

Sources

  • FIDE — Laws of Chess
  • Encyclopedic sources on the history of chess and go

Information is current as of the date the material was prepared. Official competition rules are revised from time to time, so before a tournament check the current edition of the rules and the regulations of that particular event.