THE PIECES

Allotted to each competitor are sixteen, viz. a king, a queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, and eight pawns. As a necessary distinction, each set is coloured in a different way; one is commonly white, the other red or black.

THE DISPOSITION OF THE PIECES ON THE BOARD

Is as follows: The white king is to be seated on the first or nearest rank, on the fourth house (a black one) from that corner of the board which is to the right of the player to whom he belongs; his queen close to him on his left, on a house of her own colour—on one side of each of these, a bishop—adjoining each of the bishops, a knight—and last of all, at the corners of the board, the two rooks. Having thus arranged the first line, let the whole of the second rank be occupied by the pawns, one before each of the dignified pieces. As to the counter set, the black king is to be placed on the farther side of the board, exactly opposite the white one—his queen opposite the white queen—and so on; placing all the pieces opposite those of corresponding denominations—the pawns on the second rank as before.

To illustrate what has been said, and to prevent any misunderstanding respecting it, as well as to shew the forms of the pieces, the plate forming the frontispiece is given; which see.

THEIR POWERS AND MODE OF ACTION.

The gradation in rising from the lowest, to the higher pieces, will shew the comparative worth of each kind.

I. Of the PAWN. When one of the pawns is moved, it must be along the file in which he has been first placed, in a strait line towards the adverse party. The first move may be either one or two squares, at the option of the player: after which, no one of them, while he remains a pawn, can advance more than one house at a time. When once brought out, a pawn, more restrained than any other piece, cannot retreat or move back again. He is prohibited too from quitting his own file for that of another, except in the single case of making a capture; on which occasion he moves obliquely into the next file, to the right or left (as the case may happen) one house forward; placing himself on the square of the piece taken,⁠[11] which is removed from the board; after which he is confined to moving directly forwards as before, and cannot leave his new file for another, but on a similar occasion to that which led him into it.

A pawn, like every other agent on the board, takes any piece that comes within his reach, indiscriminately from one of his own quality to the queen.

II. The KNIGHT. The move of the knight is peculiar to himself, and difficult to explain. It is two squares at once (three, including his own) in a direction partly diagonal and partly strait. The house he goes into, is always of a different colour from that which he leaves. It may likewise be said to be uniformly next but one to the latter; although in his passage to it he passes transversely over the corners of two.

The knight’s power of capture reaches to any square that his move will take him into.

Note—That this is the only piece that has a vaulting motion; or that is not precluded from going to a square, between which and his own other pieces intervene: just to shew what is meant, if good play permitted it, any one of the knights could move out before a pawn had stirred, alighting on the third square of either the bishop or the rook; without waiting, as the other superior pieces are obliged, till an opening be made.

III. The BISHOP. By observing the plate it will be seen, that the bishops of the same set are placed on squares of a different colour; the white king’s bishop, for instance, being seated on a white, and the white queen’s bishop on a black square. What makes it necessary to remark this, which is common to the knight and rook, is, that the bishop, unlike all the other pieces, is obliged to walk, throughout the game, on that colour of the exchequer⁠[12] that he was placed on at the commencement of it; which is a necessary consequence of his motion being purely _diagonal_. His step is in other respects very unlimited, as he may, at a single effort, go any length of squares from one to eight. The bishop, if the road be open for him, takes at any distance.

IV. The ROOK. The rook moves in strait lines, forwards or sideways. He can, at one step, pass along a whole rank, or a whole file, or stop short at the first, second, third, or any other square of a rank or file, as occasion may require. Like the bishop, and on the same condition, he takes at any distance⁠[13].

V. The QUEEN—unites the moves of the bishop and rook; and, like them, when the road is open, takes at any distance.

VI. The KING—except when he avails himself of the privilege of castling, can move only one square at a time; of course he can take at no greater distance: he may, however, both move and take either forwards, backwards, sideways, or aslant. When policy shall invite the player to the expedient, and the previous unarbitrary removal of the bishop and knight on his right, or of the bishop, rook and queen on his left, has rendered it effectible without any violence to propriety, the king may castle with either of his rooks; which is done by placing the king on that knight’s square that is next to the rook with whom he castles, and by placing the rook at the other side of the king, on the bishop’s square adjoining. This ambidextral manœuvre of changing the situation of two pieces at one time, the player is allowed to employ but once; and not at all if the king has previously moved. It is impracticable and unnecessary at the beginning of the game. The only prerogative of the king, is a great one; that of never being taken.

