Chess & Go

40 questions · Answers revealed below each question · Print this set

1.How old was Garry Kasparov when he became world champion in 1985?
- A. 22
- B. 19
- C. 25
- D. 29
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22
Did you know? Kasparov took the 1985 title at twenty-two, then the youngest champion ever.
2.Which chess champion became India's first grandmaster and later world champion?
- A. Judit Polgár
- B. Viswanathan Anand
- C. José Raúl Capablanca
- D. Vera Menchik
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Viswanathan Anand
Did you know? Viswanathan Anand held the unified world title from 2007 to 2013.
3.Which chess term measures playing strength on the scale devised by Arpad Elo?
- A. the Elo rating
- B. stalemate
- C. the fianchetto
- D. tempo
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the Elo rating
Did you know? Arpad Elo was a Hungarian-American physics professor and chess master.
4.Which Go player won the fourth game of his famous 2016 series against AlphaGo?
- A. Lee Sedol
- B. Ke Jie
- C. Honinbo
- D. fuseki
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Lee Sedol
Did you know? Lee Sedol retired from professional Go in 2019.
5.Which IBM computer defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in their 1997 rematch?
- A. Watson
- B. Stockfish
- C. AlphaGo
- D. Deep Blue
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Deep Blue
Did you know? IBM's Deep Blue won the 1997 rematch three and a half to two and a half.
6.Which chess champion became the youngest world champion in 1985 at age twenty-two?
- A. Garry Kasparov
- B. Judit Polgár
- C. Bobby Fischer
- D. Paul Morphy
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Garry Kasparov
Did you know? Garry Kasparov led the classical rating list for roughly two decades.
7.Which chess term is the highest lifetime title FIDE awards to chess players?
- A. the Ruy Lopez
- B. grandmaster
- C. a gambit
- D. en passant
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grandmaster
Did you know? FIDE first awarded grandmaster titles in 1950.
8.What crosses nineteen lines into 361 playing points?
- A. the Go board
- B. AlphaGo
- C. dan
- D. joseki
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the Go board
Did you know? A standard Go board is a nineteen-by-nineteen grid of intersections.
9.Which chess champion became the first American-born world champion in 1972?
- A. Bobby Fischer
- B. Judit Polgár
- C. Viswanathan Anand
- D. Magnus Carlsen
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Bobby Fischer
Did you know? Bobby Fischer later invented Fischer Random chess, now played as Chess960.
10.Which chess term slides any distance in any straight direction as the board's most powerful piece?
- A. correspondence chess
- B. grandmaster
- C. the Queen's Gambit
- D. the queen
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the queen
Did you know? In early versions of chess, the queen moved only one diagonal square.
11.Which is the highest title a chess player can earn from FIDE?
- A. FIDE Master
- B. International Master
- C. Candidate Master
- D. Grandmaster
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Grandmaster
Did you know? The grandmaster title was first awarded by FIDE in 1950.
12.Which Go program beat Lee Sedol in 2016 with deep-learning play?
- A. dan
- B. AlphaGo
- C. fuseki
- D. the Go board
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AlphaGo
Did you know? AlphaGo was developed by Google DeepMind.
13.In which country was world chess champion Magnus Carlsen born?
- A. Iceland
- B. Denmark
- C. Sweden
- D. Norway
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Norway
Did you know? Magnus Carlsen was born in Tønsberg, Norway, in 1990.
14.Which chess champion climbed to the highest Elo rating ever recorded?
- A. Ding Liren
- B. Judit Polgár
- C. Boris Spassky
- D. Magnus Carlsen
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Magnus Carlsen
Did you know? Magnus Carlsen won the world title in 2013 and defended it four times.
15.Which chess term steps one square in any direction as the piece that must never be captured?
- A. the opposition
- B. the bishop
- C. algebraic notation
- D. the king
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the king
Did you know? In chess, checkmate against the king ends the game.
16.Which chess champion claimed the crown in 2024 as the youngest champion ever?
- A. Anatoly Karpov
- B. Gukesh Dommaraju
- C. Garry Kasparov
- D. Judit Polgár
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Gukesh Dommaraju
Did you know? Gukesh Dommaraju won the 2024 title at eighteen years old.
17.Which chess term lets a pawn capture a neighbor that just advanced two squares past it?
- A. the Queen's Gambit
- B. the pawn
- C. en passant
- D. promotion
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en passant
Did you know? En passant must be claimed immediately, on the very next move.
18.Which chess champion broke into the overall top ten without ever playing for a women's title?
- A. Bobby Fischer
- B. Magnus Carlsen
- C. Vasily Smyslov
- D. Judit Polgár
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Judit Polgár
Did you know? Judit Polgár is widely regarded as the strongest female player in history.
19.Which organization governs international chess from its Paris founding in 1924?
- A. a pin
- B. the Elo rating
- C. blitz chess
- D. FIDE
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FIDE
Did you know? FIDE was recognized by the International Olympic Committee in 1999.
20.Which chess champion inherited the 1975 crown and dominated the 1970s?
- A. Anatoly Karpov
- B. Wilhelm Steinitz
- C. Paul Morphy
- D. Mikhail Botvinnik
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Anatoly Karpov
Did you know? Anatoly Karpov collected more than one hundred first-place tournament finishes.
21.Which chess term slides horizontally and vertically, answering to the nickname "castle"?
