Am I the only person that, after finishing the book, was disappointed that the author flagrantly flouted convention and did not include a transcription of the entire chess game as an appendix?
I’m with you on this one! It would have been quite easy (I imagine) for JKR to dredge up a famous game played in which a knight sacrifice forced victory. This is, it appears, a fairly standard practice when a chess match is integral to the plot of a book/film/whatever, e.g. the James Bond film From Russia With Love (1963). See:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/diary13txt.htm
item 250 for more details.
I think an English GM was asked to come up with the required positions - I’ll ask him when I next see him.
That would have worked just great – I knew it was generally customary that when one has a chess game mentioned much in the plot, one includes the whole thing at the back.
Of course, had they used your method, we would have been wondering how Ron Weasley suddenly learned how to play like a Chess Master at such a young age. 
Chess is my game so listen well…
This is not a “real rule”
castleing is the only FIDE accepted move of two pieces at once and is as one poster noted very common, it is a teriffic defence in most systems of play.
The unusaul and little known chess move is called En-Passent, this allows a pawn to take a pawn directly beside itself. It calls for very specific timing and circumstances but it is legal if these conditions are met. If you care to know about the rule just look it up on the net it won’t be hard. I’m rated about 1600 in chess and almost every person I’ve ever played is totally oblivious to this rule so i don’t even use it outside of tournaments.
Those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword.
Those who post chess gibberish shall be banned!
En passant occurs when:
- one player moves a pawn two squares (obviously the first move of that pawn)
- his opponent could have captured it with a pawn if it had moved one square
In this case, provided he does it immediately, the opponent may capture the pawn as if it had moved just one square.
An example would be 1. e2-e4 h7-h6 2. e4-e5 d7-d5 3. e5xd6 (en passant)
I’m rated about 2300 in chess and almost every person I’ve ever played is totally familiar with this rule… 
Hi, glee. I’m rated about 500 points lower, as you know, and have played players 500 points below me, and have yet to run across one who doesn’t know this elementary chess rule.
“Knowing” it is different from “remembering” it. I “know” it, but I only “remember” it when the chess software towel-snaps me with it.
That’s a point well taken. I’ve had opponents who completely overlooked the fact that I could take e.p., much to their dismay.
Archon was the first PC-centric game I ever played.
I was just having a gentle poke at kefn’s earlier post…
My days of playing rated chess are 1/3 of a century in the past, but I was rated in the low 1700s when I quit.
From my recollection of those distant days:
- Rated chessplayers - even people whose rating was just barely into 4 digits - reliably knew the en passant rule.
- Ditto unrated players with a skill level comparable to that of a 1500+ rated player.
- Below that, knowledge of the rule diminished rapidly with skill level. An unrated player with ~1200 strength probably had heard of it, and knew it had something to do with pawns, but wouldn’t be able to apply the rule on his own.
Both the original Archon and the much-updated Archon Ultra are available at The-Underdogs.org. Of the two, I’ve only played Archon Ultra, which is definitely worth the download.
There’s also Dark Legions, which uses a similar combat system but is otherwise much less chesslike.