Scope: This glossary does not intend to cover player names, opening names, or Composition terms.
The Glossary aims to relate the terms to ChessWorld where possible when giving examples.
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There is a dedicated Chess Openings Glossary
Back rank mate A checkmate carried out which involves a rook mating a king on the 1st or 8th ranks. Usually this opportunity is created when the King has no escape squares because the three pawns in front of it have not moved at all to create one.
In the light of the above kind of embaressing mate, it is often wise to make "luft" (air) for the King - which is breathing space for the King by moving one of the pawns forward, to avoid the possibility of a back-rank mate. So for example if White had just played a move such as h3 or g3, the Rook coming down in the above diagram wouldn't have meant checkmate for White.
Sometimes the Back rank is seemingly well guarded by pieces, but these could be decoyed or deflected away on certain occasions, thus still resulting in a back-rank mate. So it is very important to be aware of the risk of not moving any pawns to make some "luft" for the King.
A "Back rank" mate is just one of several different types of named mates including:-
Backward pawn A backward pawn is a type of pawn structure weakness. It is a pawn which cannot be guarded by a pawn, or which cannot advance to such a position. It is also on a semi open file which the opponent can sometimes use to exert pressure onto it.
Often a player will accept structural weaknesses such as Backward or Isolated or doubled pawns if there is some dynamic compensation. In the Sveshnikov for example Black has the two bishops and pressure often on the semi-open c and g files as compensation for the structural weaknesses.
Bishops of opposite color A situation where each side has only one bishop left and those bishops travel on squares of the opposite color. The significance of this situation is that it often brings about a drawn endgame, even if one side has extra pawns.
Blunder A bad move -e.g. leaving a rook or bishop or queen en-prise available to be captured by the opponent. Many players blunder at one time or other, and even the most top flight Grandmasters such as Kasparov have made horrific blunders in their career.
Only modern chess computers are less suspectible to tactical blunders, and instead make more abstract types of blunder such as poor positional moves. Humans by their nature of being under pressure, being distracted, getting tired or frustrated often blunder. The higher someone's chess rating, the less probability is that they will blunder as often as someone who is lower rated.
Book Often taken to stand for the
current theoretical opinion. A book move is a move which is expected to be
played, based on recent chess articles or theoretical manuals.
Bust The refutation of an opening strategy or combination. Fischer after losing to Spassky in the King's gambit, wrote a "refutation" to the King's gambit. However, Spassky has never lost a serious game in the King's gambit despite this apparent "refutation".
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