Chess as explained by the letters U and V
The world of chess offers something that few other sports do. It provides a complete and vigorous mental exercise to the individual, the sort of which is hard to obtain in any other strategic sport. When the mind is exerted in this way, it develops and hones
the analytical skills in a person, which also help in every day decision making. In order to harness the skills that chess has to offer, one needs to develop an understanding of the game. A sound understanding will only be developed if the various concepts
that are involved in the game are studied and experimented with. However, chess concepts are explained by using chess terms. So the first thing that any beginner needs to do is to learn the terminologies that are used in the game.
In this article, we are going to be explaining the most commonly used chess terms that begin with the letters U and V. So sit back and relax as you discover what all those fancy words stand for.
As chess is a game of strategy, tactics play an important role. One such chess tactic is known as Undermining. Undermining is done when a player captures an opponent’s piece that is serving a defensive purpose. As the defence is eliminated by this move,
one or more of the opponent’s pieces are left undefended. Another similar terminology is Underpromotion. When a player’s pawn has reached the last or the eighth rank, it can be promoted to any other piece except the king. If the player chooses to promote the
pawn to a queen, it is called promotion. Therefore, Underpromotion of the pawn happens when it is promoted to a piece other than a queen.
An attacking move in the list of U terminologies is called Unpinning. As the name suggests, unpinning is to break a pin. A pin causes a less valuable piece that is shielding a more valuable piece, to be stuck on its square. So a pin is broken by moving the
valuable piece to a square where it is not under threat from the opponent’s piece which had caused the pin. In this way, the less valuable pieces become free to move. The concept of pinning and unpinning is not alien to chess players, but something that stands
out as a novelty is the Unorthodox opening. The term is pretty self-explanatory in itself. All those openings that are unique or rare come under this category. Such openings are typically made to surprise and potentially destabilise the opponent. As this is
an opening strategy, only white can make it unorthodox.
Unorthodoxy seals the deal for the U terms. Now it is time to introduce you to the V terminologies. Let’s start with a sacrificial concept. Vacating sacrifice is done when a piece offers itself up for capture by the opponent’s piece, so that its position
can be taken up by a friendly piece. The sacrifice is usually made when the occupied square is important to the player’s strategic plans. A second V term is known as Variation. This term is used in connection with opening moves. When a standard opening is
modified by a player, it is called a variation of the opening.
Those were all the important and commonly used chess terminologies that begin with the letters U and V. We will now end this article in the words of Willard Fiske, "The world is not likely to tire of an amusement which never repeats itself, of a game which
today presents features as novel and charms as fresh as those with which it delighted, in the morning of history, the dwellers on the banks of the Ganges and Indus."
Tags: