Chess Dictionary — M
Chess terms starting with "M" from Chesswick's plain-language glossary.
Terms starting with M (8)
- Material Intermediate
- Material refers to the pieces and pawns each side still has on the board, compared by their standard values to see who holds the advantage.
- Middlegame Intermediate
- The middlegame follows the opening once both sides complete development and the central pawn structure takes shape, shifting focus to concrete plans, piece activity, and tactics until trades simplify the position into an endgame.
- Minor Piece Beginner
- A minor piece is a knight or bishop, each conventionally valued at three pawns and weaker than a rook or queen.
- Minor Pieces Intermediate
- Definition awaiting review.
- Minority Attack Intermediate
- A minority attack is a strategic queenside pawn advance by the player with fewer pawns on that wing, aimed at provoking lasting weaknesses like an isolated d-pawn or backward c-pawn in the opponent’s larger pawn structure.
- Morphy's Mate Intermediate
- A checkmate pattern in which a rook or queen attacks the castled king along an edge file while protected by a bishop that also controls key flight squares.
- Mouse Slip Beginner
- A mouse slip is an unintended move in an online chess game caused by accidentally releasing the mouse button over the wrong square.
- MuZero Intermediate
- MuZero is DeepMind's reinforcement-learning system that masters chess via self-play by learning an internal model of game dynamics with no pre-coded rules or chess knowledge.