History of chess
Encyclopedia
The history of chess spans some 1500 years. The earliest predecessors of the game originated in India
, before the 6th century AD. From India, the game spread to Persia. When the Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to Southern Europe
. In Europe, chess evolved into its current form in the 15th century. In the second half of the 19th century, modern chess tournament
play began, and the first world Chess Championship
was held in 1886. The 20th century saw great leaps forward in chess theory
and the establishment of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Developments in the 21st century include use of computers for analysis, which originated in the 1970s with the first programmed chess games on the market. Online gaming appeared in the mid 1990's.
during the Gupta Empire
, where its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga
, which translates as "four divisions (of the military)": infantry
, cavalry
, elephant
ry, and chariot
ry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively.
Chess was introduced to Persia from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility.
In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name became chatrang, which subsequently evolved to shatranj
, and the rules were developed further. Players started calling "Shāh!" (Persian for "King!") when attacking the opponent's king, and "Shāh Māt!" (Persian for "the king is helpless" – see checkmate
) when the king was attacked and could not escape from attack. These exclamations persisted in chess as it traveled to other lands.
The game was taken up by the Muslim world
after the Islamic conquest of Persia
, with the pieces largely keeping their Persian names. The Moors
of North Africa
rendered Persian "shatranj" as shaṭerej, which gave rise to the Spanish
acedrex, axedrez and ajedrez; in Portuguese
it became xadrez, and in Greek
zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king"). Thus, the game came to be called ludus scacchorum or scacc(h)i in Latin
, scacchi in Italian
, escacs in Catalan
, échecs in French
(Old French
eschecs); schaken in Dutch
, Schach in German
, szachy in Polish
, šahs in Latvian
, skak in Danish
, sjakk in Norwegian
, schack in Swedish
, šakki in Finnish
, šah in Slovene, sakk in Hungarian
and şah in Romanian
; there are two theories about why this change happened:
The Mongols call the game shatar, and in Ethiopia it is called senterej, both evidently derived from shatranj.
Chess spread directly from the Middle East
to Russia, where chess became known as шахматы (shakhmaty, treated as a plural).
The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula
by the Moors
in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering shatranj and backgammon
and dice
named the Libro de los juegos
.
Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking shape. Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road
traders and others carried it to the Far East
where it was transformed and assimilated into a game often played on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares. Chaturanga reached Europe
through Persia, the Byzantine empire
and the expanding Arabian empire
. Muslims carried chess to North Africa
, Sicily
, and Iberia
by the 10th century.
The game was developed extensively in Europe, and by the late 15th century, it had survived a series of prohibitions and Christian Church
sanctions to almost take the shape of the modern game. Modern history
saw reliable reference works, competitive chess tournaments and exciting new variants which added to the game's popularity, further bolstered by reliable timing mechanisms (first introduced in 1861), effective rules and charismatic players.
The earliest precursor of modern chess is a game called chaturanga
, which flourished in India by the 6th century, and is the earliest known game to have two essential features found in all later chess variations — different pieces having different powers (which was not the case with checkers and go
), and victory depending on the fate of one piece, the king of modern chess. Other game pieces (speculatively called "chess pieces") uncovered in archaeological findings are considered as coming from other, distantly related, board games, which may have had boards of 100 squares or more. Findings in the Mohenjo-daro
and Harappa
(2600–1500 BCE) sites of the Indus Valley Civilization
show a prevalence of a board game that resembles chess.
Chess was designed for an ashtāpada (Sanskrit
for "having eight feet", i.e. an 8x8 squared board), which may have been used earlier for a backgammon
-type race game (perhaps related to a dice-driven race game still played in south India where the track starts at the middle of a side and spirals in to the center). Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8×8 board served as the main board for playing Chaturanga
. Other Indian boards included the 10×10 Dasapada and the 9×9 Saturankam. Traditional Indian chessboards often have X markings on some or all of squares a1 a4 a5 a8 d1 d4 d5 d8 e1 e4 e5 e8 h1 h4 h5 h8: these may have been "safe squares" where capturing was not allowed in a dice-driven backgammon-type race game played on the ashtāpada
before chess was invented.
The Cox-Forbes theory
, started in the late 19th century, mainly from the works of Captain Hiram Cox and Duncan Forbes, proposed that the four-handed game chaturaji
was the original form of chaturanga. Other scholars dispute this and say that the two-handed form was the first.
In Sanskrit, "chaturanga" (चतुरङ्ग) literally means "having four limbs (or parts)" and in epic poetry
often means "army" (the four parts are elephants, chariots, horsemen, foot soldiers). The name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata
. The game Chaturanga was a battle simulation game which rendered Indian military strategy of the time.
Some people formerly played chess using a die
to decide which piece to move. There was an unproven theory that chess started as this dice-chess and that the gambling and dice aspects of the game were removed because of Hindu
religious objections.
Scholars in areas to which the game subsequently spread, for example the Arab Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī, detailed the Indian use of chess as a tool for military strategy
, mathematics
, gambling
and even its vague association with astronomy
. Mas'ūdī notes that ivory
in India was chiefly used for the production of chess and backgammon
pieces, and asserts that the game was introduced to Persia from India, along with the book Kelileh va Demneh, during the reign of emperor Nushirwan.
In some variants, a win was by checkmate, or by stalemate
, or by "bare king" (taking all of an opponent's pieces except the king).
In some parts of India the pieces in the places of the Rook and Knight and Bishop were renamed by words meaning (in this order) Boat, Horse, Elephant, or Elephant, Horse, Camel, but keeping the same moves.
In early chess the moves of the pieces were:
Two Arab travelers each recorded a severe Indian chess rule against stalemate
:
, a Pahlavi
epical treatise about the founder of the Sassanid
Persian Empire, mentions the game of chatrang as one of the accomplishments of the legendary hero, Ardashir I
, founder of the Empire. The oldest recorded game in chess history is a 10th century game played between a historian from Baghdad
and a pupil.
A manuscript explaining the rules of the game called "Matikan-i-chatrang" (the book of chess) in Middle Persian
or Pahlavi still exists.
In the 11th century Shahnameh
, Ferdowsi
describes a Raja
visiting from India who re-enacts the past battles on the chessboard. A translation in English
, based on the manuscripts in the British Museum
, is given below:
The Shahnameh goes on to offer an apocryphal account of the origins of the game of chess in the story of Talhand and Gav, two half-brothers who vie for the throne of Hind (India). They meet in battle and Talhand dies on his elephant without a wound. Believing that Gav had killed Talhand, their mother is distraught. Gav tells his mother that Talhand did not die by the hands of him or his men, but she does not understand how this could be. So the sages of the court invent the game of chess, detailing the pieces and how they move, to show the mother of the princes how the battle unfolded and how Talhand died of fatigue when surrounded by his enemies. The poem uses the Persian term "Shāh māt" (check mate) to describe the fate of Talhand.
