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F
Family check: Bogoljubow's lighthearted term for a Knight fork which includes an attack on the King.
FEN: Forsythe-Edwards-Notation .
Fers: The medieval name for the piece we now call the Queen, derived from the Persian word "Vizier".
Fianchetto: An Italian term that means "on the flank" and applies only to Bishops. A Fianchetto involves placing a white Bishop on g2 or b2 or a black Bishop on g7 or b7. This manoeuvre places the Bishop to a position from which it controls the longest diagonal.
FIDE: The acronym for Fedération Internationale des Échecs , the international Chess Federation which organizes the titles, awards and the international rating system.
FIDE Master: Title awarded by FIDE and is ranked below International Master.
Figurine notation: A system of recording the moves of a Chess game similar to Algebraic Notation except that small pictures of the pieces and Pawns are substituted for their names. This method has been popularized by published articles in newspapers and other periodicals.
File: A vertical column of eight squares. This column of squares runs from the top of the board to the bottom. Designated in algebraic notation as the a-file, b-file, c-file, d-file, e-file, f-file, g-file and h-file.
Fingerfehler: German for finger-slip, a description of an obvious but bad move made without thinking.
First Board: Also called top board, a term to describe the board in a team match which usually has each team's strongest player.
Fischer clock: A clock which, in addition to serving the usual functions of a Chess clock, adds a certain amount of time to each player's clock after each move, in order to avoid desperate time scrambles at the end of a game, which often result in poor moves.
Fish: Derogatory term for a Chess player of little skill or experience.
Fixed Pawn: A Pawn whose advance is blocked by an enemy piece.
Flag: Part of an analog Chess clock. As the minute hand on the clock nears the 12, the flat is pushed upward. When the minute hand reaches 12 it no longer holds up the flag and it falls. The falling of the flag indicates that the player's time has expired, and if the requisite number of moves have not been played, the player is said to "lose the game on time" (i.e. the game is lost because time ran out, not because of the position on the board, although many games are lost on time when the position is poor and the losing player uses large amounts of time in an effort to try to find a way to save the game).
Flank: The a, b, and c files on the Queenside and the f, g, and h files on the Kingside.
Flight square: A square to which a King in check can move , also called escape square.
FM: FIDE Master.
Fool's mate: The shortest possible Chess game ending in checkmate:
1. g4 e5 (or e6) 2. f4 (or f3) Qh4 mate.
Forced mate: A sequence of moves that lead to a checkmate no matter what the opponent responds.
Forced move: A move for which there is only one reply (or if more than one reply, all but one are undesirable) .
Fork: An attack on two or more pieces simultaneously. Though any chess piece (except a Rook- Pawn) can execute a fork, the Knight makes a specialty of it.
Forsythe Notation: Compact and simple means of recording a Chess position also known as "FEN" (Forsythe-Edwards-Notation ), devised by Scottish player David Forsythe. Beginning at the top, left-hand corner of the board (a8) the position of the Chessmen as well as the unoccupied squares are recorded, rank by rank. White's men are recorded with capital letters, and Black's with lowercase letters.
For example, the starting position is notated:
"rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/ 8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR "
Frontier line: Nimzowitsch's term for an imaginary line running between the fourth and fifth ranks.
