"Chess is a recreational and competitive game played between two players. Sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish it from its predecessors and other chess variants, the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in clubs, online, by correspondence, in tournaments and informally.The game is played on a square chequered chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight square. At the start, each player (one controlling the white pieces, the other controlling the black pieces) controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way to remove it from attack on the next move." (Quote from wikipedia.org)About the Author "Henry Edward Bird (July 14, 1830 - April 11, 1908) was an English chess player and chess writer. He was born in Portsea in Hampshire.At age 21 Bird was invited to the first international tournament, London 1851. He also participated in tournaments held in Vienna and New Jersey. In 1858 he lost a match to Paul Morphy at the age of 28, yet he played high-level chess for another 50 years. Although Bird was a practicing accountant, not a professional chess player, it has been said that he "lived for chess, and would play anybody anywhere, any time, under any conditions." In the New York tournament of 1876, Bird received the first brilliancy prize ever awarded, for his game against James Mason.In 1874 Bird proposed a new chess variant, which played on an 8x10 board and contained two