The appearance of the chess pieces had altered greatly since the times of chaturanga, with ornate pieces and chess pieces depicting animals giving way to abstract shapes. The Islamic sets of later centuries followed a pattern which assigned names and abstract shapes to the chess pieces, as Islam
forbids depiction of animals and human beings in art. These pieces were usually made of simple clay and carved stone.
, chess is believed to have been derived from the Indian Chaturanga. Chaturanga was transformed and assimilated into the game xiangqi
where the pieces are placed on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares. The object of the Chinese variation is similar to Chaturanga, i.e. to render helpless the opponent's king, sometimes known as general. Chinese chess also borrows elements from the game of Go
, which was played in China
since at least the 6th century BC. Owing to the influence of Go, Chinese chess is played on the intersections of the lines on the board, rather than in the squares. Chinese chess pieces are usually flat and resemble those used in checkers, with pieces differentiated by writing their names on the flat surface.
An alternative origin theory contends that chess arose from Xiangqi
or a predecessor thereof, existing in China
since the 2nd century BC. David H. Li
, a retired accountant, professor of accounting and translator of ancient Chinese texts, hypothesizes that general Han Xin
drew on the earlier game of Liubo
to develop an early form of Chinese chess in the winter of 204–203 BC. The German chess historian Peter Banaschak, however, points out that Li's main hypothesis "is based on virtually nothing". He notes that the "Xuanguai lu," authored by the Tang Dynasty
minister Niu Sengru
(779–847), remains the first real source on the Chinese chess variant xiangqi.
, transmitted from India to China and Korea
before finally reaching Japan
. The two distinguishing features of Shogi are: 1) The captured pieces may be reused by the captor and played as a part of the captor's forces, and 2) Pawns capture as they move, one square straight ahead.
-inhabited areas, where the pieces are now called:
Names recorded from the 1880s by Russian sources, quoted in Murray, among the Soyot people (who at the time spoke the Soyot Turkic language) include: merzé (dog), täbä (camel), ot (horse), ōl (child) and Mongolian names for the other pieces.
The change with the Queen is likely due to the Arabic word firzān or Persian word farzīn (= "vizier
") being confused with Turkic or Mongolian native words (merzé = "mastiff", bar or bars = "tiger", arslan = "lion").
Chess in Mongolia is now played following the usual international rules.
, Tunguses
, and Yukaghir
s; but only as a children's game among the Chukchi
. Chessmen have been collected from the Yakutat people in Alaska
, having no resemblance to European chessmen, and thus likely part of a chess tradition coming from Siberia
.
. From there it passed to Western Europe, probably via Spain.
Over the centuries, features of European chess (e.g. the modern moves of Queen and Bishop, and castling) found their way via trade into Islamic areas. Murray's sources found the old moves of Queen and Bishop still current in Ethiopia
.
Shatranj
made its way via the expanding Islam
ic Arabian empire to Europe
and the Byzantine empire
. Chess appeared in Southern Europe
during the end of the first millennium, often introduced to new lands by conquering armies, such as the Norman Conquest of England
. Chess remained largely unpopular in Northern Europe but started gaining popularity as soon as figure pieces were introduced.
The sides are conventionally called White and Black. But, in earlier European chess writings, the sides were often called Red and Black because those were the commonly available colors of ink when handwriting drawing a chess game layout. In such layouts, each piece was represented by its name, often abbreviated (e.g. "ch'r" for French "chevalier" = "knight
").
The social value attached to the game – seen as a prestigious pastime associated with nobility and high culture – is clear from the expensive and exquisitely made chessboards of the medieval era. The popularity of chess in the Western courtly society peaked between the 12th and the 15th centuries. The game found mention in the vernacular
and Latin
language literature throughout Europe, and many works were written on or about chess between the 12th and the 15th centuries. Harold James Ruthven Murray
divides the works into three distinct parts: the didactic works e.g. Alexander of Neckham's De scaccis (approx. 1180); works of morality like Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium sive super ludo scacchorum (Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess), written by Jacobus de Cessolis
; and the works related to various chess problems, written largely after 1205. Chess terms, like check, were used by authors as a metaphor for various situations.
Chess was soon incorporated into the knightly style of life in Europe. Peter Alfonsi, in his work Disciplina Clericalis, listed chess among the seven skills that a good knight
must acquire. Chess also became a subject of art during this period, with caskets and pendants decorated in various chess forms. Queen Margaret of England
's green and red chess sets
– made of jasper and crystal – symbolized chess's position in royal art treasures. Kings Henry I
, Henry II
and Richard I of England were chess patrons. Other monarchs who gained similar status were Alfonso X of Castile
and Ivan IV of Russia
.
Saint Peter Damian denounced the bishop of Florence in 1061 for playing chess even when aware of its evil effects on the society. The bishop of Florence defended himself by declaring that chess involved skill and was therefore "unlike other games," and similar arguments followed in the coming centuries. Two separate incidents in 13th century London
involving men of Essex
resorting to violence resulting in death as an outcome of playing chess further caused sensation and alarm. The growing popularity of the game – now associated with revelry and violence – alarmed the Church.
The practice of playing chess for money became so widespread during the 13th century that Louis IX of France
issued an ordinance against gambling in 1254. This ordinance turned out to be unenforceable and was largely neglected by the common public, and even the courtly society, which continued to enjoy the now prohibited chess tournaments uninterrupted.
By the mid-12th century, the pieces of the chess set were depicted as kings, queens, bishops, knights and men at arms
. Chessmen made of ivory began to appear in North-West Europe
, and ornate pieces of traditional knight warriors were used as early as the mid 13th century. The initially nondescript pawn had now found association with the pedes, pedinus, or the footman
, which symbolized both infantry and loyal domestic service.
The following table provides a glimpse of the changes in names and character of chess pieces as they transitioned from India through Persia to Europe:
The game, as played during the early Middle Ages, was slow, with many games lasting for days. Some variations in rules began to change the shape of the game by 1300 AD. A notable, but initially unpopular, change was the ability of the pawn to move two places in the first move instead of one.
In Europe some of the pieces gradually got new names:
Attempts to make the start of the game run faster to get the opposing pieces in contact sooner included:
Other sporadic variations in the rules of chess included:
became easier and games could now be won in fewer moves. These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe and in Spain
, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early 19th century.
In some areas (e.g. Russia
), the queen could also move like a knight.
A poem Caïssa
published in 1527 led to the chess rook being often renamed as "castle", and the modern shape of the Rook chess piece; see Vida's poem for more information.
