The wonders of chess! ♟

_{The world #1 chess player in 2025}

Chess, a game of strategy, a game of competition. There are plenty of games I could’ve played, and I do play some others but the one I enjoy the most is chess. It might seem a bit boring to someone who’s never played before, just moving some pieces around a board but once you start, you can’t stop. I started playing a few years ago. Back then I didn’t even know how the pieces moved. I watched some videos and practiced daily and before you know it I can even win against kids older than me! I play with my baba daily (or at least I try to) and I even beat him sometimes. The thing I enjoy even more than playing chess is watching videos and learning about chess. Some of my favourite chess players are Magnus Carlsen (who is world #1), Hikaru Nakamura (world #3) and Gukesh Dommaraju (the youngest world champion).
In chess there are 6 pieces. The king, the queen, bishops, knights, rooks, and pawns. My favourite piece is the rook. The rook can move in straight lines. There’s not really a reason for it being my favourite I just like it😅. Did you know some people call the rook an elephant. They call it that because it represents an elephantine war carriage that Indians used in the 5th century.

_{The rook}
Tell me that looks like an elephant. I won’t believe you😝. The rook can move in straight lines. The rook is mainly used for defence but it is also used in the endgame to checkmate your opponent. You and your opponent both start with 2 rooks.

_{The pawn}
The pawn is the weakest piece. It can only move one square forward at a time but when it reaches the end of the board, it can become any piece you want other than the king. People say the pawn is useless but I think that the pawn is the centre piece of the game and that it alone carries both the attack and defence of the game. (but thats just my opinion)

_{The bishop}
The bishop is known to be the sniper of the chess board. It can be on a square on one edge of the board and secretly looking at the other edge and the worst part is your opponent will probably forget the bishop is sitting there 😂 . Most people say that the bishop is slightly stronger than the knight and I agree. I think that the fact that it moves diagonally on any amount of squares that you want makes it slightly better than the knight which can only move 3 squares.

_{The knight}
The knight is a unique piece. It doesn’t move in a straight line, or diagonally, it moves in an L kind of shape (which is pretty unique if you ask me). The knight is the only piece which can jump over pieces which means it can go to some places that other pieces can’t which makes it useful. I still think the bishop is slightly better though.

_{The king}
The king is pretty useless if you ask me. I’d even say that the pawn is slightly better since it can become a queen. The only reason that the king is even on the board is because if he dies, the game ends. If that wasn’t true thought, I would throw him off the board.

_{The queen}
The queen is the most powerful piece of them all. She can move both diagonally, and in straight lines (which is the rook and bishop both combined). The queen is worth about nine pawns since all the pieces have their own value. The queen is the piece which is most useful for checkmating your opponent since it can trap the king and defeat your opponent quickly.

I think the pawn represents us humans best. Why you may ask? Because they all have the ability to become a queen, and those who try hard enough do! But most of them stop before they reach the end. Deep thoughts aside, I’d recommend if you don’t play already, that you should give chess a shot because it might be the thing you’re looking for. I could go on about this all day but you probably don’t have enough time for that so i’m gonna stop here. I’m just gonna share some pictures of famous chess players before I finish this post.

_{Hikaru Nakamura playing chess}

_{Ian Nepomniatchi playing in Fide candinates tournament}

I hope you enjoyed reading my post and that reading this post made you consider starting chess. Bye!