Important Chess Terms & Definitions
This is great if you want to up your chess game.
A pin – When a piece can’t move without exposing a more valuable piece behind it (or the king).
Fork – A single piece attacks two or more enemy pieces at once, forcing a tough choice.
Passed pawn – A pawn with no enemy pawns blocking or opposing it on its file or adjacent files, free to march to promotion.
Smothered mate – Checkmate where the king is trapped by its own pieces.
Queen’s Gambit – A chess opening where White offers a pawn early (1.d4 d5 2.c4) to control the center and gain long-term advantage.
Stafford Gambit – A tricky and aggressive opening for Black involving an early pawn sacrifice in the Petrov Defense to launch fast attacks.
Gambit – An opening strategy where you sacrifice a pawn or piece early to gain better control of the center or get an attacking edge.
Scholar’s Mate – A beginner trap that checkmates in just 4 moves, usually with the queen and bishop on f7.
Pawn chain – A line of pawns protecting each other diagonally, forming a strong structure.
Smothered checkmate – Same as smothered mate; king is suffocated by its own pieces and checkmated by a knight.
Decoy – A tactic where you lure an enemy piece to a bad square to set up a stronger tactic or trap.
Desperado – A piece that’s about to be lost anyway, so it grabs as much value as possible before going down.
In-between move – A sneaky move inserted between an expected sequence, often a surprise check or threat.
En passant – A special pawn capture where you take an enemy pawn that just moved two squares, as if it only moved one.
Deflection – Forcing an enemy piece to leave a key square or duty, exposing something important behind.
Discovered check – When moving one piece reveals a hidden check from another behind it.
Battery – Two or more pieces (usually queen and rooks) lined up on the same file, rank, or diagonal to launch a powerful attack.
Alekhine’s Gun – A specific battery formation with two rooks in front and the queen behind them, loaded and ready to fire.
Overload – When a single defender is guarding too many things and can’t protect them all.
Windmill – A powerful tactic where a piece (usually a bishop) repeatedly checks the king while another piece (often a rook) captures everything around.