An Italian player, Gioacchino Greco
, regarded as one of the first true professionals of the game, authored an analysis of a number of composed games that illustrated two differing approaches to chess. This influential work went to some extent in popularizing chess and demonstrated the many theories regarding game play and tactics.
The first full work dealing with the various winning combinations was written by François-André Danican Philidor
of France, regarded as the best chess player in the world for nearly 50 years, and published in the 18th century. He wrote and published L'Analyse des échecs (The Analysis of Chess), an influential work which appeared in more than 100 editions.
Writings about the theory of how to play chess
began to appear in the 15th century. The oldest surviving printed chess book, Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez (Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess) by Spanish
churchman Luis Ramirez de Lucena was published in Salamanca
in 1497. Lucena and later masters like Portuguese
Pedro Damiano
, Italians Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona
, Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco or Spanish bishop Ruy López de Segura developed elements of opening
s and started to analyze simple endgames.
In the 18th century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France
. The two most important French masters were François-André Danican Philidor
, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais
who won a famous series of matches with the Irish
master Alexander McDonnell
in 1834. Centers of chess life in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Café de la Régence
in Paris
and Simpson's Divan
in London
.
As the 19th century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess club
s, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh
Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems became a regular part of 19th century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz
, Josef Kling
and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa
published his and Bilguer's
Handbuch des Schachspiels
(Handbook of Chess), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.
and resigning.
In 1861 the first time limits, using sandglasses, were employed in a tournament match at Bristol
, England. The sandglasses were later replaced by pendulums. Modern clocks, consisting of two parallel timers with a small button for a player to press after completing a move, were later employed to aid the players. A tiny latch called a flag further helped settle arguments over players exceeding time limit at the turn of the 19th century.
A Russian composer, Vladimir Korolkov, authored a work entitled "Excelsior" in 1958 in which the White side wins only by making six consecutive captures by a pawn. Position analysis became particularly popular in the 19th century. Many leading players were also accomplished analysts, including Max Euwe
, Mikhail Botvinnik
, Vasily Smyslov
and Jan Timman
. Digital clocks appeared in the 1980s.
Another problem that arose in competitive chess was when adjourning a game for a meal break or overnight. The player who moved last before adjournment would be at a disadvantage, as the other player would have a long period to analyze before having to make a reply when the game was resumed. Preventing access to a chess set to work out moves during the adjournment would not stop him from analyzing the position in his head. Various strange ideas were attempted, but the eventual solution was the "sealed move". The final move before adjournment is not made on the board but instead is written on a piece of paper which the referee seals in an envelope and keeps safe. When the game is continued after adjournment, the referee makes the sealed move and the players resume.
The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851
and won, surprisingly, by German Adolf Anderssen
, relatively unknown at the time. Anderssen was hailed as the leading chess master and his brilliant, energetic attacking style became typical for the time, although it was later regarded as strategically shallow. Sparkling games like Anderssen's Immortal game
and Evergreen Game
or Morphy's
Opera game
were regarded as the highest possible summit of the chess art.
Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players. American
Paul Morphy
, an extraordinary chess prodigy
, won against all important competitors, including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863. Morphy's success stemmed from a combination of brilliant attacks and sound strategy; he intuitively knew how to prepare attacks. Prague
-born Wilhelm Steinitz
later described how to avoid weaknesses in one's own position and how to create and exploit such weaknesses in the opponent's position. In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading Polish-German master Johannes Zukertort
in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship
. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger German mathematician Emanuel Lasker
, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions.
It took a prodigy from Cuba
, José Raúl Capablanca
(World champion 1921–27), who loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years until 1924. His successor was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine
, a strong attacking player, who died as the World champion in 1946, having briefly lost the title to Dutch
player Max Euwe
in 1935 and regaining it two years later.
Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-called hypermodernists
like Aron Nimzowitsch
and Richard Réti
. They advocated controlling the center of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, inviting opponents to occupy the center with pawns which become objects of attack.
Since the end of 19th century, the number of annually held master tournaments and matches quickly grew. Some sources state that in 1914 the title of chess grandmaster
was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch
and Marshall, but this is a disputed claim. The tradition of awarding such titles was continued by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), founded in 1924 in Paris
. In 1927, Women's World Chess Championship
was established; the first to hold it was Czech
-English
master Vera Menchik
.
, started an era of Soviet dominance in the chess world. Until the end of the Soviet Union, there was only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer
(champion 1972–1975).
In the previous informal system, the World Champion decided which challenger he would play for the title and the challenger was forced to seek sponsors for the match. FIDE set up a new system of qualifying tournaments and matches. The world's strongest players were seeded into "Interzonal
tournaments", where they were joined by players who had qualified from "Zonal tournaments". The leading finishers in these Interzonals would go on the "Candidates" stage, which was initially a tournament, later a series of knock-out matches. The winner of the Candidates would then play the reigning champion for the title. A champion defeated in a match had a right to play a rematch a year later. This system worked on a three-year cycle.
Botvinnik participated in championship matches over a period of fifteen years. He won the world championship tournament in 1948 and retained the title in tied matches in 1951 and 1954. In 1957, he lost to Vasily Smyslov
, but regained the title in a rematch in 1958. In 1960, he lost the title to the Latvia
n prodigy Mikhail Tal
, an accomplished tactician and attacking player. Botvinnik again regained the title in a rematch in 1961.
Following the 1961 event, FIDE abolished the automatic right of a deposed champion to a rematch, and the next champion, Armenia
n Tigran Petrosian
, a genius of defense and strong positional player, was able to hold the title for two cycles, 1963–1969. His successor, Boris Spassky
from Russia (1969–1972), was a player able to win in both positional and sharp tactical style.
The next championship, the so-called Match of the Century, saw the first non-Soviet challenger since World War II
, American Bobby Fischer
, who defeated his Candidates opponents by unheard-of margins and clearly won the world championship match. In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov
when FIDE refused to meet his demands, and Karpov obtained the title by default. Karpov defended his title twice against Viktor Korchnoi
and dominated the 1970s and early 1980s with a string of tournament successes.
Karpov's reign finally ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player, Garry Kasparov
. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world title matches between 1984 and 1990; Karpov never won his title back.
In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short
broke with FIDE to organize their own match for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess Association
(PCA). From then until 2006, there were two simultaneous World Champions and World Championships: the PCA or Classical champion extending the Steinitzian tradition in which the current champion plays a challenger in a series of many games; the other following FIDE's new format of many players competing in a tournament to determine the champion. Kasparov lost his Classical title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik
of Russia.
Earlier in 1999, Kasparov as the reigning world champion played a game online against the world team composed of more than 50,000 participants from more than 75 countries. The moves of the world team were decided by plurality vote, and after 62 moves played over four months Kasparov won the game. The number of ideas, the complexity, and the contribution it has made to chess theory
make it one of the most important chess games ever played.
