In chess, each player has one of two equivalent sets of pieces (each a different color) at the beginning of the game. Each set has six types of pieces, each with its own pattern of movement:
The Opera Game is a famous chess game played in 1858 between an American Paul Morphy and a German and French aristocrat (Karl, Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard), playing together.
The Frenchmen invited Morphy to the Paris Opera, then asking him to join them in a chess game. The Duke and the Count (playing black) were allowed to consult each other during play.
There are no official standards by which to distinguish a beautiful problem from a poor one, and judgement varies from individual to individual as well as from generation to generation, but modern taste generally recognizes the following elements as being important if a problem is to be regarded as beautiful:
There are various different types of chess problem:
Directmates - white to move first and checkmate black within a specified number of moves against any defence. These are often referred to as "mate in n", where n is the number of moves within which mate must be delivered. In composing and solving competitions, directmates are further broken down into three classes:
Two-movers - white to move and checkmate black in two moves against any defence
Teaching and playing the game of chess has often been advocated as a form of mental training.
