Stonewall

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Stonewall.wav

From stone + wall. The drink is so named because its effect is likened to running into a stone wall. The riots take their name from the Stonewall Inn where they began (in the 1840s, the property was called Bonnie's Stone Wall, later renamed to Bonnie's Stonewall Inn, then the Stonewall Inn Restaurant, and then the Stonewall Inn). The Confederate general acquired his nickname after a battle in which, while other troops were in motion, fellow general Barnard E. Bee observed "there stands Jackson like a stone wall" (either resolutely, or unhelpfully). The chess setup is so named because it is a solid formation which is hard to overrun by force, like a stone wall.

the Stonewall attack, a Stonewall setup, a Stonewall formation

(chess) A formation in chess (a variation of the Queen's Pawn Game) in which white plays pawns to d4 and several other positions, requiring black to react energetically (see Stonewall Attack).


swindle

en-verb

swindle (third-person singular simple present swindles, present participle swindling, simple past and past participle swindled)

swindles (present singular third-person)
swindling (participle present)
swindled (participle past)
swindled (past)

Back-formation from swindler, from German Schwindler, from German schwindeln, from Middle High German swindeln, swindelen, from Old High German swintilōn, frequentative of the verb swintan, from Proto-West Germanic *swindan (“to diminish”).
See also Modern German schwindeln, Danish svindel and svindle, Dutch zwindelen and zwendelen, Yiddish שווינדל (shvindl), Low German swinneln, Middle English swinden (“to languish, waste away”).

cog

(chess) For a player in a losing position to play a clever move that provokes an error from the opponent, thus achieving a win or a draw.


swindle

(chess) An instance wherein a player in a losing position plays a clever move that provokes an error from the opponent, thus achieving a win or a draw.


B

From abbreviations of various terms beginning with or containing the letter ‘B’.
* (billion): abbreviation of billion
* (cricket): abbreviation of balls
* (bitch): abbreviation of bitch

1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. e5 Ne4 5. Qxd4 d5 6. exd6 e.p. Nxd6 7. Bg5 Nc6 8. Qe3+ Be7 9. Nbd2 0-0 10. 0-0-0 Re8 11. Kb1 (=)

2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 23:

The correct answer is 1.Rxf6 Rxf6 2.Rf1 Raf8 3.Qg5 Kg7 4.Nh5+
Other sub-variations work, such as playing 2.Qg5 then 3.Rf1 or playing 4.Bxf6+ first before playing 5.Nh5+.

2023 August 12, GM Noël Studer, “Mastering Chess Puzzles: The Comprehensive Guide to Effective Problem Solving”, in Next Level Chess:


K

Abbreviations.
# (Stenoscript) Abbreviation of counter, prefix counter-, sequence contr.

ng

prefix <i class="Latn mention" lang="en">counter-</i>, sequence contr.

(card games, chess) Abbreviation of king.


P

en-noun

P (countable and uncountable, plural Ps)


Q

Q (countable and uncountable, plural Qs)

(card games, chess) Abbreviation of queen.


Scotch

Contraction of Scottish.
The chess opening is supposedly after its having been played in a correspondence game between Edinburgh, Scotland, and London, England.

Karpov played the Scotch against Anand.

(chess, informal) The opening 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4.


pon

(mahjong) A call for forming a set of three identical tiles using a discarded tile.

碰

mahjong: a call for a set of three identical tiles


armageddon

/ˌɑː(ɹ).məˈɡɛ.dn̩/

/ˌɑɹ.məˈɡɛ.dn̩/

[ˌɑɹ.məˈɡɛɾ.ʔn]

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-armageddon.wav

(chess) A type of game, usually played when a match would otherwise end in a draw, where black wins drawn games and white is given more time as compensation.


go-between

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-go-between.wav

(shogi) A shogi piece, used in chu shogi and larger shogi variants, that can move one step straight forward or straight backwards.


blunder

→ Dutch: blunder

→ Swedish: blunder

Inherited from Middle English blundren, blondren (verb) and blunder, blonder (“disturbance, strife”), from the verb; partly from Middle English blondren, a frequentative form of Middle English blonden, blanden ("to mix; mix up"; corresponding to blend + -er); and partly from Middle English blundren, a frequentative form of Middle English blunden (“to stagger; stumble”), from Old Norse blunda (“to shut the eyes; doze”). Cognates include Norwegian blunda (“to shut the eyes; doze”), dialectal Swedish blundra (“to act blindly or rashly”), Danish blunde (“to blink”) or blunde (“to take a nap”), Icelandic blunda (“to nap; doze”). Related to English blind.

cog

(chess) A very bad move, usually caused by some tactical oversight.


blunder

en-verb

blunder (third-person singular simple present blunders, present participle blundering, simple past and past participle blundered)

blunders (present singular third-person)
blundering (participle present)
blundered (participle past)
blundered (past)

→ Dutch: blunderen

(intransitive) To make a big mistake, especially when it is careless or stupid.

(chess, backgammon, intransitive) To make a bad move, especially caused by tactical oversight.

(chess, transitive) To make a bad move and thereby cause the loss of (a piece).


retro

en-noun

retro (countable and uncountable, plural retros or retroes)

Borrowed from French rétro, ultimately from Latin retro.

(chess) A chess puzzle of retrograde analysis, requiring the solver to work out the history of moves leading to the position presented.


deflection

deflection (countable and uncountable, plural deflections)

deflections (plural)
deflexion (alternative)

From Latin dēflexiō, from dēflectere (“to deflect”; participle stem dēflex-) + -iō (suffix forming abstract nouns). The non-etymological spelling deflection is taken from the present stem dēflect-, associated with collection, dissection, etc. By surface analysis, deflect + -ion.

(chess) A tactic that forces an opposing piece to leave the square, rank or file it occupies, thus exposing the king or a valuable piece


elo

(chess, other games) Synonym of Elo rating.


tilt

en-verb

tilt (third-person singular simple present tilts, present participle tilting, simple past and past participle tilted)

tilts (present singular third-person)
tilting (participle present)
tilted (participle past)
tilted (past)

From Middle English tilte, from Old English *tyltan, *tieltan (“to be unsteady”), related to the adjective tealt (“unsteady”), from Proto-West Germanic *talt, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *del-, *dul- (“to shake, hesitate”), see also Dutch touteren (“to tremble”), North Frisian talt, tolt (“unstable, shaky”). Cognate with Icelandic tölt (“an ambling pace”).
The nominal sense of "a joust" appears around 1510, presumably derived from the barrier which separated the combatants, which suggests connection with tilt "covering". The modern transitive meaning is from 1590; the intransitive use appears 1620.
The sense of gaming frustration is said to originate with pinball.

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-tilt.wav

The D.F.S. industry is still inextricably tied up in those poker roots. Players talk about "tilting" because of "variance," especially when a "fish" puts in a "donkey" lineup that ends up going crazy. (In regular American English, this translates roughly to "I am really mad because some idiot punched in some random lineup that ended up catching every conceivable break and beating me.")

2016 January 6, Jay Caspian Kang, “How the Daily Fantasy Sports Industry Turns Fans Into Suckers”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-28:

Even the best players can tilt which can cause their performance to drop significantly. Players often tilt when they're on a losing spree or frustrated with the game.

2022 September 2, Gökhan Çakır, Harrison Thomas, “How to get better at VALORANT”, in Dot Esports, archived from the original on 2023-03-15:

This was yet another surprising momentum swing, with Nepomniachtchi seemingly having addressed his tendency to tilt after a loss, and with Ding crashing back down to Earth after having squared the ledger in the previous game. Is this a new Nepomniachtchi, capable of digging deep and avenging losses?

2023 April 19, Ben Tippett, “Haymakers Are Flying At The World Chess Championship”, in Defector, archived from the original on 2023-06-05:

(originally poker, video games, chess, slang) To enter a state of frustration and worsened performance resulting from a series of losses.


tilt

en-noun

tilt (countable and uncountable, plural tilts)

to go on tilt

In his landmark book, The Mental Game of Poker, sports psychologist Jared Tendler defines "tilt" as "anger + bad play". In short, you lose your mental equilibrium and start playing below your best, often making big mistakes. Tilt is caused by many different factors and Tendler defines seven types of tilt.

2014 September 10, Amit Varma, “Magnus Carlsen's weakness”, in The Economic Times, Mumbai: Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2014-09-19:

In his follow-up video below, ScrapComputer goes into a long list of suggestions for stopping and avoiding tilt while you play League of Legends.

2016 February 26, Philip Kollar, “What is 'tilt' in League of Legends, and how can you avoid it?”, in Polygon, archived from the original on 2023-04-01:

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result can drive you insane, especially League of Legends. As you keep losing, you become tilted and get frustrated. No matter how mechanically gifted you are, it can't help ameliorate tilt.

2019 October 15, Hawken Miller, “How to quickly climb the League of Legends ranked ladder”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-17:

As long as you know that being consistent and sticking to a strategy in the long run, will win you money, you can avoid tilt and negative emotions.

2022 March 16, “Online poker: from beginner to pro”, in Times of Malta, archived from the original on 2022-04-21:

(uncountable, poker, video games, chess, slang) A state of frustration and worsened performance resulting from a series of losses.


en passant

/ˌɒ̃ pæˈsɒ̃/

An unadapted borrowing from French en passant.

ubor

(chess) Of a capture, performed by a pawn on an enemy pawn that has just passed over its attack zone.


en passant

/ˌɒ̃ pæˈsɒ̃/

[I]f the opponent chooses to make this capture, he must do it immediately on his next move – if he makes any other move on his next move, he forever loses the chance to capture that pawn en passant, though he still retains the right to capture another pawn en passant should a similar situation arise elsewhere.

2007, Mark A. Borders, “The Rules”, in The Self-Improvement of Chess: Why the Game's Basics Apply to Daily Living, [Raleigh, N.C.]: Lulu, →ISBN, page 12:

(chess) Of a capture of an enemy pawn, by moving one's pawn to the square that the enemy pawn has just passed over.


en passant

/ˌɒ̃ pæˈsɒ̃/

Spectators are privy to awe inspiring castles, baffling forks, and breathtaking en passants.

1998 December 11, Glenn Kaplan, “Chess: not just for losers, but also Trekkies”, in The Oberlin Review, volume 127, number 12, Oberlin, Oh.: The Union Library Association, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2017-01-22:

En passant is the rarest of moves. It is a French phrase that means "in passing." This occurs when one player moves a pawn two spaces forward, on its first move, to try to avoid a capture by an opponent pawn. When this happens, the opponent may move his pawn diagonally to the square that the first player passed over (i.e., as if he only moved one space forward). The pawn from the first player is then considered captured and removed from the board.

Before he returns to performing some castles and en passants, [Kendall] Williams has to determine his endgame in the tourney.