The FIDE World Chess Championship 2006
reunified the titles, when Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov
and became the undisputed World Chess Champion. In September 2007, Viswanathan Anand
from India became the next champion by winning a championship tournament. In October 2008, Anand retained his title, decisively winning the rematch against Kramnik.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, before the 6th century AD. From India, the game spread to Persia. When the Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to Southern Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. In Europe, chess evolved into its current form in the 15th century. In the second half of the 19th century, modern chess tournament
Chess tournament
A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition among serious players.Today, the most recognized chess...
play began, and the first world Chess Championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
was held in 1886. The 20th century saw great leaps forward in chess theory
Chess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...
and the establishment of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Developments in the 21st century include use of computers for analysis, which originated in the 1970s with the first programmed chess games on the market. Online gaming appeared in the mid 1990's.
Origin
The precursors of chess probably originated in IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
during the Gupta Empire
Gupta Empire
The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed approximately from 320 to 550 CE and covered much of the Indian Subcontinent. Founded by Maharaja Sri-Gupta, the dynasty was the model of a classical civilization. The peace and prosperity created under leadership of Guptas enabled the...
, where its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga
Chaturanga
Chaturanga is an ancient Indian game that is presumed to be the common ancestor of the games of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi.Chaturanga developed in Gupta India around the 6th century...
, which translates as "four divisions (of the military)": infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
, cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
, elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
ry, and chariot
Chariot
The chariot is a type of horse carriage used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and also built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original horse chariot was a fast, light, open, two wheeled...
ry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively.
Chess was introduced to Persia from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility.
In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name became chatrang, which subsequently evolved to shatranj
Shatranj
Shatranj is an old form of chess, which came to the Western world from India. Modern chess has gradually developed from this game.-Etymology and origins:...
, and the rules were developed further. Players started calling "Shāh!" (Persian for "King!") when attacking the opponent's king, and "Shāh Māt!" (Persian for "the king is helpless" – see checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
) when the king was attacked and could not escape from attack. These exclamations persisted in chess as it traveled to other lands.
The game was taken up by the Muslim world
Muslim world
The term Muslim world has several meanings. In a religious sense, it refers to those who adhere to the teachings of Islam, referred to as Muslims. In a cultural sense, it refers to Islamic civilization, inclusive of non-Muslims living in that civilization...
after the Islamic conquest of Persia
Islamic conquest of Persia
The Muslim conquest of Persia led to the end of the Sassanid Empire in 644, the fall of Sassanid dynasty in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia...
, with the pieces largely keeping their Persian names. The Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
of North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
rendered Persian "shatranj" as shaṭerej, which gave rise to the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
acedrex, axedrez and ajedrez; in Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
it became xadrez, and in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king"). Thus, the game came to be called ludus scacchorum or scacc(h)i in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, scacchi in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, escacs in Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, échecs in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
eschecs); schaken in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, Schach in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, szachy in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, šahs in Latvian
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
, skak in Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, sjakk in Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
, schack in Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, šakki in Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, šah in Slovene, sakk in Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
and şah in Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
; there are two theories about why this change happened:
- From the exclamation "check" or "checkmate" as it was pronounced in various languages.
- From the first chessmen known of in Western Europe (except IberiaIberian PeninsulaThe Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
and Greece) being ornamental chess kings brought in as curios by Muslim traders.
The Mongols call the game shatar, and in Ethiopia it is called senterej, both evidently derived from shatranj.
Chess spread directly from the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
to Russia, where chess became known as шахматы (shakhmaty, treated as a plural).
The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
by the Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering shatranj and backgammon
Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...
and dice
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
named the Libro de los juegos
Libro de los juegos
The Libro de los Juegos, , or Libro de acedrex, dados e tablas, was commissioned by Alfonso X of Castile, Galicia and León and completed in his scriptorium in Toledo in 1283, is an exemplary piece of Alfonso’s medieval literary legacy.Consisting of ninety-seven leaves of parchment, many with color...
.
Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking shape. Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road
Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
traders and others carried it to the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
where it was transformed and assimilated into a game often played on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares. Chaturanga reached Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
through Persia, the Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
and the expanding Arabian empire
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
. Muslims carried chess to North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, and Iberia
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
by the 10th century.
The game was developed extensively in Europe, and by the late 15th century, it had survived a series of prohibitions and Christian Church
Christian Church
The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...
sanctions to almost take the shape of the modern game. Modern history
Modern history
Modern history, or the modern era, describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages. Modern history can be further broken down into the early modern period and the late modern period after the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution...
saw reliable reference works, competitive chess tournaments and exciting new variants which added to the game's popularity, further bolstered by reliable timing mechanisms (first introduced in 1861), effective rules and charismatic players.
India
Chaturanga
Chaturanga is an ancient Indian game that is presumed to be the common ancestor of the games of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi.Chaturanga developed in Gupta India around the 6th century...
, which flourished in India by the 6th century, and is the earliest known game to have two essential features found in all later chess variations — different pieces having different powers (which was not the case with checkers and go
Go (board game)
Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...
), and victory depending on the fate of one piece, the king of modern chess. Other game pieces (speculatively called "chess pieces") uncovered in archaeological findings are considered as coming from other, distantly related, board games, which may have had boards of 100 squares or more. Findings in the Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro is an archeological site situated in what is now the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2600 BC, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major urban settlements, existing at the same time as the...
and Harappa
Harappa
Harappa is an archaeological site in Punjab, northeast Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The site takes its name from a modern village located near the former course of the Ravi River. The current village of Harappa is from the ancient site. Although modern Harappa has a train station left from...
(2600–1500 BCE) sites of the Indus Valley Civilization
Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India...
show a prevalence of a board game that resembles chess.
Chess was designed for an ashtāpada (Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
for "having eight feet", i.e. an 8x8 squared board), which may have been used earlier for a backgammon
Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...
-type race game (perhaps related to a dice-driven race game still played in south India where the track starts at the middle of a side and spirals in to the center). Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8×8 board served as the main board for playing Chaturanga
Chaturanga
Chaturanga is an ancient Indian game that is presumed to be the common ancestor of the games of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi.Chaturanga developed in Gupta India around the 6th century...
. Other Indian boards included the 10×10 Dasapada and the 9×9 Saturankam. Traditional Indian chessboards often have X markings on some or all of squares a1 a4 a5 a8 d1 d4 d5 d8 e1 e4 e5 e8 h1 h4 h5 h8: these may have been "safe squares" where capturing was not allowed in a dice-driven backgammon-type race game played on the ashtāpada
Ashtapada
The Ashtāpada is an Indian board game which was used in earlier versions of chess. Chaturanga appeared sometime around the 6th century in India. It could be played by two to four participants and data used to determine the amount of houses to be moved...
before chess was invented.
