ChessWorld Hitchhiker's Guide to Chess

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.
If you have contributions, corrections or questions, please post them to the Chess Forum for discussion.
There is a dedicated Chess Openings Glossary

Glossary Course Modules with Game Examples

Glossary Course Modules with Tactical Puzzle Examples

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | [W] | X | Y | Z


W

Waiting Move
A move that, while not achieving anything visibly positive, does not weaken the position. Waiting moves are often quite destructive because they might encourage the opponent to create weaknesses. Computers often infuriate humans by playing seemingly meaningless waiting moves, which often encourage a human player to weaken their position.

View Tip as Course Module

Weak Pawn
A pawn which can be attacked; it is neither easy to defend nor easy to move to escape the threat.

View Tip as Course Module

Weak square
A square which cannot be guarded by a pawn and upon which an enemy piece can be placed to his advantage.

View Tip as Course Module

Weakness
A weakness is something which can potentially be attacked with advantage. Often the compensating factors of structural weaknesses are not considered by inexperienced players. Structural weaknesses such as doubled pawns, isolated pawns, hanging pawns often have compensating factors and it is important to try and differentiate between theoretical structural weaknesses and actual *exploitable* weaknesses.

Certain openings positively encourage the opponent to double one's pawns for example, because the compensating factors can be often more than sufficient, such as a bishop-pair, or piece pressure. An example is in the Sicilian Sveshnkov. See diagram below:








Analyse position

This variation of the Sicilian has become very popular in the year 2000 onwards, with many top Grandmasters willing to accept the doubled pawns, the hole on d5, the pawn islands, etc. But these are theoretical weaknesses which often need great skill by the opponent to be able to exploit. Such openings which deliberately lead to theoretical structural weaknesses often have great compensation in terms of piece pressure, and show that the notion of "weaknesses" needs to be looked at in a pragmatic way - whether the weaknesses are actually easily *exploitable* or not.

Lasker had a very famous victory against Capablanca where he very cunningly exploitable the theoretical structural doubled pawn weaknesses of his illustrious opponent by transforming it into another weaknesses - namely a weak e6 square, which was more exploitable. Also he was perfectly willing to accept a backward e-pawn because in the circumstances. The backward e pawn could not be easily exploited by Capablanca because of the knight on e6 and other factors peculiar to the position. See game below.

[Click here to replay the game]
Lasker,Emanuel vs Capablanca,1914
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.d4 exd4 6.Qxd4 Qxd4 7.Nxd4 Bd6 8.Nc3 Ne7 9.O-O O-O 10.f4 Re8 11.Nb3 f6 12.f5 b6 13.Bf4 Bb7 14.Bxd6 cxd6 15.Nd4 Rad8 16.Ne6 Rd7 17.Rad1 Nc8 18.Rf2 b5 19.Rfd2 Rde7 20.b4 Kf7 21.a3 Ba8 22.Kf2 Ra7 23.g4 h6 24.Rd3 a5 25.h4 axb4 26.axb4 Rae7 27.Kf3 Rg8 28.Kf4 g6 29.Rg3 g5+ 30.Kf3 Nb6 31.hxg5 hxg5 32.Rh3 Rd7 33.Kg3 Ke8 34.Rdh1 Bb7 35.e5 dxe5 36.Ne4 Nd5 37.N6c5 Bc8 38.Nxd7 Bxd7 39.Rh7 Rf8 40.Ra1 Kd8 41.Ra8+ Bc8 42.Nc5 1-0


View Tip as Course Module

Wing
A flank.

View Tip as Course Module

Winning the Exchange
A term used to describe a situation in which a minor piece is traded for a major piece.

View Tip as Course Module

World Championship
Official World Championships decide the official World champions of chess. The official world championship is organised by FIDE, the world governing body of chess, to which Over-the-board chess clubs are affiliated to via their national federations.

See the World champions of Chess

View Tip as Course Module

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | [W] | X | Y | Z