2012 March 17, Ben Watanabe, “New Mexico Point Guard Kendall Williams Puts Chess Match on Hold During Tournament”, in New England Sports Network, archived from the original on 2016-03-05:

Grande Prairie's Sandman Hotel will be the scene of some castling, en passants and checkmate action this weekend when the 29th Trumpeter Classic Chess Tournament gets underway.

2012 May 31, Greg Amos, “Trumpeter Classic chess tournament begins today”, in Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune, Grande Prairie, Alta.: Sun Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:

(chess) A move in which a pawn captures an opposing pawn on the same rank immediately after the latter has moved forward two squares on its first move in the game, as if it had moved forward only one square.


skittles

(uncountable, chiefly chess) An informal form of chess played without a clock.


odds

She beat me with knight odds but lost with rook odds.

The grandmaster gave his opponents significant time odds, of one minute versus ten minutes.

The resulting match of fourteen games was won by Mr. Maurian, who had scored all the Knight-odds parties and the majority of the even-term ones!

1913, The British Chess Magazine, volume 33, Trubner & Company, page 51:

Nowadays, giving material odds in this way is rather rare, but the advent of the chess clock has made it possible for strong players to give time odds — taking one or two minutes for all their moves, for example, and allowing their opponents five minutes or more.

1989, Raymond Keene, The Simon & Schuster Pocket Book of Chess, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 183:

Harry Golombek, who had returned from Argentina with the British chess team but spent two years in the infantry before joining B.P., occasionally played chess with Turing, giving Queen odds in order to make the game more equal.

1998, George W. Atkinson, Chess and Machine Intuition, Intellect, →ISBN, page 35:

And finally, if those are tied, they'll play a final sudden-death game, using a format known as armageddon. In armageddon, black gets "time odds": White gets five minutes while black gets just four, but a draw counts as a win for black.

2016 November 27, Oliver Roeder, “The World Chess Championship Comes Down To The Final Game”, in FiveThirtyEight, archived from the original on 2022-05-26:

Fischer described all female professionals' play at his time to be that of "beginners", and went on to boast about hypothetically beating any female chess player with knight odds (when challenged to the same, though, he didn't respond).

2018 September 23, Binit Priyaranjan, “Queens on the Board, Pawns in the Sport – the Underrepresentation of Women in Chess”, in The Wire, archived from the original on 2021-05-06:

The most important handicap historically is knight odds, because it produces play more similar to a normal game than handicaps like f7 and multiple moves, while still being a suitable handicap for rather strong players.

2021, Larry Kaufman, Chess Board Options, New in Chess, →ISBN:

Here, Nakamura took the white pieces and the time odds with the mandatory win requirement, and managed to break Nepomniachtchi's resistance to clinch the title.

2022 October 31, Luci Kelemen, “Nakamura wins 2022 Fischer Random Chess Championship, Carlsen slides to top-four finish”, in Dot Esports, archived from the original on 2022-12-17:

(chess) An advantage given to a weaker opponent in order to equalize the game when playing casually, usually by removing one of the stronger player's pieces or by giving the weaker player more time.


gaja

Audio (US)

Transliteration of Sanskrit गज (gaja, “elephant; gaja”).

translit

(chaturanga) A chaturanga piece ancestral to the medieval fil and modern bishop; literally, “elephant”

(chess) A fairy piece based on the gaja as used in chaturanga


chariot

From Middle English chariot, from Old French chariot, from char (“cart”), from Latin carrus (“wagon”). Displaced native Old English hrædwæġn (literally “fast wagon”).


skewer

the bishop can capture the white queen. (canonical)
skewers (plural)

From Middle English skeuier, skuer, likely a variant of Middle English *skever, *skiver (compare Modern English skiver), probably of North Germanic origin, compare Icelandic skífa (“to slice”), Norwegian skive, Swedish skiva, Swedish skifer (“a slate”).

Coordinate term: pin

(chess) A scenario in which a piece attacks a more valuable piece which, if it moves aside, reveals a less valuable piece.


skewer

en-verb

skewer (third-person singular simple present skewers, present participle skewering, simple past and past participle skewered)

skewers (present singular third-person)
skewering (participle present)
skewered (participle past)
skewered (past)

(chess) To attack a piece which has a less valuable piece behind it.

varrastaa

chess: to attack a piece with a less valuable piece behind


brilliancy

en-noun

brilliancy (countable and uncountable, plural brilliancies)

brilliancies (plural)
brilliance (alternative)

From brilliant + -ancy; attested earlier than brilliance. Compare French brillance.

Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players who ever lived, died at the age of sixty-four from kidney failure. He had lived one year for each square on a chessboard. / THE GOOD / First of all, you should learn the term “brilliancy.” It refers to a game that is played with spectacular strategy and beauty, typically featuring unexpected moves and ingenious ideas. In other words, the game is extraordinary! At age thirteen, Bobby Fischer won a brilliancy against twenty-six-year-old Donald Byrne.

2015, Michael Hearst, Extraordinary People: A Semi-Comprehensive Guide to Some of the World's Most Fascinating Individuals, Chronicle Books, →ISBN, page 38:

(chess) A spectacular and beautiful game of chess, generally featuring sacrificial attacks and unexpected moves.


adoption

adoption (countable and uncountable, plural adoptions)

Borrowed from French adoption, from Latin adoptio, allied to adoptare (“to adopt”).

Infuriated by his adoption yesterday, the chess master has resolved to study twice as long and twice as hard.

Can Rensch break the string of adoptions and finally find vindication by thwarting Nepomniachtchi with the pressure on?

2020 May 27, “Adopt-A-Danny Returns Wednesday With Ian Nepomniachtchi”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 2020-05-27:

10-0 would have meant "adoption," but that didn't happen as Fedoseev held the 10th game to a draw. After another loss and another draw, he finally managed to score his first win in game 13.

2020 December 4, Peter Doggers, “Nakamura Too Strong For Fedoseev In Speed Chess Match”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 2022-11-20:

Despite modestly highlighting her "adoption" today, the chess that Sachdev played was not reflected on the scoreboard and rather, was an example of Rosen's superior time management overall.

2022 May 24, Anthony Levin, “Rosen Beats Sachdev With 11-Game Streak: 2022 IMSCC, Round Of 16”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 2022-05-24:

(chess, slang) Ten consecutive wins against an opponent.


novelty

novelty (countable and uncountable, plural novelties)

From Middle English novelte, from Old French novelté (Modern French nouveauté), from the adjective novel, ultimately from Latin novellus.

Topalov has unveiled some interesting novelties lately, but there was nothing unusual in his opening here. Sasikiran played the Nimzo-Indian, and Topalov replied with probably the most classical continuation.

2007 May 27, Dylan Loeb Mcclain, “What Defines the Very Best? For Topalov, It's Fearlessness”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2022-11-26:

It's not often a novelty comes as early as move seven nowadays, but in the latest round of the German Bundesliga, a recently discovered seventh move was employed to win a lovely game.

2012 December 18, Malcolm Pein, “Bundesliga chess revelation”, in The Daily Telegraph, archived from the original on 2023-02-05:

The Russian champion still did very well. Nepomniachtchi was only a wildcard, yet played with full force including an interesting novelty in the much analysed Berlin Wall Ruy Lopez.

2021 June 25, Leonard Barden, “Chess: Carlsen takes on No 1 junior, No 1 woman and No 1 rival on same afternoon”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 2022-01-29:

(chess) An opening move played for the first time ever (in high-level chess).


cheapo

From cheap + -o (“person with characteristic”, colloquialising suffix).

suf

(chess) A primitive trap, often set in the hope of swindling a win or draw from a losing position.


triangulation

en-noun

triangulation (countable and uncountable, plural triangulations)

/tɹʌɪaŋɡjʊˈleɪʃn̩/

/ˌtɹaɪˌæŋɡjəˈleɪʃən/

From Medieval Latin triangulātiōnem (“triangulation”), from triangulāre (“to triangulate”) + -tiōnem (suffix forming nouns relating to some actions or the results of actions). Triangulāre is derived from triangulāris (“triangular”), from triangulus (“triangular; triangle”), from trēs (“three”) + angulus (“angle; corner”). The English word is analysable as triangulate + -ion, and is cognate with French triangulation.

refn

An engraving from a 16th-century treatise by Levinus Hulsius (1546–1606).

der

[page 76] At this point, it may be useful to refer to a word that has been used in connection with earlier examples. The King has been said to indulge in a process called Triangulation. The word is harder than the idea. The basic fact is that the King can move to an adjacent square in one move, two moves or three moves, without returning to its point of origin. […] [page 77] This diagram […] shows a position where the triangulation is vital.

1961, Gerald Abrahams, “Kings and Ascending Pawns”, in Technique in Chess, London: G[eorge] Bell and Sons, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1973, →ISBN, pages 76 and 77:

(countable, chess) A delaying move in which the king moves in a triangular path to force the advance of a pawn.


isolated

en-adj

isolated (comparative more isolated, superlative most isolated)

more isolated (comparative)
most isolated (superlative)

A rendering into English of French isolé.

(chess, of a pawn) Such that no pawn of the same color is in an adjacent file.


kinjite

Borrowed from Japanese 禁じ手 (kinjite), from 禁じる (kinjiru, “to forbid”) + 手 (te, “hand”).


kong

Borrowed from Cantonese 槓 /杠 (gong³ / gung³).

bor+

(mahjong) A set of four identical tiles.

槓 /杠

a call declaring a set of four identical tiles

(mahjong) A call declaring the formation of such a set.


bish

'It's all right, bish,' said Augustine.
'All—all right?' faltered the bishop.

1927, P. G. Wodehouse, “The Bishop's Move”, in Meet Mr Mulliner:

BALDRICK: My Lord, the Bishop of Bath and Wells.
BISHOP: (enters) The time has come, Blackadder!

1986, Blackadder TV series, Money (series 2 episode 4)

'The Bishop of Bangor called.' My father and the bish were pals. 'He has received a strange request from the security service.'

2017, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, We Know All about You, page 1:

(slang, chiefly British or chess) A bishop.


mover

(chess, in combination) A chess problem in which the solver must attain checkmate within the specified number of moves.


stipulation

en-noun

stipulation (countable and uncountable, plural stipulations)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-stipulation.wav

(chess) A goal to be achieved in a chess problem; for example, to checkmate Black within a specified number of moves.


clearance

clearance (countable and uncountable, plural clearances)

(chess) Removal of pieces from a rank, file or diagonal so that a bishop, rook or queen is free to move along it.


vizier

viziers (plural)
vezir (alternative)
vezîr (alternative)
vazir (alternative)
wasir (alternative)
wazir (alternative)
wazīr (alternative)
vizir (alternative)
vizeer (alternative)
guazil (alternative)

→ Irish: visír

→ Welsh: fisir

From Ottoman Turkish وزیر (vezir) (Turkish vezir) (via French vizir), from Arabic وَزِير (wazīr, “helper, aide, minister”, literally “one who bears (the burden of office)”). Doublet of wazir.

der

(chess) A fairy chess piece that can only be moved one space up, down, left or right.


speed chess

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Ruy Lopez

Named for Ruy López de Segura, a Spanish priest who wrote a book about chess openings in 1561.