- A. the fifty-move rule
- B. the rook
- C. a gambit
- D. the Queen's Gambit
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the rook
Did you know? The rook's name traces to the Persian word rukh, meaning chariot.
22.Which chess term offers a sacrifice, usually a pawn, for tempo and open lines?
- A. correspondence chess
- B. the knight
- C. a gambit
- D. the pawn
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a gambit
Did you know? Gambit comes from Italian gambetto, a leg-tripping move in wrestling.
23.Which chess term advances one square, or two on its first move, and captures only diagonally?
- A. the queen
- B. the Queen's Gambit
- C. the pawn
- D. the knight
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the pawn
Did you know? Pawns that reach the final rank are promoted to a stronger piece.
24.Which chess term slides only along diagonals, staying forever on one color?
- A. FIDE
- B. the Ruy Lopez
- C. the rook
- D. the bishop
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the bishop
Did you know? Each player begins with one light-squared and one dark-squared bishop.
25.Which chess term attacks two or more enemy pieces at the same moment?
- A. a skewer
- B. smothered mate
- C. tempo
- D. a fork
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a fork
Did you know? Knights and pawns are famous for delivering forks.
26.Which chess term leaves a player with no legal moves while not in check, scoring a draw?
- A. the rook
- B. the fianchetto
- C. stalemate
- D. correspondence chess
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stalemate
Did you know? In chess, stalemate is a draw even when one side holds more material.
27.Which chess term swaps a pawn that crosses the board for a stronger piece?
- A. zwischenzug
- B. a pin
- C. zugzwang
- D. promotion
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promotion
Did you know? Promotion to a queen is so common the piece is called a "queenie" in some countries.
28.Which chess term gives each player only a few minutes for the whole game?
- A. blitz chess
- B. correspondence chess
- C. the king
- D. en passant
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blitz chess
Did you know? Blitz games are commonly played with three minutes per side plus a small increment.
29.Which chess term jumps in an L-shape and is the only piece that leaps over others?
- A. a skewer
- B. correspondence chess
- C. the knight
- D. zugzwang
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the knight
Did you know? The knight always lands on the opposite color from the square it left.
30.Which chess term answers 1.e4 with a pawn to c5, the most popular reply at master level?
- A. the Ruy Lopez
- B. the queen
- C. the king
- D. the Sicilian Defence
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the Sicilian Defence
Did you know? The Sicilian Defence is named after the Mediterranean island of Sicily.
31.Which chess term moves the king and a rook together in one special two-piece move?
- A. the fifty-move rule
- B. castling
- C. threefold repetition
- D. correspondence chess
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castling
Did you know? Castling is the only chess move that moves two of your own pieces at once.
32.Which chess term attacks the king with no legal escape, ending the game at once?
- A. smothered mate
- B. en passant
- C. checkmate
- D. tempo
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checkmate
Did you know? The word checkmate descends from the Persian shah mat, "the king is helpless".
33.Which chess term offers the c4 pawn after 1.d4 d5 to contest the center?
- A. the rook
- B. the fianchetto
- C. zugzwang
- D. the Queen's Gambit
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the Queen's Gambit
Did you know? The Queen's Gambit appears in records from the fifteenth century.
34.Which biennial team competition is chess's answer to the Olympics?
- A. the Grand Swiss
- B. the Candidates
- C. the World Cup
- D. the Chess Olympiad
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the Chess Olympiad
Did you know? The Chess Olympiad has gathered national teams since 1927.
35.Which chess champion held the world crown for twenty-seven years, the longest reign ever?
- A. Mikhail Botvinnik
- B. Vasily Smyslov
- C. Anatoly Karpov
- D. Emanuel Lasker
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Emanuel Lasker
Did you know? Emanuel Lasker lost the title to Capablanca in 1921.
36.Which chess term freezes a piece that cannot move without exposing something more valuable?
- A. the fianchetto
- B. a skewer
- C. promotion
- D. a pin
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a pin
Did you know? A piece pinned against its king may not legally move at all.
37.What is the oldest hereditary school of Japanese Go?
- A. fuseki
- B. Honinbo
- C. the Go board
- D. joseki
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Honinbo
Did you know? The Honinbo name lives on as a major Japanese Go title.
38.Who became the first woman to earn the FIDE grandmaster title, in 1978?
- A. Judit Polgár
- B. Nona Gaprindashvili
- C. Hou Yifan
- D. Vera Menchik
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Nona Gaprindashvili
Did you know? Georgia's Nona Gaprindashvili earned the full grandmaster title in 1978.
39.Which player became the first Women's World Chess Champion in 1927?
- A. Vasily Smyslov
- B. Bobby Fischer
- C. Vera Menchik
- D. Tigran Petrosian
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Vera Menchik
Did you know? Vera Menchik defended her title across six consecutive championship cycles.
40.Which chess term is played without any sight of the board?
- A. smothered mate
- B. the Elo rating
- C. the Sicilian Defence
- D. blindfold chess
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blindfold chess
Did you know? Champions from Morphy to Koltanowski gave famous blindfold exhibitions.

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