The Cox-Forbes theory
Cox-Forbes theory
The Cox-Forbes theory is a long-debunked theory on the evolution of chess put forward by Captain Hiram Cox and extended by Professor Duncan Forbes ....
, started in the late 19th century, mainly from the works of Captain Hiram Cox and Duncan Forbes, proposed that the four-handed game chaturaji
Chaturaji
Chaturaji is a four player chess-like game. It was first described in detail circa 1030 by Biruni in his India book. Originally, this was a game of chance: the pieces to be moved were decided by rolling two dice...
was the original form of chaturanga. Other scholars dispute this and say that the two-handed form was the first.
In Sanskrit, "chaturanga" (चतुरङ्ग) literally means "having four limbs (or parts)" and in epic poetry
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
often means "army" (the four parts are elephants, chariots, horsemen, foot soldiers). The name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
. The game Chaturanga was a battle simulation game which rendered Indian military strategy of the time.
Some people formerly played chess using a die
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
to decide which piece to move. There was an unproven theory that chess started as this dice-chess and that the gambling and dice aspects of the game were removed because of Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
religious objections.
Scholars in areas to which the game subsequently spread, for example the Arab Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī, detailed the Indian use of chess as a tool for military strategy
Military strategy
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek strategos, strategy when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", 'the art of arrangement' of troops...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
and even its vague association with astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
. Mas'ūdī notes that ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
in India was chiefly used for the production of chess and backgammon
Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...
pieces, and asserts that the game was introduced to Persia from India, along with the book Kelileh va Demneh, during the reign of emperor Nushirwan.
In some variants, a win was by checkmate, or by stalemate
Stalemate
Stalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves. A stalemate ends the game in a draw. Stalemate is covered in the rules of chess....
, or by "bare king" (taking all of an opponent's pieces except the king).
In some parts of India the pieces in the places of the Rook and Knight and Bishop were renamed by words meaning (in this order) Boat, Horse, Elephant, or Elephant, Horse, Camel, but keeping the same moves.
In early chess the moves of the pieces were:
- King: as now.
- Queen: one square diagonally, only.
- Bishop:
- In the version that went into Persia: two squares diagonally (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between
- In a version sometimes found in India in former times: two squares sideways or front-and-back (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between.
- In versions found in Southeast Asia: one square diagonally, or one square forwards.
- Knight: as now.
- Rook: as now.
- Pawn: one square forwards (not two), capturing one square diagonally forward; promoted to queen only.
Two Arab travelers each recorded a severe Indian chess rule against stalemate
Stalemate
Stalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves. A stalemate ends the game in a draw. Stalemate is covered in the rules of chess....
:
- A stalemated player thereby at once wins.
- A stalemated king can take one of the enemy pieces that would check the king if the king moves.
Iran (Persia)
The Karnamak-i Ardeshir-i PapakanKarnamak-i Artaxshir-i Papakan
The Kārnāmag-ī Ardaxšīr-ī Pābagān or Book of the Deeds of Ardashir, Son of Papag, is a mythological Middle Persian tale written in the Sassanid period ....
, a Pahlavi
Middle Persian
Middle Persian , indigenously known as "Pârsig" sometimes referred to as Pahlavi or Pehlevi, is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as a...
epical treatise about the founder of the Sassanid
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
Persian Empire, mentions the game of chatrang as one of the accomplishments of the legendary hero, Ardashir I
Ardashir I
Ardashir I was the founder of the Sassanid Empire, was ruler of Istakhr , subsequently Fars Province , and finally "King of Kings of Sassanid Empire " with the overthrow of the Parthian Empire...
, founder of the Empire. The oldest recorded game in chess history is a 10th century game played between a historian from Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
and a pupil.
A manuscript explaining the rules of the game called "Matikan-i-chatrang" (the book of chess) in Middle Persian
Middle Persian
Middle Persian , indigenously known as "Pârsig" sometimes referred to as Pahlavi or Pehlevi, is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as a...
or Pahlavi still exists.
In the 11th century Shahnameh
Shahnameh
The Shahnameh or Shah-nama is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c.977 and 1010 AD and is the national epic of Iran and related societies...
, Ferdowsi
Ferdowsi
Ferdowsi was a highly revered Persian poet. He was the author of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran and related societies.The Shahnameh was originally composed by Ferdowsi for the princes of the Samanid dynasty, who were responsible for a revival of Persian cultural traditions after the...
describes a Raja
Raja
Raja is an Indian term for a monarch, or princely ruler of the Kshatriya varna...
visiting from India who re-enacts the past battles on the chessboard. A translation in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, based on the manuscripts in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, is given below:
- One day an ambassador from the king of HindIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
arrived at the Persian court of Chosroes, and after an oriental exchange of courtesies, the ambassador produced rich presents from his sovereign and amongst them was an elaborate board with curiously carved pieces of ebony and ivory. He then issued a challenge: - "Oh great king, fetch your wise men and let them solve the mysteries of this game. If they succeed my master the king of Hind will pay tribute as an overlord, but if they fail it will be proof that the Persians are of lower intellect and we shall demand tribute from Iran."
- The courtiers were shown the board, and after a day and a night in deep thought one of them, BozorgmehrBozorgmehrBozorgmehr-e Bokhtagan is the name of a vizier of Khusro I Anōšīravān attested in the literature and legend of Iran. According to Persian and Arabic sources, he was a man of "exceptional wisdom and sage counsels" and later became a characterisation of the expression...
, solved the mystery and was richly rewarded by his delighted sovereign.- (Edward LaskerEdward LaskerEdward Lasker was a leading German-American chess and Go player. He was awarded the title of International Master of chess by FIDE. Lasker was an engineer by profession, and an author.-Background:...
suggested that Bozorgmehr likely found the rules by bribing the Indian envoys.)
- (Edward Lasker
The Shahnameh goes on to offer an apocryphal account of the origins of the game of chess in the story of Talhand and Gav, two half-brothers who vie for the throne of Hind (India). They meet in battle and Talhand dies on his elephant without a wound. Believing that Gav had killed Talhand, their mother is distraught. Gav tells his mother that Talhand did not die by the hands of him or his men, but she does not understand how this could be. So the sages of the court invent the game of chess, detailing the pieces and how they move, to show the mother of the princes how the battle unfolded and how Talhand died of fatigue when surrounded by his enemies. The poem uses the Persian term "Shāh māt" (check mate) to describe the fate of Talhand.
The appearance of the chess pieces had altered greatly since the times of chaturanga, with ornate pieces and chess pieces depicting animals giving way to abstract shapes. The Islamic sets of later centuries followed a pattern which assigned names and abstract shapes to the chess pieces, as Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
forbids depiction of animals and human beings in art. These pieces were usually made of simple clay and carved stone.