(chess) A common chess opening, an Open Game characterized by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5, in which White moves king's bishop to the fifth rank.


leaper

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-leaper.wav

From Middle English lepere, lepare, from Old English hlēapere (“runner, leaper, dancer, courier, vagrant”), equivalent to leap + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Lööper (“runner”), West Frisian ljepper (“leaper”), West Frisian loper (“runner”), Dutch loper (“runner”), German Läufer (“runner”), Swedish löpare (“runner”), Icelandic hlaupari (“runner”).

inh

(chess) A piece, like the knight, which moves a fixed distance, and ignores pieces in the way.


queenside

en-noun

queenside (usually uncountable, plural queensides)

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[Castling:] A move of the king towards a rook. See the article. In notation 0-0 kingside castling, 0-0-0 queenside castling.

2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 31:

(chess) The side of the chessboard nearest to the queen (at the opening position).


kingside

kingside (usually uncountable, plural kingsides)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-kingside.wav

(chess) The side of the chessboard nearest to the king (at the opening position).


zugzwang

zugzwang (countable and uncountable, plural zugzwangs or zugzwänge)

zugzwangs (plural)
zugzwänge (plural)
Zugzwang (alternative)

From German Zugzwang, from Zug (“move”) + Zwang (“compulsion”).

(chess) A situation in which a player is forced to make a disadvantageous move.


Indian Game

(chess) A group of chess openings characterized by the moves 1. d4 Nf6.


drawish

en-adj

drawish (comparative more drawish, superlative most drawish)

more drawish (comparative)
most drawish (superlative)

The Petroff is considered a very drawish opening.

(chiefly chess) Being a game, or a particular position in a game, deemed likely to end in a draw.


en prise

(chess, of a piece) Undefended, able to be captured.


dora

Borrowed from Japanese ドラ (dora), a clipping of Japanese ドラゴン (doragon), from English dragon.

(mahjong) In Japanese mahjong, tiles that provide bonus score multiplier points (飜 (han)) in a winning hand, indicated by one or multiple face-up tiles in the dead wall.


LGM

w:International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster

(chess) Initialism of Lady International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster.


intermezzo

en-noun

intermezzo (plural intermezzos or intermezzi)

intermezzos (plural)
intermezzi (plural)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-intermezzo.wav

(chess) A tactical move which interrupts the execution of the current plan.


endgame

endgames (plural)
end game (alternative)
end-game (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-endgame.wav

Rooks become much more important in the endgame.

The real end game consists of a position where the method can be analytically demonstrated by which the slightly superior force can win.

1884 April 12, The Academy, Horwitz, page 256:

(chess) The final stage of a game of chess, when there are few pieces left.


tilted

(originally poker, video games, chess, slang) To be in a state of frustration and worsened performance resulting from a series of losses.


checkmated

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-checkmated.wav

(chess) Having a king in check with no possible move to escape check, thus losing the game.


horse

horse (countable and uncountable, plural horses)

horses (plural)
hoss (alternative pronunciation-spelling regional)
hawss (alternative pronunciation-spelling regional)

Sranan Tongo: asi

→ Maori: hōiho

→ Quiripi: hosses (from the plural horses)

From Middle English horse, hors, from Old English hors (“horse”), from Proto-West Germanic *hors, *hross, from Proto-Germanic *hrussą (“horse”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥sós (“vehicle”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- (“to run”). Doublet of car and carrus. Cognate with North Frisian hors (“horse”), West Frisian hoars (“horse”), Dutch ros, hors (“horse”), German Ross (“horse”), Danish hors (“horse”), Swedish russ, hors (“horse”), Icelandic hross, hors (“horse”).

a camel is a horse designed by a committee

a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse

close the barn door after the horse has bolted

close the stable door after the horse has been stolen

close the stable door after the horse has bolted

lock the stable door after the horse has been stolen

lock the stable door after the horse has bolted

shut the stable door after the horse has bolted

you can't put the shit back in the horse

zeal without knowledge is a runaway horse

Also Horse harness on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

See Horse-drawn vehicles on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Note: Many of these were adapted into and/or gave their names to motor vehicle types

with the horse-drawn originals often being forgotten.

Now just remind me how the horse moves again?

Equus ferus caballus
Equus ferus caballus#Translingual

A hoofed mammal, Equus ferus caballus, often used throughout history for riding and draft work.

(chess, informal) The chess piece representing a knight, depicted as a horse.

(xiangqi) A xiangqi piece that moves and captures one point orthogonally and then one point diagonally.


plycount

Take note that if the side to move first wins, the plycount must be an odd number, since that side makes the last move.

2004. Jaap van den Herik, Hiroyuki Iida, Ernst A. Heinz. Advances in Computer Games: Many Games, Many Challenges... Springer 2004, p. 216 http://books.google.com/books?id=b1tMzog4M-MC&pg=PA216&dq=plycount&sig=mT8CESvj8h9T-6Z45eQfcuItbQY

(computer chess) The total number of moves in a game, counting each player's move as 1.


moob

en-verb

moob (third-person singular simple present moobs, present participle moobing, simple past and past participle moobed)

moobs (present singular third-person)
moobing (participle present)
moobed (participle past)
moobed (past)

Inversion of boom (“to rapidly adjust the evaluation of a position away from zero, indicating a likely win or loss”).

from

Stockfish was slightly moobing until Leela played Qf5. An innocuous looking move that immediately sent alarm bells ringing and Stockfishes^([sic]) evaluation just kept rising.

2020 September 20, u/FMExperiment, “Stockfish beats Leela to inflict her first defeat in TCEC season 19 and remains the last undefeated engine!”, in Reddit, r/chess, archived from the original on 2022-10-22:

The time taken for an engine to boom / moob can be quite a while because that time taken is completely dependent on the hardware you're running the program on.

2020 November 27, Allure, “Big changes in engine's evaluation after considerable time”, in Stack Exchange, archived from the original on 2024-05-22:

The reverse was also won uneventfully by LEELA although the fish emotes were numerous in the chat as STOCKFISH 'moobed' to a mere 0.40 evaluation after its 25th move!

2021 May 26, Matthew Sadler, “The TCEC20 Computer Chess Superfinal: a Perspective”, in ICGA Journal, volume 43, number 1, →DOI, pages 74–87:

(intransitive, computer chess, slang) To rapidly adjust the evaluation of a position towards zero, indicating a likely draw.


moob

The latest Stockfish on my laptop finds mate in 22 in less than a minute. Do you have any examples where a boom (or moob) occurs after 2-3 minutes of evaluation?

2020 November 27, the_fox, “Big changes in engine's evaluation after considerable time”, in Stack Exchange, archived from the original on 2024-05-22:

One notable exception to the missing lines being interesting: Sometimes on a moob the sudden insight is 'I'm going to hit the 50 move rule before realizing my advantage'.

2021 January 23, Bram Cohen, “You're doing computer chess game commentary wrong”, in Medium, archived from the original on 2022-12-06:

The evaluation boom and moob continued as Stockfish headed for a queen-rook-knight vs queen-rook-knight position that looked pretty nasty to me!

2022 April 22, Matthew Sadler, “TCEC Season 22 SuperFinal: Komodo Dragon vs Stockfish”, in TCEC, archived from the original on 2022-12-13:

(computer chess, slang) An instance of moobing.


mainline

After 3 e5 the Czech Benoni Defense is created. Unlike the mainline 3 e6, which aims for tactical counterplay in the center, Black aims for solidity there. He will choose later what flank to attack on.

2006 May 7, Robert Byrne, “For Most Players, Speed Chess Is Like a Keystone Kops Melee”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2023-02-01:

Short's pragmatic approach to the match was to avoid mainline theory and the teenager's computer preparation.

2010 May 21, Leonard Barden, “Nigel Short shows benefit of experience during series with Anish Giri”, in The Guardian:

The first classical game featured a fairly mainline Nimzo-Indian Defense, with the players following one of So's October 2021 games until move 20.

2022 April 4, Luci Kelemen, “Wesley So wins third leg of FIDE Grand Prix 2022 over Nakamura”, in Dot Esports, archived from the original on 2022-12-30:

(chess) Of a sequence of opening moves: being part of a main line ("a standard sequence of opening moves considered to be best play").


mainline

mainlines (plural)
main line (alternative)

8. ...Qe7! is the mainline and Black unpins with Nc6-d8-e6 […]

2005 November 13, Malcolm Pein, “The Sunday chess column”, in The Daily Telegraph, archived from the original on 2016-07-06:


main line

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Meronym: book move

In that game, Carlsen sidestepped the main line of the Berlin Defense with 4 d4, hoping to unsettle Karjakin. That did not work, and chances were equal for most of the game.

2012 July 15, Dylan Loeb Mcclain, “Chess: Fischer and Spassky, Looking Back”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2022-06-20:

8.Qd2 is the old main line of the Poisoned Pawn from the days of Fischer and Kasparov.

2015 May 6, Malcolm Pein, “Chess prodigy Wei Yi, 15, tops the chart”, in The Daily Telegraph, archived from the original on 2020-11-08:

Adams, the No1 seed in the Isle of Man, has always favoured 3 Nd2 against the French and, when his Polish opponent, below, followed a main line, Adams was very willing to go along.

2015 October 9, Leonard Barden, “Sergey Karjakin and Peter Svidler blunder through Baku World Cup final”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 2016-09-11:

(chess) A standard sequence of opening moves considered to be best play.


main line

Caruana chose the Petroff 2 Nf3 Nf6, which used to be the weapon of choice for players aiming for a half point as Black, was relegated for some years due to the popularity of the Berlin 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6, but has returned to favour as the main line Berlin with an early queen swap has been outmoded by 4 d3.

2018 January 19, Leonard Barden, “Chess: Magnus Carlsen falls away from leading pack at Wijk aan Zee”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 2022-11-29:


chessman

Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man beside him.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 27”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:


chess piece

en-noun

chess piece (countable and uncountable, plural chess pieces)

chess pieces (plural)
chesspiece (alternative)
chess-piece (alternative)

(chess) Any of the 16 white and 16 black pieces used in playing the game of chess.

gur shahu

any of the 16 white and 16 black pieces used in playing the game of chess


discovered check

discovered check (plural discovered checks)

(chess) A check by means of a discovered attack against the opponent's king.


isolani

Coined by Aron Nimzowitsch, from Italian isolano (“islander”).

(chess) A queen's pawn with no pawns of the same colour on the adjacent files.


alfil

alfils (plural)
fil (alternative)
pil (alternative)

Borrowed from Spanish alfil (“chess bishop”).

bor+

(chess) A fairy chess piece that moves two squares diagonally, leaping over any intermediary pieces.


overextend

en-verb

overextend (third-person singular simple present overextends, present participle overextending, simple past and past participle overextended)

overextends (present singular third-person)
overextending (participle present)
overextended (participle past)
overextended (past)

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(chess, transitive) To push a pawn too far, so that it becomes vulnerable to the opponent's attacks.


fool's mate

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(chess) The quickest possible checkmate in the game of chess.

