01 · Chess

Fifteen centuries of the same battle

The earliest ancestor of chess is chaturanga, played in northern India around the sixth century. Its pieces stood for the divisions of an army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. The game travelled to Persia as shatranj, spread across the Islamic world, and reached Europe through Spain and Italy around the year 1000.

For centuries the queen and bishop were weak pieces that moved only a square or two. In the late fifteenth century, players in southern Europe gave the queen her modern sweeping move. The faster game that resulted is essentially the chess played today; castling and the en passant capture were settled not long after.

02 · Chess

Opening: center, development, king safety

The first ten moves have three jobs. Put a pawn or two in the center, bring your knights and bishops off the back row, and castle so your king is tucked behind pawns with a rook ready to join the game. A player who does all three usually comes out of the opening comfortable, whatever the exact moves were.

03 · Chess

Tactics: most games are decided by a missed threat

In casual chess, games are rarely won by deep plans. They are won when one player leaves a piece undefended or misses a two-move trick. Before every move, check what your opponent’s last move attacks, and check whether the move you want leaves anything hanging.

04 · Chess

Middle game: improve your worst piece

When there is no tactic on the board, a simple plan works well: find your least useful piece and give it a better square. A bishop stuck behind its own pawns, a rook still in the corner, or a knight on the edge of the board are all candidates. Rooks belong on open files, the columns with no pawns on them.

When you are ahead in material, trade pieces, not pawns. Every trade makes your extra material count for more. When you are behind, keep pieces on the board and look for chances to attack.

05 · Chess

Endgame: the king becomes a fighter

Once the queens are gone, the king is no longer in danger and should march to the center to help. Passed pawns, ones with no enemy pawn able to stop them, become the main target, because a pawn that reaches the last row promotes to a new queen.

It is worth learning the basic checkmates with a king and queen, and with a king and rook, against a lone king. Both work the same way: use your king and the heavy piece together to push the enemy king to the edge of the board. Take care not to leave the opponent with no legal move while not in check, because that is stalemate and the game is a draw.

06 · Chess

Playing chess on LarkSpark

You can start a game on the Chess page without an account. Play against one of eight bots, from Altair at level 1 to Orion at level 8. The lowest levels move at random, the middle levels grab material whenever they can, and the top two look a few moves ahead. Climbing the ladder is a good way to practice the tactics above.

To play a person, pick an online match, or sign in and open a private room to send a friend a code. Games can be untimed, or played with a clock: a quick three minutes with a two-second bonus per move, or five or ten minutes each. The board shows legal moves for the selected piece, and your recent results are listed on the game’s stats page.

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