RD Glossary
hanging piece
A piece that is not protected by a friendly piece or pawn and thus can be captured en prise.
heavy piece
The term heavy pieces is used for queen and rook to distinguish them from the less powerful minor pieces.
interactive chess board
Some chess boards on this site are interactive. These interactive boards can be used to play through chess problems. To move a piece, click on it and then on the destination square. The software will decide if the move is correct or not. However, it is important to know that in many cases more than one correct move exists and that the board may not be aware of all of them.
IQP
Abbreviation for isolated queens pawn. A situation where one side has one pawn on the d-file but no pawns on both c- and e-files.
isolated pawn
Pawn with no pawn of the same color on the adjacent files.
kings pawn opening
All chess openings starting with 1. e4 belong to the family of the king's pawn openings. 1. e4 is the most common way to open a chess game. The king's pawn openings are very popular at all levels of chess play.
lightning chess
Chess with extremely fast time controls, usually less than 1-2 minutes per game. Interestingly, the German word for "lightning", "blitz", is used to describe slightly slower chess games.
MCO
Commonly used abbreviation for Modern Chess Openings, a popular one-volume opening reference book. Often, the abbreviation is extended by the edition: MCO-14 refers to the 14th edition of MCO.
middlegame
Chess game stage between opening and endgame. The middlegame usually starts after the play of standart opening moves is over and ends with the start of the endgame when only few pieces are left on the board.
minor piece
The group of the minor pieces contains bishop and knight in contrast to the heavy pieces (queen and rook).
minority attack
Attack with pawns on one side of the chess board where the attacking side has a lower number of pawns than the defender. Minority attacks are used as strategic device to provoke weaknesses in the defender's position.
opening
The first moves of a chess game usually chosen from standart opening lines.
OTB
Abbreviation for over the board. A game is called over-the-board when the players meet face to face as opposed to online/internet or correspondence chess.
over-the-board chess
Over-the-board (OTB) chess games are played face to face in contrast to chess games played on the Internet or correspondence chess games.
passed pawn
A pawn free to move to promotion in the sense that it is not blocked by any enemy pawns on the same or neighboring files on its way to the last rank.
patzer
A weak chess player. From German "patzen" - "to bungle".
pawn storm
Attack where a group of pawns is advanced to "storm" the opponents position to break up the defense.
PGN file
File containing the moves of one or more games in the portable game notation (PGN) format. This format is supported by (almost) all chess programs.
pin
Tactics exploiting a piece that cannot move without exposing a more valuable piece to an attack.
poisoned pawn
Unprotected pawn that if captured results in material loss or serious weakening of the position for the player who captures the pawn.
post mortem
Analysis of a game after it is concluded.
post-mortem
Latin: after the death. Analysis of a game after its conclusion, usually by the players.
promotion
The process by which a pawn reaching the 8th rank is transformed into it's owners choice of a queen, rook, knight, or bishop. The ability to promote is a critical factor in endgames because the availability of an extra piece, particularly as powerful as a queen, leads often to a decisive advantage.
queens pawn opening
Family of chess openings starting with the move 1. d4.
rank
The rows of the chess board are called ranks. For instance, all squares a3, b3, ..., to h3 belong to the same rank. The number of the rank depends on the point of view: the pawns start out on the second rank and promote on the 8th rank. Therefore, the square a1 is on the first rank of white but on the 8th rank from black's point of view.

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RD Glossary by Run Digital