ഫൂൾസ് മേറ്റ്

phūḷsŭ mēṟṟŭ


helpmate

A folk-etymological alteration of helpmeet, by reanalysis as help + mate.

(chess) A recreational problem in chess in which both sides cooperate to achieve a specific goal.


positional

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(chess) Based on long-term strategy, on gaining and exploiting small advantages, and on analyzing the larger position, rather than calculating more immediate tactics.


unpin

unpin (third-person singular simple present unpins, present participle unpinning, simple past and past participle unpinned)

unpins (present singular third-person)
unpinning (participle present)
unpinned (participle past)
unpinned (past)

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(transitive, chess) To get (a piece) out of a pin.


queening

en-noun

queening (countable and uncountable, plural queenings)

(apple): From Middle English quenynges pl, from quene (“queen”) but not completely certain.

Over 1,200 games were examined in detail and 89 queenings were identified in 70 games.

1978, American Statistical Association. Social Statistics Section, Proceedings (part 1, page 536)

(chess) The promotion of a pawn to a queen.


computer chess

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(computer games, chess) The game of chess involving a computer able to play autonomously, i.e. without human guidance.


Grandmaster

Grandmasters (plural)
grandmaster (alternative)

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(chess) A player of the highest rank, as determined by FIDE, with an Elo rating of at least 2500.

Grandmaster of the Soviet Union
Grandmaster of the Soviet Union#English

(chess, historical) Ellipsis of Grandmaster of the Soviet Union; USSR champion.


savegame

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(computing, sometimes chess) A saved game.


j'adoube

Borrowed from French j'adoube (“I adjust”), from je (“I”) + adouber (“to adjust”).

(chess) Spoken by a player before adjusting a piece on the chessboard, to indicate that he or she is not making a move in the game.


QID

Queen's Indian Defence
Queen's Indian Defence#English

(chess) Initialism of Queen's Indian Defence.


tabiya

From Arabic تَعْبِئَة (taʕbiʔa) or تَعْبِيَة (taʕbiya, “mobilization, arrangement”).

This position is a real tabiya. It frequently arises from the Queen's Gambit Declined rather than the Caro-Kann […]

2005, Sam Collins, An Attacking Repertoire for White, page 136:

This is pretty much the tabiya for this variation. You will encounter it again and again, and it can arise from numerous move orders […]

2018, Carsten Hansen, The Full English Opening, page 63:

(chess) A position in the opening of a game that occurs after a sequence of moves that is heavily standardized, and from which the players have many possible moves again.


woodpusher

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From wood + pusher, in sardonic reference to wooden chesspieces.

(chess, informal, derogatory) A bad player; an amateur.

amatööri

chess player who is not good at the game


counterplay

counterplay (countable and uncountable, plural counterplays)

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Milov might have tried 15 ... b4 to give himself some counterplay on the queenside.

2007 January 7, Dylan Loeb Mcclain, “After a Detour, Nakamura, 19, Is Back to His Winning Ways”, in New York Times:

(chess) A counterattack in a different part of the board.


strongpoint

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(chess) A heavily defended square on the chessboard.


antipositional

en-adj

antipositional (comparative more antipositional, superlative most antipositional)

more antipositional (comparative)
most antipositional (superlative)

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(chess) Not positional; not in the spirit of long-term strategic, positional play.


OCB

(chess) Initialism of opposite-colored bishop.


touch move

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(chess) The rule, in chess, that a piece touched must be moved or captured if possible.


blind tiger

(shogi) A piece that can move one step in any direction except forward, used in chu shogi and larger shogi variants.


Bogo-Indian Defence

From the name of Grandmaster Efim Bogoljubov and Indian Defence.

(chess) A chess opening, a form of Indian Defence, characterised by the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4+.


hypermodern

hypermodern (comparative more hypermodern, superlative most hypermodern)

more hypermodern (comparative)
most hypermodern (superlative)

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(chess) Of or pertaining to hypermodernism.


hypermodernism

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(chess) A school of thought which advocates controlling the centre of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, thus inviting the opponent to occupy the centre with pawns which can then become objects of attack.


nine-timer

(Scrabble) A word that covers two triple-word squares, so that the overall value of the letters is multiplied by nine.


triple-triple

triple-triples (plural)
triple triple (alternative)

(Scrabble) A word that covers two word counts triple squares, so that the overall value of the letters is multiplied by nine.


blitz chess

What I had played was chess. Specially, I knocked out some 2,000 games of speed (or "blitz") chess in the two months leading up to the tournament. In fact, I played so much that I'm currently in the top half-percent of more than 1.3 million of blitz players at an online chess competition site.

2013 June 24, Mark Samuelian, “Speed Chess Changed My Brain”, in The Atlantic:

If there’s still no winner, the players move on two games of blitz chess. There, each player is limited to only five minutes, with three seconds added after each move. If there is no winner, they play a further two games of blitz chess.

2018 November 27, Kabir Chibber, “What will happen on the final day of the World Chess Championship”, in Quartz:

Muzychuk, 27, is the reigning women’s world champion in both rapid and blitz chess.

2017 December 28, Des Bieler, “Chess champion refuses to defend titles in Saudi Arabia to protest treatment of women”, in The Washington Post:

(chess) Chess played at a quick time control, with each side getting about five minutes to make their moves. Blitz chess is played at a variety of time controls, primarily 3+0 (three minutes per side), 3+2 (three minutes per side plus two extra seconds per move), 5+0, and 5+3.


gold general

(shogi) A piece in shogi that can move one step forward, back, sideways or diagonally forward.


silver general

(shogi) A piece in shogi that can move one step in any diagonal direction or straight forward.


Elo

Elos (plural)
elo (alternative)
ELO (alternative misspelling)

From Hungarian Élő, from élő. As a rating system, named after its creator Arpad Elo (1903–1992).

named-after

(chess, other games) Ellipsis of Elo rating.


`num`

Derived from the abbreviation lb for Latin libra (“pound”), via the medieval convention of indicating abbreviations with a bar, ℔.

PTERION#

(Scrabble) In English-language Scrabble, indicates that a word is only found in the British accepted word list and not the North American list.


pawnless

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a pawnless endgame


chesspiece

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Sacrifice is one of the essential metaphors of the Trilogy, and here, the sacrifice of the chesspiece foreshadows that John Grady will later give his life in avenging the death of the woman he loves.

2000, Rick Wallach, Myth, legend, dust: critical responses to Cormac McCarthy:

The Queen, for instance, is termed the " strongest," or the ** most powerful" of the chesspieces

2008, Franklin Knowles Young, Chess Strategetics Illustrated:

This tower [Torre de Belem] resembling an oversized chesspiece is another architectural wonder of the same era

2008 November 13, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 hours in Lisbon:

(chess) Alternative spelling of chess piece.


retractor

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(chess) A chess puzzle in which a number of moves are retracted and the solver is challenged to reach an alternate outcome.


tablebase

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(chess) A computerized database that contains precalculated exhaustive analysis of a chess endgame position, typically used by a computer chess engine during play.


reflexmate

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(chess) A chess puzzle in which white, moving first, must force black to deliver checkmate within a specified number of moves.


QGD

Queen's Gambit Declined
Queen's Gambit Declined#English

(chess) Initialism of Queen's Gambit Declined.


underpromotion

en-noun

underpromotion (usually uncountable, plural underpromotions)

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(chess) Promotion of a pawn to a piece other than a queen.


book up

en-verb

book up (third-person singular simple present books up, present participle booking up, simple past and past participle booked up)

books up (present singular third-person)
booking up (participle present)
booked up (participle past)
booked up (past)

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There would be more extraordinary clock goings on in the big game of the day, Aronian-Firouzja, which began by giving a partial answer to the question of what Alireza Firouzja had been doing for the last five months. He’d been booking up on some old theory!

2022 May 8, Colin McGourty, “Superbet Classic 3: Aronian’s great escape, Deac beats Rapport”, in Chess24:

(chess, slang) To study opening lines in great detail in order to gain an advantage.


Closed Game

en-noun

Closed Game (countable and uncountable, plural Closed Games)

(uncountable, chess) A chess opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 d5, in which both White and Black move their queen's pawn to the fourth rank with their first move.

(countable, chess) Any of the openings which begin in this way. (Queen's Gambit, Stonewall Attack, etc.)


scholar's mate

First named and described in The Royall Game of Chesse-Play, a 1656 text by the English author Francis Beale.

(chess) The checkmate which occurs shortly after the opening, when the white queen checkmates by taking the black pawn on f7 (or the black queen taking the white pawn on f2), protected by a bishop on c4 (or c5).

ضَرْبَة الرَاعِي

checkmate which occurs after the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qxf7#

സ്കോളർസ് മേറ്റ്

skōḷaṟsŭ mēṟṟŭ


countergambit

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(chess) A defence involving the use of the black-piece gambit in response to the white-piece gambit.


waiting move

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(chess) A move that is not tactical except in that it puts the burden to move on the opposing player.


tile tracking

(Scrabble) The act of keeping track of which letters have been played, usually by crossing them off a printed list.


zeitnot

zeitnot (usually uncountable, plural zeitnots)

Unadapted borrowing from German Zeitnot (literally “need of time”)

ubor

Unfortunately I didn't work it out in my zeitnot.

2010 August 1, Matan Prilleltensky, “Learning From Your Losses”, in U.S. Chess Federation, retrieved 2012-02-11:

(chess) time trouble, time pressure, a situation where a player has little time to complete the required moves


trappy

en-adj

trappy (comparative trappier, superlative trappiest)

trappier (comparative)
trappiest (superlative)

(chess) Of an opening, having many traps that can be played against opponents unfamiliar with the lines.


underpromote

en-verb

underpromote (third-person singular simple present underpromotes, present participle underpromoting, simple past and past participle underpromoted)

underpromotes (present singular third-person)
underpromoting (participle present)
underpromoted (participle past)
underpromoted (past)

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(chess, transitive) To promote (a pawn that has crossed the board) to a less powerful piece than a queen, which is sometimes strategically useful.


selfmate

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(chess) A chess problem in which the white player, moving first, must force the black player to deliver checkmate within a specified number of moves.


QRP

queen's rook's pawn
queen's rook's pawn#English

(chess) Initialism of queen's rook's pawn.


uncastled

White's uncastled King is now in great danger because of the threat of a discovered check.

1994, Max Euwe, Walter Meiden, Chess Master Vs. Chess Amateur, page 87:

(chess) Not having performed the castling move.


WFM

(chess) Initialism of Woman FIDE Master.


Maróczy bind

Maróczy binds (plural)
Maróczy Bind (alternative)

Named after the Hungarian Grandmaster Géza Maróczy.

