Wizard Chess

King and Queen chess pieces

Wizard Chess is the wizarding version of the Muggle chess game. In the wizarding version of the game, the pieces are animated and the player commands them to the appropriate square. If one player takes a chess piece from their opponent, the winning piece will brutally destroy the losing piece. It first appears in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

About

"Don't send me there, can't you see his knight? Send him, we can afford to lose him."

— Harry Potter's chess piece speaking to him and advising him.

Rook in Wizard Chess

The wizard version of chess has the same rules and set-up of ordinary, Muggle chess. The chessboards are checkerboards with eight rows and eight columns. Each of the sixty-four squares are in black or white. Each player has sixteen chess pieces; one King, one Queen, two Knights, two Bishops, two rooks and eight pawns. The player commands their pieces by telling them the square they should go to by saying the name of the piece and square equation (e.g. "Knight to E5"). The white pieces always go first.

The pieces can speak and give advice to their player. They know if they are being commanded by a bad player and will trust the orders given to them more if they know how to play well. It appears they do not have to do what they are told if they don't want to because Harry Potter observed that it was easier for Ron to get the pieces to do what he wanted than he could, implying they may be stubborn if they want to be.

History

Ronald Weasley loved the game and was very skilled at wizard chess. He owned a very old chessboard that was passed down to him from a grandfather. Ron only had enough pieces for one player. He taught Harry Potter how to play, borrowing newer pieces from Seamus Finnigan. These pieces knew Harry was not a very good player and kept shouting advice at him. Chess was one of the few things that Hermione Granger was not very good at. Harry and Ron thought it was good for her to fail.

Professor McGonagall employed the use of a huge chessboard in the third of the underground chambers for the purpose of defending the Philosopher's Stone. In June 1992, Harry, Ron and Hermione Granger entered the chamber where they had to select a piece and its place. Ron conducted the game for Harry and Hermione and won, but had to sacrifice the Knight he had taken the place of. The white Queen knocked him out and dragged him to the side, but Harry was then able to defeat the white King.. Ron was awarded 50 points at the End-of-Year Feast for the best game of chess that Hogwarts had seen in a very long time.

In December 1992, Ron and Harry played Wizard Chess. Ron's bishop defeated Hermione's Knight and dragged it to the side of the board.