OF PROMOTING A PAWN TO BE A QUEEN, ROOK, &c.

When a pawn has penetrated to the farthest rank on the adverse side of the board, he is rewarded with promotion to the highest vacant dignity⁠[14]; that is to say, if the person playing him there has lost his queen, he succeeds to the honor. If instead of his queen one or both of the rooks be lost, he is made a rook. If the queen and rooks have escaped capture, he is made a bishop. If the bishops have likewise been preserved, he is made a knight. The ceremony of transformation taking place in either case, and which is necessary to distinguish him, is very short: A sort of exchange: The pawn is removed from the board, and put among those taken by the adversary; and a captured piece, of the denomination he is advanced to, is taken from thence, and substituted in his room. It can hardly be necessary to say, that his powers and mode of action alter with his quality.

OF GIVING CHECK, AND CHECK-MATE.

Upon this the game hinges. As the king is never taken, whenever an adversary is advanced upon him in such a manner, as that, remaining where he is, if he were any other piece he would be captured; the person advancing it is to salute him with the word “Check,” warning him of his situation; upon which it is absolutely necessary for him to alter it in one of the following ways: either, relatively, by taking the threatening piece, or interposing⁠[15] one of his own between that and himself; or, positively, by removing to a square where neither that nor any other of the adversary’s pieces reach. If he cannot do one of these, the game is lost. This inextricable contact with an adverse piece is technically termed CHECK-MATE.

OF GIVING A STALE.

The game may be lost too in quite an opposite manner. By the constitution of Chess, the king is on no account to move into check; and, therefore, when, as it not unfrequently happens, one party has crowded up the king of the other with so many pieces, that the only move left him would take him into check; if the person to whom the king so circumstanced belongs has no other piece, or no other that can be moved, the contest must necessarily stagnate. Come to an end before the arrival of the regular result, it can be proceeded in no further. It is not, however, undecided. The player giving the other the stale, (so, in the language of Chess, the dilemma which the king is in is called) is, by a rule immemorially acquiesced in, adjudged to have defeated himself.

REASONS FOR ASSIGNING, IN THE CASE OF A STALE-MATE, THE VICTORY TO THE PARTY SUFFERING IT.

A little reflection will shew that this rule is not incapable of the justification which at first sight it may seem to want. It would be an intolerable defect in the game to have it perpetually liable to an accident that would render it undecisive. The only way of avoiding this defect, is the instituting an artificial rule, awarding the victory, whenever a stale happens, to one party or the other.

The necessity of making some kind of decision being arrived at, the propriety of placing the bias where it is may be easily evinced.

It is to be recollected that the rule under discussion is an arbitrary one. The expediency of an arbitrary rule, however great, cannot entirely divest it of the dissatisfactory; and therefore the seldomer there is occasion for it the better: now the making him to lose by a stale, who may always avoid it by caution, is an effective bar to its happening very often.

Other properties of this rule do not merely justify—they highly recommend it. The bias which it has adopted serves to balance the advantages of the game, as it is entirely in favour of the weaker party. Owing to this very bias, whenever the critical case, to which it is applied, is likely to occur, a greater exertion of intellect in conducting the approach is incited; than which nothing can be more agreeable to the genius of the game, as the professed object of Chess is to call out the powers of the mind.

Thus a defect inherent in the structure of the game, and from which it were impossible to free it, is overruled so as to give it a higher degree of interest. Upon the whole, the necessity for this rule is not to be deplored.

OF A DRAW GAME.

If it be not superfluous to put it any where, it must be added here, that whenever from the greatness of the loss on each side, (the more potent pieces, and those capable of becoming so, being gone), or from any other cause, it becomes certain that neither party can give the other Check-mate; the game is to be discontinued as insipid and useless, the players consenting to draw their pieces, and begin afresh.