(chess) A pawn formation, primarily played against the Sicilian Defence, characterized by white pawns on c4 and e4, with White's d-pawn having been exchanged for Black's c-pawn.


passed pawn

(chess) A pawn that has passed beyond enemy pawns on its own or adjacent files, and that hence has a clear run to the first or eighth rank.


crosstable

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(chess) An arrangement of the results of every game in a tournament in tabular form.


quickplay

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(chess) A style of play in which each player has a fixed amount of time available to make all moves.


quiet move

(chess) A move that does not attack or capture an enemy piece.


discovered attack

en-noun

discovered attack (plural discovered attacks)

(chess) An attack revealed when one piece moves out of the way of another.


pawn chain

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(chess) A locked diagonal formation of pawns, each one supported by a friendly pawn diagonally behind and blocked by an enemy pawn directly ahead.


Caro-Kann Defence

Named after Horatio Caro and Marcus Kann.

(chess) A chess opening characterized by the moves 1.e4 c6, in which the white king's pawn advances two squares and the black king's bishop's pawn advances one square.


centipawn

(computer chess) One hundredth of the value of a pawn, especially for calculation purposes in computer chess.


smothered mate

smothered mates (plural)
smother mate (alternative)

(chess) A checkmate, delivered by a knight, in which the mated king is unable to move because he is surrounded (or smothered) by his own pieces.


Alekhine's Defence

(chess) A chess opening characterized by the moves e4 Nf6.


algebraic notation

algebraic notation (usually uncountable, plural algebraic notations)

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notação algébrica

a method for recording chess moves using letters and numbers

(chess) A method for recording and describing the moves in a game of chess which employs a single uppercase letter for each piece and a letter-number coordinate for each square.


Double King's Pawn Opening

Double King's Pawn Opening (uncountable)


relative pin

(chess) A pin in which moving away the pinned piece would allow capture of a piece other than the king.


absolute pin

(chess) A pin in which moving away the pinned piece would illegally expose the king to check.


partial pin

(chess) A pin where a rook or queen is pinned along a file, or a bishop or queen is pinned along a diagonal.


advanced pawn

(chess) A pawn that is on the opponent's side of the board (the fifth rank or higher).


backward pawn

(chess) A pawn that is unable to advance without being threatened by an enemy pawn and is not defensible by pawns of the same color.


doubled pawn

(chess) A pawn that is on the same file as a friendly pawn.


isolated pawn

(chess) A pawn that has no friendly pawn on an adjacent file.


connected pawn

(chess) Any of the pawns in a group of pawns of the same color on adjacent files.


bad bishop

(chess) A bishop that is blocked by the player's own pawns.


tall pawn

Humorous construction that alludes to both the larger height of a bishop compared to a pawn, and the worthlessness of such a bishop blocked by its own pawns.


good bishop

(chess) A bishop that has high mobility.


rook's pawn

(chess) A pawn on the rook's file; i.e., the a-file or h-file.


knight's pawn

(chess) A pawn on the knight's file; i.e., the b-file or g-file.


bishop's pawn

(chess) A pawn on the bishop's file; i.e., the c-file or f-file.


queen's pawn

(chess) A pawn on the queen's file; i.e., the d-file.


queen's rook's pawn

queen's rook's pawn (plural queen's rook's pawns)

(chess) A rook's pawn on the queenside; i.e., a pawn on the a-file.


queen's knight's pawn

queen's knight's pawn (plural queen's knight's pawns)

(chess) A knight's pawn on the queenside; i.e., a pawn on the b-file.


queen's bishop's pawn

queen's bishop's pawn (plural queen's bishop's pawns)

(chess) A bishop's pawn on the queenside; i.e., a pawn on the c-file.


king's bishop's pawn

king's bishop's pawn (plural king's bishop's pawns)

(chess) A bishop's pawn on the kingside; i.e., a pawn on the f-file.


king's knight's pawn

king's knight's pawn (plural king's knight's pawns)

(chess) A knight's pawn on the kingside; i.e., a pawn on the g-file.


king's rook's pawn

king's rook's pawn (plural king's rook's pawns)

(chess) A rook's pawn on the kingside; i.e., a pawn on the h-file.


open file

(chess) A file with no pawns of either color situated on it.


half-open file

(chess) A file with only pawns of one color situated on it.


closed file

(chess) A file with pawns of both colors situated on it.


central pawn

(chess) A pawn on the e-file (a king's pawn) or on the d-file (a queen's pawn).


fifty-move rule

(chess) A rule in professional chess that a player may declare the game to be a draw after 50 consecutive moves by each side without any capture or pawn movement, usually invoked during an inconclusive endgame.


pawn island

(chess) A group of pawns of the same color side by side, without any pawn of the same color diagonally adjacent to them.


pawn storm

(chess) A tactic in which several pawns are moved in rapid succession toward the opponent's defenses.


pawn race

(chess) A situation where both opponents are pushing (moving forward) a passed pawn in an effort to be the first to promote.


perpetual check

perpetual check (countable and uncountable, plural perpetual checks)

(chess) A draw forced by one player by putting the opponent's king in a potentially infinite series of checks.


poisoned pawn

poisoned pawns (plural)
poison pawn (alternative)

(chess) An unprotected pawn whose capture would be a losing move for the capturing player.


tripled pawn

(chess) A pawn that is on the same file as two friendly pawns.


wrong rook pawn

wrong rook pawn (plural wrong rook pawns)

(chess) In the endgame, a rook pawn that is unable to promote under the protection of a bishop, because the promoting square is of the color the single friendly bishop cannot control.


touch-move rule

(chess) The rule stating that, if a player intentionally touches a piece when it is their turn, they must move or capture the piece if it is legal to do so.


takeback

takeback (countable and uncountable, plural takebacks)

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(chess) The withdrawal of the previous move, as in practice games.


zwischenschach

(chess, rare) A zwischenzug that is a check.


chii

(mahjong) A call for forming a run of three consecutive tiles of the same suit using a discarded tile.

上

mahjong: a call for a set of three consecutive tiles


dead wall

(mahjong) A section of the wall from which tiles are not normally drawn.


Grob's attack

Named after Swiss chess player Henri Grob (1904–1974), who used and analyzed it extensively.

(chess) An unconventional chess opening in which White immediately moves the king knight's pawn two squares ahead.


alfin

From Middle English awfyn, alphyn, aufyn, etc., from Middle French alfin, from Old Spanish alfil, arfil, from Arabic الفِيل (al-fīl, “the elephant”).


problemist

(chess) One who composes chess problems for other players to attempt to solve.


Pirc Defence

Named after the Slovenian grandmaster Vasja Pirc.

(chess) An opening characterised by Black responding to 1.e4 with 1...d6 and 2...Nf6, followed by ...g6 and ...Bg7, while allowing White to establish an impressive-looking centre with pawns on d4 and e4.


robot chess

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(computer games, chess) The game of chess involving a robot able to play with physical pieces autonomously, i.e. without human guidance.


premove

Kasparov's loss to Caruana was a tragedy in a winning position. He wanted to trade queens by Qe4-c2, but a mouse slip landed the queen on d3. He tried to drag it to c2, which the computer registered as a premove that fatally lost a bishop. "Computers hate me!" said Kasparov, who famously lost to IBM Deep Blue in 1997.

2020 September 15, Leonard Barden, “Technical hazard trips up Kasparov as Carlsen and Nakamura battle to a tie”, in Financial Times, archived from the original on 2022-12-04:

Bortnyk's lead was never really in doubt and he converted game after game with brisk speed as premoves flew across the board by both players. Nothing seemed to click for Robson as even critical premoves seemed all too often to be mistimed: […]

2022 March 11, Anthony Levin, “Bullet Chess Championship Losers Round 2: Bortnyk, Erigaisi, Jacobson, Martinez Advance”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 2022-03-16:

Premove — In online chess games, setting a piece to move automatically after an opponent moves.

[2022 June 13, Isaac Aronow, “Chess Terms and Vocabulary”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2023-01-17:

(Internet chess) On certain chess websites: a move set during the opponent's turn which is played automatically (if possible) after the opponent has made their move, done in order to save time in predictable positions.


premove

en-verb

premove (third-person singular simple present premoves, present participle premoving, simple past and past participle premoved)

premoves (present singular third-person)
premoving (participle present)
premoved (participle past)
premoved (past)

Game 18 was another up-and-down affair. First, Esipenko dropped a full rook, which went unpunished as Sarana had probably premoved his reply.

2019 June 12, Peter Doggers, “Junior Speed Chess: Sarana Beats Esipenko”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 2022-11-08:

The second game was drawn. In the third, a bit of drama happened: in a position that was somewhere between equality and a slight advantage to White, Nakamura, by misclicking or premoving or for whatever other reason, hung a piece to a one-move tactic.

2021 October 3, Yuriy Krykun, “Champions Chess Tour Finals Day 1: Carlsen Impressive In Opener”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 2022-11-27:


Toiletgate

(informal, chess) A 2006 controversy around the World Chess Championship, in which Vladimir Kramnik was accused by his opponent's manager of visiting the toilet suspiciously frequently during games, with implications of cheating.


brinkmate

en-noun

brinkmate (countable and uncountable, plural brinkmates)

From brink + mate. First attested in the British Shogi magazine in 1983.

(shogi, chess) A situation in which an indefensible checkmate sequence will be created by the player's next move.


threatmate

threatmate (countable and uncountable, plural threatmates)

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(shogi, chess) A situation in which a checkmate sequence will be created by the player's next move but can be thwarted with a proper defense.


elephant trap

From elephant + trap, alluding to the fact that a trap for an elephant needs to be quite large, and so ought to be easily seen.

ref

From the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.

Queen's Gambit Declined
Queen's Gambit Declined

(chess) Often in the form Elephant Trap: a faulty attempt by White to win a pawn in a popular variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined, which is generally only effective against inexperienced players.

parany de l'elefant

(chess) faulty attempt by White to win a pawn


crazyhouse

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(chess) A variant of chess, similar to bughouse chess but with only two players, allowing a player to place captured pieces back on the board as his/her own.


Alekhine's gun

(chess) A formation in which a queen backs up two rooks on the same file.


bullet chess

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Carlsen also has been engaging in online marathons of "bullet chess," exactly the kind of attention-disrupting, energy-draining stunt contenders are supposed to avoid. In a bullet game, each player has only one minute for all the moves. The pace is so rapid the games are hard to watch, much less play.

2021 November 24, Tyler Cowen, “Chess Is an Esport Now. Get Used to It.”, in The Washington Post:

Carlsen often plays faster games such as "bullet chess" that force players to move quickly and instinctively rather than sink into analysis, and has even backed changing the format for championships.

2021 November 26, John Gapper, “Chess faces stalemate in its match with machines”, in Financial Times:

(chess, Internet) Chess played at an extremely fast time control, with each side getting one minute (or occasionally slightly more) to make their moves.


Bucholz

It was now obvious that Mark had played the strongest opposition, moving well ahead of everyone else on Bucholz points (the total scores of his opponents) as well as on Sonnenbom-Berger points.

