When I first read the topic title I'm like, "has Iconoclast lost it? no one doesn't play chess" Then I realized you meant online :p
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I don't play chess. Never have. Don't know how. Never had any interest to lean. Ok, well maybe I'm kinda curious, but it just seems like there are so many rules, I have a hard enough time with checkers.
Steam checkers anyone?? I haven't won.... in like... ever, but I'm up for a good clean loss!
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The rules of chess are the surprisingly similiar to checkers, its about simple movement patterns to remove pieces. But instead of only having one type of movement with possible combos, chess has different movement abilitys for each type of piece but no funky stuff like combos (a few special moves are the exception). And one move constitutes your entire turn.
So for example, the little dudes (pawns), are able to move 1 space forward at any time or 2 spaces if that particular pawn hasn't moved yet this game. Pawns can only attack 1 unit diagonally and towards the enemy players side of the board (no backwards diagonal attack - in fact they can never move back) and hence make slightly clumsy pieces - but due to their number (
and alignment are some of the most powerful players on the board.
In contrast, the queen is only given once to each player, but is able to move in any linear direction (can't change directions during the move, duh) without limit (except the 8 square limit of the field, duh) - so she can move diagonally, horizontally or vertically across the field. However all figures need a clear path of movement over enemy and friendly pieces, unless they intend to take said enemy piece.
All pieces are taken by simply being able to move a figure of yours onto them. So if you have a line from your queen to a target piece, you're able to take it. Or if your opponent moves a piece within 1 unit forward-diagonally (its simpler than it sounds :p ) of a pawn of yours. Theres 3 more pieces (4 with the King), but I'm just trying to get the idea across here.
Chess is really worth learning, not because it proves wether you're smart or anything (high level chessplay is merely good pattern recognition), but because learning chess is a great mental exercise. The beauty of the game will slowly become evident as you begin to see the inter-dependencies all 16 pieces (of 5 different types) on the board develope - each one covering an area, a line, a square - threatening or defending a piece, being threatened or defended by another piece, until its one big chain reaction. Thats when you can call chess complicated for a moment. But the rules themselves are easier to learn than those of most card games
