Chess is a board-based game that facilitates two players to be involved in the game at once. Since the 7th century, millions of players have experienced chess around the globe. Chess has been identified as an IQ improving game due to the stratagems that are used throughout the game.
While considering the strategies that include in this game, it is essential to be familiar with its tricky and uncommon chess rules. This discussion mainly focuses on 5 such uncommon and strategical rules that you are not familiar with.
Rule #1: Threefold Repetition
Either one careless or incorrect move may cause a loss in chess. As mentioned above, yes; chess is a kind of tricky game. Understanding this rule will allow you to avoid a loss by clamming a draw. If it is assumed that the player is in a bad position and there is no other way to continue the game without a loss, the player is having a right to call a draw using threefold repetition.
In simple terms, threefold repetition is reaching the same position three times. In this case, both the pieces should not be necessarily sequential. Before using this rule there should be some conditions to be satisfied. All the other same colour pieces must remain in the exact position while the repetition takes place and the repetition move should be fully legal including capturing and avoidance of checks.
Though the repetition is done it does not consider as a draw until it is claimed by the player who used threefold repetition. The player can claim the draw by hitting the clock by mentioning the intention, but it should be done before the opponent player’s move. The only affecting factor for this rule is the position, even if the pieces of the same type are interchangeable, it can still be considered as a threefold repetition. For example, two knights can be interchanged while maintaining the repetition of the position.
Threefold repetition was stated as a rule to avoid the game moving forward with no progress and to make a bit of comfort for the players who dropped into a risky situation. Threefold repetition can prevent the players from losing the game. Without performing threefold repletion, the player can enforce a strategy to force the opponent to keep repeating the same move, it is known as perpetual check which is a subcategory of threefold repetition.
On other hand, the players who are nearing victory should be wise enough to avoid the threefold repletion performed by the opponent. It may create better excitement throughout the game.
Rule #2: Touch move
According to the touch move rule, if a player touches a piece on the board during a chess competition, he or she must definitely make a move if such legal moves are existing. If the player touches an opponent piece a capturing should be done. Getting this into consideration, the players should be wise before touching a piece.
Fortunately, there is a method to adjust pieces. Before touching the piece, the player should say the word “j’adouble” the world recognized term which emphasize the meaning “adjust”. Then the player is eligible to adjust pieces.
Rule #3: En Passant
This rule is the most uncommon rule in the chess domain. Most of the players who are interested in chess are not familiar with this rule. This rule was introduced in the 15th century and the term “En Passant” was denoted from a french term which gives the meaning “in passing”.
This rule is only applicable to pawn pieces. The pawn pieces are permitted to move two squares only at the initial move because it provides a speedup to the game. In the common scenario, pawns can capture the opponent’s piece by moving the pawn diagonally one square. Pawns cannot capture the opposing piece in the same moving direction. Due to this diagonally capturing, the initial move of the opposing pawn (two squares forward) can be saved from capture. To avoid this escape of the opposing pawn, En Passant rule was introduced.
Due to this En Passant rule, though the opposing player has moved the pawn two squares forward, the player can assume that the opponent’s pawn has moved only one square and the player can still capture the opponent’s pawn in the diagonal direction as in the normal capturing pattern. But the players must remember to perform this capturing at the immediate next move. It is a bit rare experience to see such a rule in chess tournaments because of the confusing nature of the rule.
Rule #4: Castling
This can be seen in many chess tournaments. The rook is placed in the corner of the chessboard, but the fight between two teams usually happens in the middle part of the board. By using this rule, the rook can get into the fight which is happening in the middle part of the board. Since the main target of chess is to avoid the king being checked, it also can be done by the rule “Castling“.
Normally in this game, the player can move only a piece at once. This is the only case that, two pieces can move at a time. Rook and the king are the only pieces that can involve this rule. Castling is permitted only when the king has not been moved earlier. Also, castling is possible when there are not any pieces in between the king and rook and no risks are there for been checked.
There are two types of castling such as Kingside castling and Queenside castling. For example, by using the kingside castling rule on the side of the opening team, the king can move to g1 from e1 while the rook moves to f1 from h1. Similar to the same mechanism the king of the other team can move from e8 to g8. The queenside castling is almost the same as kingside castling, the only difference is direction is flipped. But the players should be careful while choosing queenside castling because it is a bit unfamiliar.
Rule #5: Pawn Promotion
The pawn can move only one square forward at a time and cannot move backward, because of this reason the pawns will be useless once when the pawn reaches the end of the board in terms of the opposing team. According to the rule “Pawn Promotion”, the pawn which reached the last square can be changed into some other powerful piece such as a queen, a rook, a knight, or a bishop and the promoted piece should be in the same color piece.
In most chess games the pawn is promoted to a queen since the queen is the most powerful piece on the chessboard. Compared to other rules this is the best rule that a player can get but getting the pawn to the last square without getting captured is difficult. Anyhow getting a pawn promotion will be a golden opportunity for the player who is willing to win the game.