1977, Chess Life & Review - Volume 32, Issues 1-6, page 211:

The Hungarian and the Soviet teams had 39 points each; and according to the Bucholz count the Soviet Union was the winner.

1981, Hungarian Digest - Issues 2-6, page 93:

I have seen two Bulgarians drag out their last round game until long after other players had finished in order to have time to calculate who has the best Bucholz (sum of opponents scores) and hence the ideal result for their total prize.

1991, Chess - Volume 56, Issue 7 - Volume 57, Issue 7, page 24:

(chess) The sum of the scores of all opponents in a competition.


remote passed pawn

en-noun

remote passed pawn (plural remote passed pawns)

(chess) A passed pawn that is too far away from the enemy king to be caught by it before queening.


dabbaba

Borrowed from Arabic دَبَّابَة (dabbāba, “a kind of siege engine”).

bor+

(chess) A fairy chess piece that jumps two squares orthogonally (i.e. not diagonally), leaping over any intermediate piece.


rookless

(chess) Without rooks (the chess pieces).


rook lift

(chess) A tactic in which a rook is moved off the back rank to a position past its pawns.


Staunton piece

(chess) A form of chess piece now mandated for most chess competitions which were first designed by Nathaniel Cook and sold in 1849 and named for Howard Staunton, the best player of the time


QGA

(chess) The Queen's Gambit Accepted opening.


side mover

From side + mover. Calque of Japanese 横行 (ōgyō), which is composed of 横 (“side”) and 行 (“to go”).

(shogi) A shogi piece, used in chu shogi and larger variants, which has range movement to the sides and can take one step forward or back.


castler

From castle + -er (patient suffix) or + -er (agent noun suffix).

(chess, informal) A chess problem whose solution involves castling.


Spanish Torture

(chess, colloquial, humorous) Synonym of Ruy Lopez.


Queen's Gambit Declined

(chess) A chess opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6.


blanagram

Blend of blank + anagram, from the use of the blank tile to represent any letter.

PHYLETIC and VELOCITY are blanagrams of LIPOCYTE.

(Scrabble) A word which is an anagram of another but for the substitution of a single letter.


colourbound

The bishop is a colourbound piece.

(chess) Able to access only squares of one colour (either black or white).


priyome

Borrowed from Russian приём (prijóm, “reception, admission, method”).

bor

(chess) tactics that depend on pawn structure


royal fork

(chess) A move in which a piece or pawn attacks the opposing king and queen simultaneously.


queening square

en-noun

queening square (plural queening squares)

(chess) A square on the first or eighth rank which a pawn may reach in order to become a queen (or other major piece).


Plachutta

From Joseph Plachutta, who first identified this tactic.

(chess) A sacrificial move in chess which is played with the intention of fatally interfering with the opponent's combination attacking or defensive position.


mouse slip

(computer chess) An unintentional mouseclick due to jittery or imprecise movement of a mouse.


mouse slip

en-verb

mouse slip (third-person singular simple present mouse slips, present participle mouse slipping, simple past and past participle mouse slipped)

mouse slips (present singular third-person)
mouse slipping (participle present)
mouse slipped (participle past)
mouse slipped (past)


time control

(especially chess) A mechanism in the tournament play of two-player board games in which each player has a set amount of time per game; the specific parameters of such a mechanism.

Bedenkzeit

mechanism in which each player has a set amount of time

Smyslov was a piece up against him with two moves to go before time control when he missed three winning lines and drew.

2014, Andrew Soltis, Soviet Chess 1917-1991, page 243:

(chess) A point in the game in which the parameters of the time limits increase, especially in classical chess.


over-the-board

It is extremely difficult to prove cheating in over-the-board chess and there is no evidence of wrongdoing on Niemann’s part at the event.

2022 September 7, Sean Ingle, “Magnus Carlsen leaves Sinquefield Cup amid Niemann chess ‘cheating’ furore”, in The Guardian:

(chess, of a match) Taking place in person with players facing each other across the chessboard, as opposed to correspondence games, online tournaments, etc.


tenuki

(go, shogi) playing elsewhere; ignoring the opponent's last move.


blitz out

blitz out (third-person singular simple present blitzes out, present participle blitzing out, simple past and past participle blitzed out)

blitzes out (present singular third-person)
blitzing out (participle present)
blitzed out (participle past)
blitzed out (past)

Alexander Grishchuk provided the much-needed fireworks on the board, as six out of nine of his games were decisive. The Russian is well known for giving his fans a heart attack by blitzing out moves in the final seconds of time control and if he hadn't been a chess player, my best guess is that he would have been in a bomb squad saving lives. It remains to be seen if Grischuk can change his timing style and do justice to his actual playing style.

2015 September 3, Pradeep, “Grand Chess Tour 2015: Levon Aronian wins the Sinquefield Cup”, in Sportskeeda:

The players blitzed out their opening moves until Carlsen played the rare 8 .... h6, a line only seen twice previously at the highest level.

2021 December 10, Bryan Armen Graham, “Magnus Carlsen retains world chess title after final Ian Nepomniachtchi blunder”, in The Guardian:

Typically in chess, the first eight to ten moves follow an established theory or line of play and top grandmasters blitz out these moves. After that, towards mid-game, it gets complicated, with far too many variables, permutations and combination. That is where human creativity, intuition, and genius comes in.

2022 September 7, Chidanand Rajghatta, “Magnus puts the magnifying glass on cheating in chess”, in The Times of India:

(chess) To play moves very quickly, as if playing blitz chess.


pawn cube

(chess, informal) A situation in which four of one player's pawns are positioned on adjacent files and adjacent ranks forming a 2×2 square.


potato opening

(chess) A variant of the Reti Opening in which white moves its queen's rook pawn to a4 on the third move (1. Nf3 d5 2. a4).


for choice

White is for choice due to his development and space advantage, but the weakened white king position gives Black some counterplay.

2014, Larry Kaufmann, Sabotage the Grunfeld!

(chess) having a nondecisive advantage; slightly winning


flight square

(chess) An unattacked square to which the king can therefore move, usually in the context of checks.


back rank

(chess) The row on the board on which the pieces (e.g. king, queen) start.


out of book

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(chess) No longer following commonly played theoretical lines analyzed in opening books; in territory unfamiliar to one or both of the players.


960 is the number of possible initial positions of Chess960.

Before a Chess960 game a starting position is randomly set up, subject to certain rules.

2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 28:

Fischer random chess
Fischer random chess#English

(chess) Synonym of Fischer random chess.


Fischer random chess

Coined by chess player Bobby Fischer in 1996.

coin

(chess) A chess variant that differs from standard chess in that the pieces on the back ranks are almost completely shuffled.


ladder mate

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The attacking pieces nudge the king one rank or file at a time, like climbing the rungs of a ladder, until reaching the edge of the board.

(chess) A checkmate pattern in which two major pieces team up to push the enemy king to one side of the board.


Arabian mate

Possibly named such because the pattern was also possible in shatranj, the Middle Eastern predecessor to chess which included rooks and knights but had many other differences.
According to various sources, the mate is described in an eighth century Arabic manuscript, but this claim could not be substantiated. The pattern, however, does appear as a solution to a position presented in an anonymous Arabic-language manuscript that was copied in 1257 (original source of material unknown).

(chess) A checkmate pattern in which a rook provides the checkmate to the cornered king while being protected by a knight that also covers the only would-be escape square.


Blind Swine Mate

en-noun

Blind Swine Mate (plural Blind Swine Mates)

Blind Swine Mates (plural)
blind swine mate (alternative)

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Coined by Dawid Janowski who referred to doubled rooks on the 7th rank as "swine".

(chess) A checkmate pattern in which the king is confined to two squares at an edge of the board and then mated by two doubled rooks.


Boden's mate

Boden's mates (plural)
Boden's Mate (alternative)

Named after Samuel Boden, who won a game in 1853 in London against unnamed strong German amateur player R. Schulder in a spectacular fashion with this pattern following a queen sacrifice.

(chess) A checkmate pattern in which two bishops on criss-crossing diagonals deliver mate while the king is boxed in from the other side, usually by friendly pieces.


epaulette mate

epaulette mates (plural)
epaulet mate (alternative)

Due to perceived visual similarity between rooks and epaulettes.

(chess) A checkmate pattern in which the losing side's king is unable to escape because its two surrounding parallel flight squares are occupied by pieces of its own color. Most commonly occurs with two rooks on the back rank.


IQP

Isolated Queen Pawn
w:Isolated Queen Pawn

(chess) Initialism of Isolated Queen Pawn.


suffocation mate

suffocation mate (plural suffocation mates)

(chess) A checkmate pattern in which a bishop "suffocates" the enemy king (by taking away its flight squares), while a knight delivers checkmate.


Cozio's mate

Named after Carlo Cozio, who published a work discussing the pattern in 1766.

(chess) A checkmate pattern in which a queen, supported by a piece of its same color, is placed diagonally adjacent to the enemy king. The two flight squares that the queen does not control are occupied by pieces of the king's own color.


David and Goliath mate

David and Goliath mate (plural David and Goliath mates)

From the biblical account of David and Goliath.

(chess) A checkmate delivered by a pawn.


back-rank mate

(chess) A checkmate delivered by a major piece along the back rank against a king whose advancement is prevented by pieces of its own color (most commonly pawns).


time scramble

(chess) A situation in which one or both players have very little remaining time on their clocks, therefore increasing the chance of inaccuracies or blunders being played as well as the risk of flagging.


only move

Andersson must accept the piece sacrifice and after doing so find a whole series of only moves.

2015, Jurgen Kaufeld, Guido Kern, Grandmaster Chess Strategy, page 141:

In such positions, failure to comply with an only move means instant death

2019, Cyrus Lakdawala, Winning Ugly in Chess:

(chess) The only move to maintain the current evaluation of the position.


resignable

en-adj

resignable (comparative more resignable, superlative most resignable)

more resignable (comparative)
most resignable (superlative)

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The ending is resignable for White, down two pawns, with nothing to show for it.

2015, Cyrus Lakdawala, 1…b6: Move by Move:


castle long

en-verb

castle long (third-person singular simple present castles long, present participle castling long, simple past and past participle castled long)

castles long (present singular third-person)
castling long (participle present)
castled long (participle past)
castled long (past)


castle short

castle short (third-person singular simple present castles short, present participle castling short, simple past and past participle castled short)

castles short (present singular third-person)
castling short (participle present)
castled short (participle past)
castled short (past)


bite on granite

bite on granite (third-person singular simple present bites on granite, present participle biting on granite, simple past bit on granite, past participle bitten on granite)

bites on granite (present singular third-person)
biting on granite (participle present)
bit on granite (past)
bitten on granite (participle past)

Bernhard von Bülow
Franco-Prussian War
Frederick the Great
German Empire
Joseph Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Reichstag
Siegbert Tarrasch

The first usage of this phrase is commonly attributed to Frederick the Great of Prussia as chronicled by Bernhard von Bülow, who was Chancellor of the German Empire from 1900 - 1909. Bülow citation of the given phrase was found in a speech to the Reichstag in late 1902 written in response to a public speech by the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain (father of WWII Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain) which criticized the German army's conduct during the Franco-Prussian War. Bülow was trying to end the debate on this matter within the Reichstag, so he said of Chamberlain: "Let the man alone, he's biting on granite!" [orig. "Lasst den Mann laufen, er beisst auf Granit!"] meaning that Chamberlain's criticism required no response because it would have no meaningful effect and the matter should be dropped. Regarding the chess-related usage of the phrase, it occurs multiple times in the last book written by Siegbert Tarrasch before his death. Titled The Game of Chess when published in English in 1987, it was first published in German in 1931 as Das Schachspiel.

