Chess, these days, is booming (Keener). Spurred by a surge in online gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic, chess has become extremely popular. I too have found myself newly enthralled by the game. In this post I provide some guidelines for writing about chess terms, with examples, focusing especially on capitalization.
The consensus in chess writing is to capitalize the names of the many openings, defenses, attacks, variations, and checkmates that have been identified over the years. The Oxford Companion to Chess lists 1,327 opening combinations (Shenk 41), each of them with its own name, such as “the King’s Gambit” and “the English Opening.” This system of capitalization makes sense, because each name refers to a specific chess position and so should be considered a proper noun. In other areas of chess writing, however, a down style—that is, a mainly lowercased style—seems more appropriate. For instance, the terms for the colors of chess pieces, white and black, and the names of pieces like queen and bishop are not proper nouns and so do not need to be capitalized.
The examples that follow are meant to illustrate these principles of capitalization. I consulted Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for spelling.
Openings
the Queen’s Gambit
the Queen’s Gambit Declined
the King’s Gambit
the Réti Opening
the Ruy López
the Italian Game
the Evans Gambit
the English Opening
the Giuoco Piano
the London System
the Bongcloud Opening
Defenses
the French Defense
the Sicilian Defense
the Sicilian Defense, Najdorf Variation
the Queen’s Gambit Declined, Tarrasch Defense
the Scandinavian Defense
the Berlin Defense
the King’s Indian Defense
the Benoni Defense
the Slav Defense
the Caro-Kahn Defense
the Falkbeer Countergambit
Attacks
the Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack
the Fischer-Sozin Attack
the Sicilian Defense, Najdorf Variation, English Attack
the King’s Indian Attack
the King’s Indian Attack, Keres Variation
the Fried Liver Attack
the Traxler Counterattack
Tactics
pin
fork
skewer
deflection
double attack
discovered attack
attraction
sacrifice
zwischenzug, intermezzo, or in-between move
Parts of the Game and Events in the Game
the opening
the middle game
the endgame
castling
gambit
fianchetto
en passant, or capturing en passant
promotion
zugzwang
check
double check
checkmate
stalemate
Scholar’s Mate
Smothered Mate
Arabian Mate
Anastasia’s Mate
Damiano’s Mate
Names of the Pieces
pawns
rooks
knights
bishops
queen
king
the white pieces
the black pieces
Time Controls
classical
rapid
blitz
bullet
Titles and Ranks of Players
a grandmaster
an international master
a FIDE master
Squares of the Board
Modern algebraic chess notation divides the sixty-four squares of the board with the lowercase letters a to h for the vertical columns (called “files”) and the Arabic numerals 1 to 8 for the horizontal rows (called “ranks”), starting on the lower left square from the perspective of the player with the white pieces, as in the following examples:
a1
b6
c7
d4
e5
f2
g3
h8
Works Cited
Keener, Greg. “Chess Is Booming.” The New York Times, 17 June 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/crosswords/chess/chess-is-booming.html.
Shenk, David. The Immortal Game: A History of Chess; or, How Thirty-Two Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Science, and the Human Brain. Anchor Books, 2007.
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