ALL ABOUT PINS AND FORKS

Chess is a board game invented in the 6th century CE, in India. As we know chess board
contains 64 equally divided black and white boxes, on which the pieces are placed in their
dedicated boxes and moved according to a set scheme. The manner and means with which
opposing players apply their ideas and strategy to move their respective pieces, rather than
calling to be their army decides the result of the end game. This game was played by many
royal Kings and Queens to increase their strategic skills so that they could defend their
kingdoms and prevent enemy invasions.

The participating pieces emulate the organization and structure of our erstwhile King’s
army, with the likes of heavy front-row infantry of 8 soldiers named Pawns. These Pawns are
vulnerable but yet several chess masters treat them to be the Soul of the game. The Chess
master Philidor way back in the 18th century said that “…to play the pawns well; they are
the soul of chess: it is they which uniquely determine the attack and the defense and on
their good or bad arrangement depends entirely the winning or losing of the game.” The
uniqueness of these 8 infantries can be individually bringing alive any other Powers to
existence upon reaching the death end of the opponent’s row. To put it literally using the
verse of Srimad Bhagawad, the Pawns enable Punarapi Jananam of other powers by its own
Maranam.

The Rook (Elephant), the Bishop (Camel or Minister), the Knight (Horse), the Soldiers or
Pawns, the King, and the Queen are the players on the board of Chess, which makes it a total
of 16 pieces. The points are assigned to each of these players in descending form: Queen 9,
Rook 5, Knight and Bishop 3, Pawn 1; the King is the only piece without any point assigned.

Some frightening moves in this game are Pins and Forks which means targeting 2
enemies simultaneously. Fork moves are the feature of Knights and Pins is a feature of Queen
or Bishops.

This game needs a lot of concentration, strategy and timing to move the pieces and also to
make sure that the moved pieces get sufficient support to them from other pieces. Failure to
adhere to the basic and simple rules shall seal a victory for the opponent. Our mind should
literally be active on every 64 squares of the board all through.

On the chessboard, we will find 8 horizontal rows sequenced as A to H and the vertical
columns are sequenced as 1 to 8. The general placements of the pieces are as follows: A1 for
the First Rook, B1 for the first Knight, C1 for first Bishop, D1 for the Queen, E1 for the King,
F1 for the Second Bishop, G1 for the Second Knight, H1 for the Second Rook, and Pawns are
placed on A2, B2, C2, D2, E2, F2, G2, H2 respectively. The opponent side arrangement shall
be as follows: A8 for the Rook, B8 for the Knight, C8 for the Bishop, D8 for the King, E8 for
the Queen, F8 for the Bishop, G8 for the Knight, H8 for the Rook, and their Pawns are placed
on A7, B7, C7, D7, E7, F7, G7, H7 respectively.

The picture below depicts the naming of the pieces as stated above.
 Players need to move the pieces very carefully and each and every piece that is moved
should have a supporting piece to counter the enemy attack. But if a Pawn is supporting any
piece which is higher in power, and if the opponent captures such power with his similar
powers, then even if he/she in turn captures that lower power piece he would be in a loss and
his opponent would get more points, if we tend to do these mistakes, then we need to face
good or bad consequence which is about to befall. That is the reason we need to know the
importance of each piece on the chessboard. Opponents mainly focus on either weakening our
empire (by capturing as many pieces as he can) or if he gets to know that we are weak players
and we lack practice then he will directly go for the king and defeat us, to avoid these
consequences, we need to plot a strategy which will make the opponent think.

The Queen is a multitasker, the power points for this piece is nine. She is the most
powerful piece, so we need to play this piece with full concentration and focus. She moves in
two styles of two different pieces the Bishop, and the Rook. She moves in diagonal squares as
well as vertical and horizontal lines, there are no limitations and restrictions to the queen,
except that she should not go out of the chess board. The king has to move one space at a
time, but queens are free to go wherever they like. We need to protect and save our queen till
the king’s last breath. By this we might win the match sometimes.
 The Rook, he is a straightforward personnel, he only travels in straight lines either
horizontal or vertical, but he cannot move in both the ways at once. If both rooks are in a
straight line the opponent is in danger, because if the opponent makes a wrong move and
eliminate one rook without looking at the other supportive rook then his piece which has
killed the other rook will be eliminated by his deadly friend even at the cost of his own life.
Rooks are also used for castling, there are two types of castling, the queen side castling and
the king side castling. Castling is a defensive move which is done by moving the king. If the
king is moved skipping two pieces, then it is king side castling and if the king skips three
pieces, then it is queen side castling.
 The bishop, this piece is a special one like the Rook he moves in diagonals and not in
straight lines. The bishop, which is in a white block will travel only in that colored squares
diagonally and visa - versa. This piece has a power points of three. As I have mentioned in the
title "PINS", this piece is a mischievous threat to two pieces at the same time, this happens
when there is a Queen and a Knight, Bishop, Rook, Pawn or a King, when it is placed
diagonally with one square space, and if a Bishop which is traveling in that colored blocks,
either of those two pieces is in danger, because when the Bishop comes and occupies the
space between the two pieces that are placed diagonally with one box space, then the player
needs to sacrifice one piece to come out of this kind of situation, if given proper support to
each piece on the board this kind of situation can be avoided.

The Knight, the power points for this piece is also three like his friend Bishop, this piece
is a high jumper, there is no other piece which jumps like him. He always jumps in the shape
of 'L', it moves four squares at a time, this piece has restrictions unlike other major powered
pieces. He will travel only in the shape of 'L' four squares. As mentioned in the title
'FORKS', it is a deadly move similar to that of the Bishop's Pin, it threatens two pieces at
once and the opponent is bound to sacrifice one of his pieces to save the other greater piece.
Elimination of pieces is not good for both the players but in some situations like these, players
are bound to sacrifice one piece to save the other piece, to prevent a deadly bait like the PINS
of Bishops and FORKS of the Knight, one needs to be a cut above than his opponent in
plotting good strategies.
 The Pawn, as told in the previous lines, the Pawns or soldiers are a citadel or outer
tough walls of an inner mighty kingdom. They are eight horizontally arranged infantries, each
of these soldiers have one power points, most of the players who do not have good knowledge
about the pawns think that they are useless but many times these soldiers revive one mighty
piece situated inside the kingdom when he reaches the end block of his enemy's board. These
Pawns also have one special and magical move called as the En Passant in French means in
passing. Here a pawn can be captured by opponent when he moves his pawn two blocks
provide it is it's first move and lands next to pawn of his opponent then his opponent gets a
chance to capture the pawn that has come and landed next to it by moving his pawn
diagonally behind the pawn that has to be captured.

Lastly, the King, though he does not have any points, he is the most elementary piece
and most important piece in the game, there are no gameplays which does not include the
king till date, and not in the future too until unless the world turns into a heaven of FOOLS.
He is the controller of all the pieces on the board, like gravity and sun for our entire solar
system. King is the power source for the entire existence of this game. There are some critical
situations where there are chances of stalemate and not checkmate, this situation is where
neither the whites can win, nor the blacks can win. Whereas the checkmate is the end of the
game.
 This is a very challenging and a skillful game which needs to be included in the school
curriculum apart from other subjects. By playing this game students can develop their mental
aptitude. Some studies suggest that playing chess can prevent mental illness.