China
As a strategy board game played in ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, chess is believed to have been derived from the Indian Chaturanga. Chaturanga was transformed and assimilated into the game xiangqi
Xiangqi
Xiangqi is a two-player Chinese board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, shogi, Indian chess and janggi. The present-day form of Xiangqi originated in China and is therefore commonly called Chinese chess in English. Xiangqi is one of the most popular board games in China...
where the pieces are placed on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares. The object of the Chinese variation is similar to Chaturanga, i.e. to render helpless the opponent's king, sometimes known as general. Chinese chess also borrows elements from the game of Go
Go (board game)
Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...
, which was played in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
since at least the 6th century BC. Owing to the influence of Go, Chinese chess is played on the intersections of the lines on the board, rather than in the squares. Chinese chess pieces are usually flat and resemble those used in checkers, with pieces differentiated by writing their names on the flat surface.
An alternative origin theory contends that chess arose from Xiangqi
Xiangqi
Xiangqi is a two-player Chinese board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, shogi, Indian chess and janggi. The present-day form of Xiangqi originated in China and is therefore commonly called Chinese chess in English. Xiangqi is one of the most popular board games in China...
or a predecessor thereof, existing in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
since the 2nd century BC. David H. Li
David H. Li
David H. Li is an author on Chinese history and chess.- Biography and bibliography :He has written several books and also translated several Chinese classics to English. He was born in 1928 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, and moved to the United States in 1949, where he still lives in Bethesda,...
, a retired accountant, professor of accounting and translator of ancient Chinese texts, hypothesizes that general Han Xin
Hán Xìn
Han Xin was a military general who served Liu Bang during the Chu–Han contention and contributed greatly to the founding of the Han Dynasty...
drew on the earlier game of Liubo
Liubo
Liubo is an ancient Chinese board game played by two players. For the rules, it is believed that each player had six game pieces that were moved around the points of a square game board that had a distinctive, symmetrical pattern...
to develop an early form of Chinese chess in the winter of 204–203 BC. The German chess historian Peter Banaschak, however, points out that Li's main hypothesis "is based on virtually nothing". He notes that the "Xuanguai lu," authored by the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
minister Niu Sengru
Niu Sengru
Niu Sengru , courtesy name Si'an , formally Duke Wenzhen of Qizhang , was an official of the Chinese dynasty Tang Dynasty, serving as a chancellor during the reigns of Emperor Muzong and his sons Emperor Jingzong and Emperor Wenzong...
(779–847), remains the first real source on the Chinese chess variant xiangqi.
Japan
A prominent variant of chess in East Asia is the game of ShogiShogi
, also known as Japanese chess, is a two-player board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, and Chinese Xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of chess variants native to Japan...
, transmitted from India to China and Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
before finally reaching Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. The two distinguishing features of Shogi are: 1) The captured pieces may be reused by the captor and played as a part of the captor's forces, and 2) Pawns capture as they move, one square straight ahead.
Mongolia
Chess is recorded from MongolianMongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
-inhabited areas, where the pieces are now called:
- King: - Noyon - Ноён - lordLordLord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...
- Queen - Bers / Nohoi - Бэрс / Нохой - dog (to guard the livestock)
- Bishop: - Temē - Тэмээ - camelCamelA camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
- Knight- Morĭ - Морь - horseHorseThe horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
- Rook - Tereg - Тэрэг - cartCartA cart is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people...
- Pawn - Hū - Хүү - boy (the piece often showed a puppyPuppyA puppy is a juvenile dog. Some puppies may weigh , while larger ones can weigh up to . All healthy puppies grow quickly after birth. A puppy's coat color may change as the puppy grows older, as is commonly seen in breeds such as the Yorkshire Terrier...
)
Names recorded from the 1880s by Russian sources, quoted in Murray, among the Soyot people (who at the time spoke the Soyot Turkic language) include: merzé (dog), täbä (camel), ot (horse), ōl (child) and Mongolian names for the other pieces.
The change with the Queen is likely due to the Arabic word firzān or Persian word farzīn (= "vizier
Vizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
") being confused with Turkic or Mongolian native words (merzé = "mastiff", bar or bars = "tiger", arslan = "lion").
Chess in Mongolia is now played following the usual international rules.
East Siberia
Chess was also recorded from the YakutsYakuts
Yakuts , are a Turkic people associated with the Sakha Republic.The Yakut or Sakha language belongs to the Northern branch of the Turkic family of languages....
, Tunguses
Evenks
The Evenks are a Tungusic people of Northern Asia. In Russia, the Evenks are recognized as one of the Indigenous peoples of the Russian North, with a population of 35,527...
, and Yukaghir
Yukaghir
The Yukaghir, or Yukagirs , деткиль ) are a people in East Siberia, living in the basin of the Kolyma River.-Region:The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic; the Taiga Yukaghirs in the Upper Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic and in Srednekansky District of...
s; but only as a children's game among the Chukchi
Chukchi people
The Chukchi, or Chukchee , ) are an indigenous people inhabiting the Chukchi Peninsula and the shores of the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea region of the Arctic Ocean within the Russian Federation. They speak the Chukchi language...
. Chessmen have been collected from the Yakutat people in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, having no resemblance to European chessmen, and thus likely part of a chess tradition coming from Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
.
Arab world
Chess passed from Persia to the Arab world, where its name changed to Arabic shatranjShatranj
Shatranj is an old form of chess, which came to the Western world from India. Modern chess has gradually developed from this game.-Etymology and origins:...
. From there it passed to Western Europe, probably via Spain.
Over the centuries, features of European chess (e.g. the modern moves of Queen and Bishop, and castling) found their way via trade into Islamic areas. Murray's sources found the old moves of Queen and Bishop still current in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
.
Early history
Shatranj
Shatranj is an old form of chess, which came to the Western world from India. Modern chess has gradually developed from this game.-Etymology and origins:...
made its way via the expanding Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic Arabian empire to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
. Chess appeared in Southern Europe
Southern Europe
The term Southern Europe, at its most general definition, is used to mean "all countries in the south of Europe". However, the concept, at different times, has had different meanings, providing additional political, linguistic and cultural context to the definition in addition to the typical...
during the end of the first millennium, often introduced to new lands by conquering armies, such as the Norman Conquest of England
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
. Chess remained largely unpopular in Northern Europe but started gaining popularity as soon as figure pieces were introduced.
The sides are conventionally called White and Black. But, in earlier European chess writings, the sides were often called Red and Black because those were the commonly available colors of ink when handwriting drawing a chess game layout. In such layouts, each piece was represented by its name, often abbreviated (e.g. "ch'r" for French "chevalier" = "knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
").