Chess openings in which one fianchettos one's bishop often result in said bishop biting on granite.

(chess, of a bishop or queen) to face a diagonal occupied by two or more opposing pawns.


International Grandmaster

en-noun

International Grandmaster (plural International Grandmasters)

International Grandmasters (plural)
international grandmaster (alternative)

A book containing portraits of International Grandmasters against whom he has played has been published in Switzerland, entitled Henri Grob the Artist.

1970, The Encyclopaedia of Chess, St. Martin's Press, page 157:

International Grandmaster Bisguier was defending champion. World Junior Champion Lombardy was a strong favorite, and International Grandmaster Reshevsky even stronger.

1973, Frank Brady, Profile of a Prodigy: The Life and Games of Bobby Fischer, Revised edition, David Mckay Company, page 20:

2010, Robert Epstein, Teen 2.0, Linden Publishing (Quill Driver Books), page 180,
For Americans the greatest chess legend of all time was Bobby Fischer, who became the youngest international grandmaster in history in 1958 at age fifteen and who eventually (in 1972) became World Champion in a celebrated bout with the Soviet Union's legendary Boris Spassky.

He earned the title of International Grandmaster in 1957 and appeared on the first USCF rating list (1950) with a rating of 2394.

2016, Alex Dunne, The United States Junior Open Chess Championship, 1946-2016, McFarland & Company, page 13:

(chess) Synonym of Grandmaster; the highest rank of chess player.


knightmare

16...Nbxd5? The wrong knight captures, which leads to a knightmare for Black.

2020 March 11, Isaak Linder, Vladimir Linder, Mikhail Botvinnik: Sixth World Chess Champion, SCB Distributors, →ISBN, →OCLC:

17...cxd5? 18 ♘b5 is obviously a “knightmare” for Black.

2020 November 17, Thomas Engqvist, 300 Most Important Chess Positions, Batsford, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 138:

(chess, humorous, informal) A figurative nightmare involving a knight, e.g. a crushing knight move or a hopeless situation involving a knight.


hope chess

No Hope Chess – do not place a piece on these squares hoping that your opponent will do something dumb.

2010, Joel Johnson, Formation Attacks, →ISBN, page 245:

I have told many a kiddie not to play 'hope chess'. The term, coined by my good friend Hall-of-Fame Grandmaster John Fedorowicz, suggests that you should play moves you will be comfortable with if your opponent makes the best reply.

2018, Joel Benjamin, Better Thinking, Better Chess, →ISBN, page 190:

I've been doing something that Coach Shawn calls “hope chess.” That's when you just play any move and hope it works. Pretty soon I find out that it really doesn't work.

2020, Tanitoluwa Adewumi, My Name Is Tani … and I Believe in Miracles Young Readers Edition, Thomas Nelson, →ISBN, page 95:

It is not too late for the Candidate Master to regroup, but waiting for your opponent to make a blunder is hope chess and usually does not work well.

2020, Alex Dunne, How to Become a Candidate Master: A Practical Guide to Take Your Chess to the Next Level, New In Chess, →ISBN:

(chess) Play that relies on hoping one's opponent blunders or does not find a tactic.


supergrandmaster

I'm running two fine victories by Gligoric over two of the better U.S. international masters — Bernard Zuckerman and Norman Weinstein. In both it’s easy to see why a supergrandmaster can beat international masters on most occasions.

1975, The Daily Colonist (1975-05-25), University of Victoria, page 18:

But only, of course, away from the board. There, nothing tells except talent. Chess is, I believe, unique in that it has no element of chance or luck at all; he who plays the better move wins, every time. Incidentally, I say ‘he’, because although there are some formidably powerful women players today, particularly from Georgia, for some inexplicable reason, none has yet established herself among the supergrandmasters.

1988, Bernard Levin, All Things Considered, J. Cape, →ISBN, page 173:

Hungarian supergrandmaster Lajos Portisch once gave a recital of songs on Hungarian radio; and at the Wijk aan Zee 1990 tournament sang Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’, accompanied by IM Bouwmeester.

1993, Mike Fox, Richard James, The Even More Complete Chess Addict, Faber, →ISBN, page 264:

(rare, chiefly chess) A particular grandmaster whose proficiency in chess or in general is notably greater than that of average grandmasters.


KID

King's Indian Defence
King's Indian Defence#English

(chess) Initialism of King's Indian Defence.


WGM

(countable, chess) Initialism of Woman Grandmaster.


WIM

Woman International Master
w:Woman International Master

(countable, chess) Initialism of Woman International Master.


WCM

Woman Candidate Master
w:Woman Candidate Master

(countable, chess) Initialism of Woman Candidate Master.


classical chess

All good things must come to an end, and so it was that Magnus Carlsen's record-breaking streak without defeat in classical chess was halted by Jan-Krzysztof Duda on Saturday.

2020 October 12, George Ramsay, “Magnus Carlsen's 125-game unbeaten streak ended by Jan-Krzysztof Duda”, in CNN:

The problem is not that computers have replaced people, but that they have curtailed their space for adventure, especially in "classical" chess played under long time limits at championship level. Players always arrived for tournaments well prepared, but they now use software as well as human analysis to predict lines long past the opening.

2021 November 26, John Gapper, “Chess faces stalemate in its match with machines”, in Financial Times:

(chess) Chess played at a slow time control, with games taking up to several hours (the most common format at professional tournaments).


rapid chess

Carlsen won his last championship in 2016 by winning the last two rapid-chess games when it went to the final day. And the World Chess Federation ranks him number one at rapid chess.

2018 November 27, Kabir Chibber, “What will happen on the final day of the World Chess Championship”, in Quartz:

(chess) Chess played at a relatively quick time control, with each side getting about 15 minutes to make their moves.


ultrabullet chess

(chess, Internet, rare) Alternative form of ultrabullet.


ultrabullet

At the tender age of 20, Penguingm1 is already one of the best hyperbullet and ultrabullet chess players in the world.

2020 October 1, Aaron Alford, “Cloud9 signs grandmaster chess player Penguingm1”, in Dot Esports:

Firouzja’s surprise loss to Fedoseev this week was partly attributed to his preference for 1+0 bullet without the one second per move increment. And there are plenty who consider even 1+0 bullet too slow, and prefer to play hyperbullet, 30 seconds, or ultrabullet, 15 seconds for the entire game without increment.

2020 November 6, Leonard Barden, “Chess: Magnus Carlsen showcases his bullet skills with 11 straight wins”, in The Guardian:

Nakamura is a deadly performer at time rates ranging from 25-minute rapid right down to online "ultrabullet", where each player has 15 seconds for the entire game.

2021 August 18, “Nakamura unbeaten for 27 games; Sinquefield Cup starts in St Louis”, in Financial Times:

(chess, Internet) Chess played at an extremely fast time control, with each side getting 15 seconds to make their moves.


hyperbullet chess

(chess, Internet, rare) Alternative form of hyperbullet.


hyperbullet

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(chess, Internet) Chess played at an extremely fast time control, with each side getting 30 seconds to make their moves.


draw death

The memorization of opening theory and the intensive study of an opponent's oeuvre so dominate the modern game that when two grand masters square off, the first twenty moves unfold like a stale sitcom plot. Players often lament that "draw death" is killing the game.

2002 December 2, Rene Chun, “Bobby Fischer’s Pathetic Endgame”, in The Atlantic:

Artificial intelligence has heightened chess’s old fear of "draw death", where the game is analysed to the degree that wins disappear.

(chess) The phenomenon of draws becoming more prevalent among professional chess players, potentially leading to a loss of popular interest in competitive chess.


International Master

International Master (plural International Masters)

(chess) A chess player of high ability but below the level of Grandmaster, as determined by FIDE.


booked up

en-adj

booked up (comparative more booked up, superlative most booked up)

more booked up (comparative)
most booked up (superlative)

This line is not by any stretch of the imagination considered a critical line, but it does take the players out of mainstream theory, where Giri typically is hardcore booked up.

2022 March 11, Carsten Hansen, “2022 FIDE Grand Prix Belgrade Semifinals Day 2: Rapport Magic”, in Chess:

Not only that, he managed to get the incredibly well-booked up US-Cuban star out of book on move 8, and then to give checkmate.

2022 July 21, Colin McGourty, “Zagreb GCT 1: Firouzja leads as new chess era begins”, in Chess24:

(chess, slang) Extremely knowledgeable in a particular opening as a result of intensive study.


clock move

(chess) A variant rule in chess in which a move is not considered final until the player touches the clock, as opposed to the standard touch move rule.


anti-Sicilian

(chess) Countering the Sicilian Defense.


patzerish

patzerish (comparative more patzerish, superlative most patzerish)

more patzerish (comparative)
most patzerish (superlative)

Ng4!? would be too direct (patzerish) […]

2016, Andras Adorjan, Black is Back!: What's White's Advantage Anyway?, New in Chess, →ISBN, page 145:

(chess, informal, derogatory) Characteristic of a patzer; indicating a lack of skill; amateurish.


Giuoco Piano

From Italian Giuoco Piano, from giuoco+piano.


Benko Gambit

Promoted by Hungarian-American grandmaster Pal Benko, who provided many new suggestions and published his book The Benko Gambit in 1974.

(chess) A chess opening characterized by the moves 3...b5 in the Benoni Defence.


Gibbins-Weidenhagen Gambit

Named after Stanley Gibbins, an English player from Derby who played the gambit by mail in the 1960s, and Rolf Weidenhagen, a German player, from a comment in 1960 that Weidenhagen had played the gambit.

(chess) A chess gambit arising from the Indian Game characterized by the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.g4.


Mieses-Kotrč Variation

Scandinavian Defense
Scandinavian Defence

(chess) A chess opening variation arising from the Scandinavian Defense characterized by the moves 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5.


igui

Borrowed from Japanese 居食(いぐ)い (igui, “living in idleness; idle feeding”).

ja-r

(shogi) In shogi variants, a type of move in which a piece captures an opposing piece without moving.


Zilbermints-Benoni Gambit

(chess) A very uncommon and unpracticed chess opening gambit characterized by the moves 1.d4 c5 2.b4.


