Until about 1980, the majority of English language chess publications used descriptive notation, in which files are identified by the initial letter of the piece that occupies the first rank at the beginning of the game.

A common type of chess exercise, aimed at developing players' tactical skills, is a position where a combination is available and the challenge is to find it.

There is no universally accepted way to delineate the three phases of the game; the middlegame is typically considered to have begun after 10–20 moves, and the endgame when only a few pieces remain.

[26] Amateur players generally have little knowledge of opening theory, and may use heuristic strategies, such as playing conservatively to minimize the possibility of losing early to a prepared trap, though not all do so.

The fundamental strategic aims of most openings are similar:[27] Most players and theoreticians consider that White, by virtue of the initiative granted from moving first, begins the game with a small advantage.

"Many-movers" (also known as "long-range problems") of over 100 moves have been composed, the current record standing at over 200; these usually require repetitions of the same manoeuvre in order to produce a repeated zugzwang and force detrimental pawn advances.

[36][37] Directmates usually consist of positions unlikely to occur in an actual game, and are intended to illustrate a particular theme, usually requiring a surprising or counterintuitive key move.

Although the nature of these games is often casual, the chess hustling scene has seen growth in urban areas such as New York City.

[63] The early forms of chess in India were known as chaturaṅga (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग), literally "four divisions" [of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry – represented by pieces that would later evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively.

[70][71] Chess historians Jean-Louis Cazaux and Rick Knowlton contend that xiangqi's intrinsic characteristics make it easier to construct an evolutionary path from China to India/Persia than the opposite direction.

[72] The oldest archaeological chess artifacts – ivory pieces – were excavated in ancient Afrasiab, today's Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, Central Asia, and date to about 760, with some of them possibly being older.

Remarkably, almost all findings of the oldest pieces come from along the Silk Road, from the former regions of the Tarim Basin (today's Xinjiang in China), Transoxiana, Sogdiana, Bactria, Gandhara, to Iran on one end and to India through Kashmir on the other.

[75] A Latin poem called Versus de scachis ("Verses on Chess") dated to the late 10th century, has been preserved at Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland.

[82] Lucena and later masters like Portuguese Pedro Damiano, Italians Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona, Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco, and Spanish bishop Ruy López de Segura developed elements of opening theory and started to analyze simple endgames.

[86] Centers of chess activity in this period were coffee houses in major European cities like Café de la Régence in Paris and Simpson's Divan in London.

[87][88] At the same time, the Romantic intellectual movement had had a far-reaching impact on chess, with aesthetics and tactical beauty being held in higher regard than objective soundness and strategic planning.

Morphy won against all important competitors (except Staunton, who refused to play), including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863.

[97] Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz laid the foundations for a scientific approach to the game, the art of breaking a position down into components[99] and preparing correct plans.

[100] In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading German master Johannes Zukertort in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship.

Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger player, the German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of any world champion.

[103] In the interwar period, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-called hypermodernists like Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Réti.

(Some sources state that, in 1914, the title of chess Grandmaster was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall, but this is a disputed claim.

[114] In the 1984 World Chess Championship, Karpov faced his toughest challenge to date, the young Garry Kasparov from Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan.

[135] In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke ties with FIDE to organize their own match for the World Championship and formed a competing Professional Chess Association (PCA).

[139] Gentlemen are "to be meanly seene in the play at Chestes", says the overview at the beginning of Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier (1528, English 1561 by Sir Thomas Hoby), but chess should not be a gentleman's main passion.

[142] Different chess pieces were used as metaphors for different classes of people, and human duties were derived from the rules of the game or from visual properties of the chess pieces:[143] The knyght ought to be made alle armed upon an hors in suche wyse that he haue an helme on his heed and a spere in his ryght hande/ and coueryd wyth his sheld/ a swerde and a mace on his lyft syde/ Cladd wyth an hawberk and plates to fore his breste/ legge harnoys on his legges/ Spores on his heelis on his handes his gauntelettes/ his hors well broken and taught and apte to bataylle and couerid with his armes/ whan the knyghtes ben maad they ben bayned or bathed/ that is the signe that they shold lede a newe lyf and newe maners/ also they wake alle the nyght in prayers and orysons vnto god that he wylle gyue hem grace that they may gete that thynge that they may not gete by nature/ The kynge or prynce gyrdeth a boute them a swerde in signe/ that they shold abyde and kepe hym of whom they take theyr dispenses and dignyte.

[160] A novel methodology in steganography explores the use of chess-based covers (such as puzzles, chess problems, game reports, training documents, news articles, etc.)

The ability to memorize does not alone account for chess-playing skill, since masters and novices, when faced with random arrangements of chess pieces, had equivalent recall (about six positions in each case).

[185] GM Maurice Ashley said "A boom is taking place in chess like we have never seen maybe since the Bobby Fischer days", attributing the growth to an increased desire to do something constructive during the pandemic.

[186] USCF Women's Program Director Jennifer Shahade stated that chess works well on the internet, since pieces do not need to be reset and matchmaking is virtually instant.