The social value attached to the game – seen as a prestigious pastime associated with nobility and high culture – is clear from the expensive and exquisitely made chessboards of the medieval era. The popularity of chess in the Western courtly society peaked between the 12th and the 15th centuries. The game found mention in the vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
language literature throughout Europe, and many works were written on or about chess between the 12th and the 15th centuries. Harold James Ruthven Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray , was an English educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. He was the first to publish the theory that chess originated in India...
divides the works into three distinct parts: the didactic works e.g. Alexander of Neckham's De scaccis (approx. 1180); works of morality like Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium sive super ludo scacchorum (Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess), written by Jacobus de Cessolis
Jacobus de Cessolis
Jacobus de Cessolis was an Italian author of the most famous morality book on chess in the Middle Ages....
; and the works related to various chess problems, written largely after 1205. Chess terms, like check, were used by authors as a metaphor for various situations.
Chess was soon incorporated into the knightly style of life in Europe. Peter Alfonsi, in his work Disciplina Clericalis, listed chess among the seven skills that a good knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
must acquire. Chess also became a subject of art during this period, with caskets and pendants decorated in various chess forms. Queen Margaret of England
Margaret of Anjou
Margaret of Anjou was the wife of King Henry VI of England. As such, she was Queen consort of England from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471; and Queen consort of France from 1445 to 1453...
's green and red chess sets
Chess piece
Chess pieces or chessmen are the pieces deployed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. The pieces vary in abilities, giving them different values in the game...
– made of jasper and crystal – symbolized chess's position in royal art treasures. Kings Henry I
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...
, Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
and Richard I of England were chess patrons. Other monarchs who gained similar status were Alfonso X of Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
and Ivan IV of Russia
Ivan IV of Russia
Ivan IV Vasilyevich , known in English as Ivan the Terrible , was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 until his death. His long reign saw the conquest of the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, transforming Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state spanning almost one billion acres,...
.
Saint Peter Damian denounced the bishop of Florence in 1061 for playing chess even when aware of its evil effects on the society. The bishop of Florence defended himself by declaring that chess involved skill and was therefore "unlike other games," and similar arguments followed in the coming centuries. Two separate incidents in 13th century London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
involving men of Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
resorting to violence resulting in death as an outcome of playing chess further caused sensation and alarm. The growing popularity of the game – now associated with revelry and violence – alarmed the Church.
The practice of playing chess for money became so widespread during the 13th century that Louis IX of France
Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
issued an ordinance against gambling in 1254. This ordinance turned out to be unenforceable and was largely neglected by the common public, and even the courtly society, which continued to enjoy the now prohibited chess tournaments uninterrupted.
By the mid-12th century, the pieces of the chess set were depicted as kings, queens, bishops, knights and men at arms
Man-at-arms
Man-at-arms was a term used from the High Medieval to Renaissance periods to describe a soldier, almost always a professional warrior in the sense of being well-trained in the use of arms, who served as a fully armoured heavy cavalryman...
. Chessmen made of ivory began to appear in North-West Europe
North-West Europe
North-West Europe is a term that refers to a northern area of Western Europe, although the exact area or countries it comprises varies.-Geographic definition:...
, and ornate pieces of traditional knight warriors were used as early as the mid 13th century. The initially nondescript pawn had now found association with the pedes, pedinus, or the footman
Footman
A footman is a male servant, notably as domestic staff.-Word history:The name derives from the attendants who ran beside or behind the carriages of aristocrats, many of whom were chosen for their physical attributes. They ran alongside the coach to make sure it was not overturned by such obstacles...
, which symbolized both infantry and loyal domestic service.
The following table provides a glimpse of the changes in names and character of chess pieces as they transitioned from India through Persia to Europe:
| Sanskrit | Persian | Arabic | Latin | English | Spanish | Portuguese | Italian | French | Catalan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raja Raja Raja is an Indian term for a monarch, or princely ruler of the Kshatriya varna... (King) |
Shah Shah Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:... |
Malik Malik Malik is an Arabic word meaning "king, chieftain".It has been adopted in various other, mainly Islamized or Arabized, Asian languages for their ruling princes and to render kings elsewhere. It is also sometimes used in derived meanings... |
Rex Monarch A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication... |
King Monarch A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication... |
Rey | Rei | Re | Roi | Rei |
| Mantri Mantri Mantri is a word of Sanskrit origin , used in Asian cultures with a Hindu tradition . It is used for a variety of public offices, from fairly humble to ministerial in rank. The term also forms part of a number of compounds... (Minister) |
Vazīr (Vizir) | Wazīr/Firz | Regina Queen regnant A queen regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right, in contrast to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king. An empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over an empire.... |
Queen Queen regnant A queen regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right, in contrast to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king. An empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over an empire.... |
Dama | Rainha | Regina | Reine | Dama/Reina |
| Gaja Gaja Gaja is one of the significant animals finding references in Hindu scriptures and Buddhist and Jain texts. In general, a gaja personifies a number of positive attributes including abundance, fertility and richness; boldness and strength; and wisdom and royalty... h (war elephant) |
Pil | Al-Fīl | Episcopus/Comes Comes Comes , plural comites , is the Latin word for companion, either individually or as a member of a collective known as comitatus, especially the suite of a magnate, in some cases large and/or formal enough to have a specific name, such as a cohors amicorum. The word comes derives from com- "with" +... /Calvus |
Bishop Bishop A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the... /Count Count A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is... /Councillor Councillor A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council.Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman.-United Kingdom:... |
Alfil/Obispo | Bispo | Alfiere | Fou | Alfil |
| Ashva Ashva Aśvaḥ is the Sanskrit word for a "horse", one of the significant animals finding references in the Vedas as well as later Hindu scriptures. The corresponding Avestan term is aspa... (horse) |
Asp | Fars/Hisan | Miles/Eques | Knight Knight A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior.... |
Caballo | Cavalo | Cavallo | Chevalier | Cavall |
| Ratha Ratha Ratha is the Indo-Iranian term for the spoked-wheel chariot of Antiquity.It derives from a collective to a Proto-Indo-European word for "wheel" that also resulted in Latin rota and is also known from Germanic, Celtic and Baltic... (chariot) |
Rokh | Qal`a/Rukhkh | Rochus/Marchio | Rook Rook (chess) A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes... /Margrave Margrave A margrave or margravine was a medieval hereditary nobleman with military responsibilities in a border province of a kingdom. Border provinces usually had more exposure to military incursions from the outside, compared to interior provinces, and thus a margrave usually had larger and more active... |
Torre/Roque | Torre | Torre/Rocco | Tour | Torre |
| Padati (footman/footsoldier) | Piadeh | Baidaq/Jondi | Pedes/Pedinus | Pawn Pawn (chess) The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces... |
Peón | Peão | Pedone/Pedina | Pion | Peó |
The game, as played during the early Middle Ages, was slow, with many games lasting for days. Some variations in rules began to change the shape of the game by 1300 AD. A notable, but initially unpopular, change was the ability of the pawn to move two places in the first move instead of one.