Staunton Gambit

en-noun

Staunton Gambit (plural Staunton Gambits)

(chess) A chess opening gambit characterized by the moves 1.d4 f5 2.e4.


Shaviliuk Gambit

Queen's Pawn Opening
Queen's Pawn Opening#Noun

Chigorin Variation
Chigorin Variation#Noun

(chess) An uncommon chess opening gambit arising from the Queen's Pawn Opening: Chigorin Variation characterized by the moves 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 e5.


opening book

Chess opening book
Chess opening book (computers)

(chess, literally) A book describing chess openings or giving general opening advice.


book move

The researchers only considered the phase between move 10 and move 100 to rule out most of the "book moves" and didn't consider games that lasted fewer than 20 moves.

2020 October 21, Peter Doggers, “Top Chess Players Peak Between 35 and 45, Research Shows”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 2022-12-09:

Book move — A standard or conventional move. Not to be confused with a "text move."

[2022 June 13, Isaac Aronow, “Chess Terms and Vocabulary”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2023-01-17:

(chess) An opening move considered to be the best play; a move in a main line.


in book

The Sicilian opening was wild, but the speed of play made it clear both players were "in book", up to a point.

2022 January 21, Colin McGourty, “Tata Steel 5: Rapport & Mamedyarov hit the front”, in chess24, archived from the original on 2022-05-19:

Wesley So had prepared a line with a temporary pawn sacrifice against Praggnanandhaa and both players appeared to be in book for a long time.

2023 January 19, Mark Crowther, “Giri overtakes Abdusattorov in a dramatic final round of the Tata Steel Masters to grab his first title”, in The Week in Chess, archived from the original on 2023-02-01:

(chess, uncommon) Of a chess player: following a main line ("a standard sequence of opening moves considered to be best play").


outbook

en-verb

outbook (third-person singular simple present outbooks, present participle outbooking, simple past and past participle outbooked)

outbooks (present singular third-person)
outbooking (participle present)
outbooked (participle past)
outbooked (past)

Then on move 13, Deep Thought II surprisingly found itself outbooked and in a difficult position.

2013, Monty Newborn, Deep Blue: An Artificial Intelligence Milestone, page 76:

(transitive, chess) To surpass in one's knowledge of book moves.


komadai

(shogi) A stand for holding captured Shogi pieces.


NNUE

Coined by Japanese computer scientist Yu Nasu in 2018 as an inversion of "Efficiently Updateable Neural Network" (stylized as ƎUИИ).

coinage

(computer chess) A type of neural network able to run on a CPU, trained to evaluate a board game (usually chess or shogi) position.


weakie

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-weakie.wav

And now we enter the real chess arena, where, haughty about ratings, everybody has only one thought in mind: to win — to pile up plaudits against the county grader's autumnal assessment. And to this end we all hope for a weaker opponent, but in the tournaments there are no outright weakies.

2010, John Healy, Coffeehouse Chess Tactics: An Astonishing Trip Into the World of Competitive Chess, Alkmaar, Netherlands: New In Chess, page 17:

(especially chess and poker, rare) An unskilled player.


Life Master

(chess) A player holding a master's rating of over 2200 for at least 300 tournament games rated by the United States Chess Federation.


millipawn

(computer chess, rare) One thousandth of the value of a pawn, especially for calculation purposes in computer chess.


tsume shogi

Borrowed from Japanese 詰将棋 (tsumeshōgi, “shogi mating problems”).

bor+

tsume-shogi (alternative)
tsumeshogi (alternative)

The average branching factor of tsume-shogi has not been calculated yet, as far as we know. The numerical results of this paper show that the average branching factor of tsume-shogi is about 5.

2001 June, Masahiro Seo, Hiroyuki Iida, Jos W.H.M. Uiterwijk, “The PN∗-search algorithm: Application to tsume-shogi”, in Artificial Intelligence, volume 129, numbers 1–2, Amsterdam: Elsevier, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 256:

(shogi) Shogi problems in which the goal is to find a forced checkmate.


mad queen chess

(chess, dated) The modern variety of chess, in which the queen can travel any number of squares in one move, as opposed to earlier varieties in which the queen was less powerful.


absolute skewer

en-noun

absolute skewer (plural absolute skewers)

In an absolute skewer, the king is involved, whereas a relative skewer does not involve the king.

2018, George Huczek, A to Z Chess Tactics: Every Chess Move Explained, Batsford, →ISBN:

(chess) A skewer in which the king is placed in check, forcing it to be moved.


relative skewer

relative skewer (plural relative skewers)

(chess) A skewer that is not an absolute skewer; a skewer that is not a skewer of the king.


French bishop

So Gary decides to open the French. Hmmm. Now that "bad French bishop" comes into the game.

1995 February 10, BradleeJ, rec.games.chess (Usenet):

As long as Black has the bad French bishop, White will be better in almost all endings.

2012, Karsten Mueller, Alex Markgraf, The Chess Puzzle Book 4, Russell Enterprises, →ISBN, page 48:

First, there will be simple game fragments, where the bishop is not completely blocked – it can move, but White blithely "ignores" the French bishop.

2018, Sergey Kasparov, chapter 8, in The Bishop: Danger on the Diagonal, Russell Enterprises, →ISBN:

light-squared bishop
light-squared bishop

(chess) The black light-squared bishop in main line of the French Defence, whose movement is restricted due to the pawns on e6 and d5.


light-squared bishop

light-squared bishop (plural light-squared bishops)

light-squared bishops (plural)
light-square bishop (alternative)

(chess) A bishop that is on a light square, and so which can only move to light squares.


King's Indian Defence

(chess) A chess opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6.


Queen's Indian Defence

(chess) A chess opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6.


Barnes Opening

After English chess master Thomas Wilson Barnes.


contempt factor

contempt factor (plural contempt factors)

(chess, uncountable) The score assigned to a draw during calculation, usually negative to discourage playing for a draw and encourage playing for a win.


time trouble

(chess) In a game played with a time control, the situation in which a player has little time to complete the required moves, thus increasing the probability of making a blunder.


deferred time

deferred time (countable and uncountable, plural deferred times)

(chess) The time when a tournament is paused due to time constraints, when a player's next move has been written down held until the tournament resumes, during which the player can examine possible play outcomes.


orthochess

/ˌɔːθəˈt͡ʃɛs/

/ˌɔːθəʊ̯ˈt͡ʃɛs/

/ˌɔɹθəˈt͡ʃɛs/

/ˌɔɹθoʊ̯ˈt͡ʃɛs/

From ortho- + chess, probably as a clipping of orthodox chess.

Problems of this sort have been exhaustively dealt with for orthochess (see A Guide to Fairy Chess, p. 39, for tables of results); Haas here presents 59 positions showing his best results for all possible moves, type A.

1974, Phillip Cohen, “Chessworld: Magazine Review”, in The Gamesletter, volume 13, number 1/2, Don Miller, page 10:

Avalanche chess is the same as orthochess, except that every move consists of two parts: (1) a normal legal chess move; and (2) pushing an opponent's pawn one square straight toward you. That's all there is to it really.

1992 June 2, Les Roselle, “What is a Nost?”, in Chess Life, volume 47, number 6, US Chess Federation, →ISBN:

In consequence, Italian domination of Progressive Chess was for many years comparable to that of Soviet domination of orthochess in times past.

2007, D. B. Pritchard, “Games using an ordinary board and men”, in The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, second edition, John Beasley, →ISBN, page 30:

(chess variants) The conventional game and rules of chess.


fairy problem

(chess) An unusual chess problem, either one not involving direct mates or involving irregular rules or pieces.


directmate

(chess) A kind of chess problem in which White, moving first, must checkmate Black within a specified number of moves against any defence.


moremover

(chess) A kind of directmate chess problem in which the solver must attain checkmate within a specified number of moves, that number being greater than three.


seriesmover

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-seriesmover.wav

(chess) A chess puzzle in which one side makes a series of moves without reply to achieve a stipulated aim, and check may not be given except on the final move.


serieshelpmate

(chess) A type of helpmate chess puzzle in which Black plays a series of moves without reply after which White plays one move to checkmate Black.


seriesmate

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-seriesmate.wav

(chess) A type of seriesmover chess puzzle that is a directmate with White playing a series of moves without reply to checkmate Black.


Russian chess

"Who's for a game at Russian chess?" inquired Glover, as they returned to the schoolroom. "The new board has been sent home and the two sets of chessmen made up. George, Walter, Gilbert, will all or any of you play?"

1870, G. Routledge and Sons (publisher), Edmund Routledge (contributor), Routledge's Magazine for Boys, page 181:

During the last three weeks we have introduced the amusement of playing a game at chess with four sets of men (called Russian chess) on our dining-table, which we turn into a board for the purpose by making square upon it.

1876, Margaret Maria Gordon, Hay Macdowall Grant Of Arndilly; His Life, Labours, and Teaching, page 122:

(chess, obsolete) A type of chess requiring four players and four sets of pieces.


Hippopotamus Defence

Hippopotamus Defence (plural Hippopotamus Defences)

Hippopotamus Defences (plural)
hippo (alternative)

(chess) A defensive opening in which a player places pawns on b6, d6, e6, and g6, brings out the knights and fianchettoes the bishops (on b7 and g7).


Latvian Gambit

Named after chess players Gioachino Greco and Kārlis Bētiņš, both of whom are from Latvia.

(chess) An Open Game characterized by the moves 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5.


correspondence chess

(chess) A form of chess where players use a remote method of communication such as the mail or the Internet to send each other their moves.


Portuguese Opening

Named in reference to chess player Pedro Damiano, who is from Portugal.

(chess) An Open Game characterised by the moves 1.e4 e5 2. Bb5.


bare king

(chess) A situation in which a king is the only piece remaining for its player.


pawn grabbing

/ˈpɔːnˌɡɹæbɪŋ/

... Pawn grabbing is the phrase used to describe the mistake of taking too much time away from your development in order to win a pawn. Chess players speak of a “poisoned” pawn, indicating that the time spent in capturing it is not worth[…]

2010 July 8, James Eade, Chess Openings For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 334:

The pawn isn't worth the tempos that you spend moving your piece(s) away from the action. Violations. however has no place in the King's Gambit and combined with some questionable pawn grabbing leads to a quick[…]

2012, Joel Johnson, Formation Attack Strategies, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 123:

(informal, chess) playstyle where a player prioritizes capturing opponents' pawns rather than focusing on overall strategy or victory conditions. Often seen as a beginner's mistake or an overly aggressive, short-sighted approach


accelerated dragon

accelerated dragon (plural accelerated dragons)

(chess) A variation of the Sicilian Defence opening in which black plays g6 on the fourth move, allowing the bishop to be fianchettoed to Bg7.


Kings Solitude

(chess, informal) A rare game state in which one player has eliminated all of the opponent’s pieces except the king. Used to describe total material dominance before delivering checkmate.


Kings Draw

(chess, informal) A game state where both players have only their kings remaining, resulting in a draw due to insufficient mating material.