Chess Trivia Quiz

Answer: The king must never have been in check previously.

It does not matter if the king has already been in check, just so long as it's not in check at the time of castling, and providing that it has never moved. A king also cannot cross any square that is 'in check'.

Answer: Trading a bishop for a rook.

Pawns are worth one point, Bishops and knights are worth 3 points, rooks 5 points and queens 9 points. Thus, a bishop for a rook is the best trade-off because the difference is two points. For a bishop vs two pawns and two rooks vs a queen the difference is one point, whereas for a knight vs a bishop there is no points difference.

Answer: King vs King + Bishop

Because bishops can only move on squares of one colour, and kings can never be on adjacent squares, all the king has to do to avoid check is to stay on oppositely coloured squares to the bishop.

A king and rook can checkmate by forcing the king to the edge of the board. A king and two knights can checkmate, but it requires the opposing king to make a couple of mistakes. With a king and a pawn, the pawn can be promoted to a queen, from which point they can force the king into a corner to checkmate.

Answer: Knight

In the vast majority of cases, a pawn will be promoted to a queen, because it is the most powerful piece. However, sometimes it is necessary to promote to a piece of lesser value, to avoid stalemate. When this happens the piece often chosen is a knight, because it moves in such a way that the queen cannot, whereas rooks and bishops are limited to vertical/horizontal and diagonal movements respectively. Oh, and obviously you can't promote to a king at all...

Answer: Queen e4a7

Bishops can move any number of squares diagonally, knights can move in an L-shape consisting of two squares one direction and one square perpendicular to it, pawns can move one square forward at a time (or two if they have not moved yet) and capture diagonally, and the queen can move in any direction vertically, horizontally or diagonally. To go from e4 to a7, the queen would have to go three squares diagonally, and one horizontally, which isn't allowed.

Answer: 15th century

The rule was added at the same time that pawns were given the option to move two spaces forward on their first go. Without the rule, a pawn could use the two-square rule to completely bypass a pawn on the next file without risk of capture.

Answer: Two

Yes, believe it or not it's possible to be checkmated in two moves, but it requires White to play incredibly foolishly. Here's how it goes in algebraic chess notation:

1. f2f3 e7e5
2. g2g4 Qh4#

N.B. You will almost never see this in practice.

Answer: Bishop

The rook, queen and knight are capable of reaching every space on the board (much easier for the rook and queen). The bishop can only attack half (either only black squares OR only white squares)

Answer: Skewering with a knight

Having three pawns on the same file (known as tripled pawns) is rare, but possible. It's even possible to have quadrupled pawns (four on same file)! Doubled pawns (two on the same file) are much more common in practice.

A checkmate from castling is likewise rare, but if other pieces have been set up so that the king has no legal moves, putting it in check from the rook via castling will provide a checkmate.

Checkmating with just one piece occurs with a back rank checkmate. This is where a queen or rook attacks a king along the back rank (hence the name), and the king is unable to move because it is being blocked by its own pieces (usually pawns).

Skewering, in chess terminology, is where a piece attacks two pieces along the same line, with the more powerful piece in front of the less powerful one. Knights, by nature of their movement, cannot do this, though it is adept at forking (attack two pieces not along the same line).

Answer: Three

The queen and rook can move an unlimited amount of spaces left/right or up/down (and in the queen's case diagonally), whereas the king can move one space in any direction. The bishop can only move diagonally, knights in L-shapes, and pawns forward when moving normally and diagonally when capturing.