The Game of Kings!! (Chess)

Member Name: Nigel1

Product:	Chess
Date:	01/03/09 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great game that exercises the brain.

Disadvantages: Extremely difficult to become proficient

Although chess is a pretty easy game to play, it is extremely difficult and complex to master it with any degree of success.

For the full rules and explanation on how to play this intriguing game, here is the link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess

At its most basic, the idea of chess is to 'capture' your opponents King, in what is known as 'Checkmate'. Although this sounds pretty easy I can assure you that it is extremely difficult and complex to do this if you are playing an opponent who has a good knowledge and understanding of the game.

So complex is this game of strategy that it has been said that at any given time during a game of Chess there are more combinations of moves than there are atoms in the entire world! So to become proficient (even to a small degree) at this game, takes incredible reserves of thinking power and planning. You may have to 'second guess' your opponents thinking, and apply a move to counteract his move, while all the time trying to advance your pieces for the final onslaught to capture his King.

There is a fine balance in this 'Game of Kings' in that you must advance some of your pieces for an attack, yet keep some pieces back as your defence, to counteract your opponents attack.

So complex is the game that after each person has made one move each there are 400 different positions available. After two moves each there are 72,084 positions available. And after three moves each there are over 9 million positions available. Four moves each and the total amount of different positions available is a mind-boggling and staggering 288 billion (give or take a few!).

In this modern age of computers they have even built 'chess engines' which are basically computer chess 'players' that can think millions of moves in advance, within a few seconds, to apply the 'best' move currently available. This incredible, fast computer processing is beyond any human being obviously, and one of the 'chess engines' was pitted against World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik and trounced him 4-2! Amazing when you think that Kramnik is the best player in the world. The only surprising thing here is the fact that Kramnik actually won two of the six games against a computer that can think millions of moves per second and come up with 'almost' the perfect 'next' move!!

Chess buffs have studied opening moves, defences and gambits for as long as the game has been invented and there are more combinations of these moves than there are 'quarks' in the Universe.

Studying opening moves and defences will improve your ability to play better Chess, as will learning by your mistakes!

There is nothing better than playing a friend on a Winters evening, glass of wine in hand (to improve the thinking process ofcourse!), fire burning in the hearth, and you within a few moves of 'checkmate!' Wonderful.

Here is a final thought for you: There are 169, 518, 829, 100, 544, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 ways to play the first 10 moves of a game of Chess. Misjudge only even ONE of these awesome amount of moves, and it could spell the beginning of the end for you!!

Summary: The thinking man's game!