Recognized by gaming authorities as an attractive sport that must be played in quiet, calm and relaxed settings, chess is a board game that assesses the abilities of players to concentrate and analyze the defensive and offensive positions established by their opponents. Learning the basic rules and strategies in this exciting and challenging sport is necessary to have better chances in the game. However, it is also important that players know the equipment or materials used in playing official chess games like the chess boards.
Identifying a board that is used in this particular game is easy because the appearance of chess boards is the same with the boards used in another board game known as checkers. If we will look closely at the structure of chess boards, they are made up of 64 squares that have different and alternating colors. The light and dark squares in the boards are arranged equally in rows and columns. In many chess boards, the dark squares are usually colored dark green or brown while the light squares are usually buff. Players should always look at the size of the squares in the board since they must only use the chess boards, which square size, will fit or suit the pieces to be used in the game.
Having knowledge that the squares in chess boards are arranged in rows and columns, it is important that players know and learn the official terms used by chess players when they refer to the rows and columns in chess boards. To clearly identify or determine the rows in chess boards, players refer to the squares arranged in rows as ranks while they call the squares in columns as files.
To avoid confusions in the rows and columns in chess boards, players must have an idea that the rows in the boards are labeled with numbers that range from one to eight while the columns are tagged with letters starting from a to h. It is also necessary that arbiters put the chess board in the middle of two opposing players with row number one adjacent to the player who will use the white pieces.
Having a background on how chess boards look like, players will have an easy time dealing or learning the other aspects of the game. Being able to identify the structure of the board will help new players learn and understand chess notations which is usually used by their mentors to teach the basic moves and strategies that can be employed in the game.