Your Chess Glossary Gets You Up to Speed

Welcome to the chess glossary directory. This is where you can find definitions for any term used in chess. Chess is full of terms that you would not have heard of in everyday life.


There is tons of terminology in chess. Actually there are so many words and phrases associated that maybe they should start thinking of it as the language chess. It can overwhelm a novice or even someone who knows quite a bit about chess.


Here you can find references to any and every chess term out there. You can also see where they fit in with the basic chess rules.

Ready to deepen your grasp on chess rules? You want to understand what people are talking about with all these unfamiliar chess words and phrases? And when you're happy with the rules?


This new chess vocabulary that you are seeing everywhere will only become more important. Over and over again you're going to hit new words. You're going to be looking up meanings for these strange terms.


Wouldn't it be handy if you could look them all up in one place? One handy spot you could use as a reference until you know them all like old friends. But then again why do you need to know these words? Can't people just use plain English?

Why bother learning all this jargon? Shouldn't you just concentrate on the latest innovation in your favorite opening system? A few hours working on your tactics would surely be more productive?

Well I guess the thing is the text books are full of this kind of talk. You go online somewhere and study the games of the masters, they might be annotated for you. The experts might be explaining the game as you go through it, explaining the techniques of the great players.

They might mention things like breakthrough, compensation, counterplay, dynamic, fianchetto, minority attack, outflanking, prophylaxis, static, swindle, zugzwang or zwischenzug to name but a few. When you encounter these terms as you study, it certainly would be nice to know what they mean.

USCF





Jeremy Silman





Chess Central

Well now you're armed to the teeth with terms and definitions. Nothing can ruffle you now. You know where to come if you've been on some forum and you see someone use a term you've never seen before.


It's a good start when you're learning the rules to have a reference or two handy for those strange words. And I bet even if you've been playing for a while you will find a few words in there that you haven't seen before.


Getting to grips with terminology represents a good start. The next step on the road is to familiarize yourself with chess notation.