In Europe some of the pieces gradually got new names:
- FersQueen (chess)The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
: "queen", because it starts beside the King. - Aufin: "bishop", because its two points looked like a bishop's mitreMitreThe mitre , also spelled miter, is a type of headwear now known as the traditional, ceremonial head-dress of bishops and certain abbots in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in the Anglican Communion, some Lutheran churches, and also bishops and certain other clergy in the Eastern Orthodox...
; In French fou; and others. Its Latin name alfinus was reinterpreted many ways.
- Queen once moving two squares with jump, diagonally or straight. This right was sometimes extended to a new queen made by promotingPromotion (chess)Promotion is a chess rule describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches its eighth rank into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color . The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move. Promotion is not limited to pieces that have...
a pawn. - The short assizeShort assize"The short assize" is Harold James Ruthven Murray's name for a chess variant that was played in medieval Europe. It was somewhat like sittuyin but developed independently, probably to get the armies into contact sooner...
. ("assize" = "sitting".) Here the pawns started on the third rank; the queens started on d3 and d6 along with the queens' pawns; the players arranged their other pieces as they wished behind their pawns at the start of the game. This idea did not endure.
Attempts to make the start of the game run faster to get the opposing pieces in contact sooner included:
- Pawn moving two squares in its first move. This led to the en passantEn passantEn passant is a move in the board game of chess . It is a special pawn capture which can occur immediately after a player moves a pawn two squares forward from its starting position, and an enemy pawn could have captured it had it moved only one square forward...
rule: a pawn placed so that it could have captured the enemy pawn if it had moved one square forward was allowed to capture it on the passed square. In Italy, the contrary rule (passar battaglia = "to pass battle") applied: a pawn that moved two squares forward had passed the danger of attack on the intermediate square. It was sometimes not allowed to do this to cover check. - King jumping once, to make it quicker to put the king safe in a corner. (This eventually led to castlingCastlingCastling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then...
.)
Other sporadic variations in the rules of chess included:
- Ignoring check from a piece which was covering check, as some said that in theory (in the diagram on the right), B x K would allow R x K in reply.
Origins of the modern game
The queen and bishop remained relatively weak until between 1475 AD and 1500 AD, in either Spain, Portugal, France or Italy, the queen's and bishop's modern moves started and spread, making chess close to its modern form. This form of chess got such names as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess" (Italian alla rabiosa = "with the madwoman"). This led to much more value being attached to the previously minor tactic of pawn promotion. CheckmateCheckmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
became easier and games could now be won in fewer moves. These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe and in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early 19th century.
In some areas (e.g. Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
), the queen could also move like a knight.
A poem Caïssa
Caissa
Caïssa is a mythical Thracian dryad portrayed as the goddess of chess, as invented during the Renaissance by Italian poet Hieronymus Vida.-Vida's poem:...
published in 1527 led to the chess rook being often renamed as "castle", and the modern shape of the Rook chess piece; see Vida's poem for more information.
An Italian player, Gioacchino Greco
Gioacchino Greco
Gioachino Greco was an Italian chess player and writer. He recorded some of the first chess games known, 77 in total...
, regarded as one of the first true professionals of the game, authored an analysis of a number of composed games that illustrated two differing approaches to chess. This influential work went to some extent in popularizing chess and demonstrated the many theories regarding game play and tactics.
The first full work dealing with the various winning combinations was written by François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor , often referred to as André Danican Philidor during his lifetime, was a French composer and chess player. He contributed to the early development of the opéra comique...
of France, regarded as the best chess player in the world for nearly 50 years, and published in the 18th century. He wrote and published L'Analyse des échecs (The Analysis of Chess), an influential work which appeared in more than 100 editions.
Writings about the theory of how to play chess
Chess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...
began to appear in the 15th century. The oldest surviving printed chess book, Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez (Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess) by Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
churchman Luis Ramirez de Lucena was published in Salamanca
Salamanca
Salamanca is a city in western Spain, in the community of Castile and León. Because it is known for its beautiful buildings and urban environment, the Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. It is the most important university city in Spain and is known for its contributions to...
in 1497. Lucena and later masters like Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
Pedro Damiano
Pedro Damiano
Pedro Damiano was a Portuguese chess player who lived from 1480 to 1544. A native of Odemira, he was a pharmacist by profession...
, Italians Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona
Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona
Giovanni Leonardo di Bona or Giovanni Leonardo da Cutri , known as Il Puttino was an early Italian chess master....
, Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco or Spanish bishop Ruy López de Segura developed elements of opening
Chess opening
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
s and started to analyze simple endgames.
In the 18th century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The two most important French masters were François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor , often referred to as André Danican Philidor during his lifetime, was a French composer and chess player. He contributed to the early development of the opéra comique...
, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais
Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais
Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais was a French chess master, possibly the strongest player in the early 19th century.- Early life :...
who won a famous series of matches with the Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
master Alexander McDonnell
Alexander McDonnell
Alexander McDonnell was an Irish chess master, who contested a series of six matches with the world’s leading player Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais in the summer of 1834.- Early life :...
in 1834. Centers of chess life in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Café de la Régence
Café de la Régence
The Café de la Régence in Paris was an important European centre of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. All important chess masters of the time played there.The Café' masters include, but are not limited to:* Paul Morphy...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Simpson's Divan
Simpson's-in-the-Strand
Simpson's-in-the-Strand is one of London's oldest traditional English restaurants. Situated in the Strand, it is part of the Savoy Buildings, which also contain one of the world's most famous hotels, the Savoy....
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
As the 19th century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess club
Chess club
A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs provide for both informal games and timed games, often as part of an internal competition or in a league.-Organisation:...
s, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems became a regular part of 19th century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz
Bernhard Horwitz
Bernhard Horwitz was a German English chess master and chess writer.Horwitz was born in Neustrelitz, and went to school in Berlin, where he studied art. From 1837 to 1843, he was part of a group of German chess players known as "The Pleiades".He moved to London in 1845...
, Josef Kling
Josef Kling
Josef Kling was a German chess master and chess composer. In 1851 he wrote Chess Studies with Bernhard Horwitz.-External links:* at Chessgames.com...
and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa
Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa
Tassilo, Baron von Heydebrand und der Lasa was an important German chess master, chess historian and theoretician of the nineteenth century, a member of the Berlin Chess Club and a founder of the Berlin Chess School .His...
published his and Bilguer's
Paul Rudolf von Bilguer
Paul Rudolf von Bilguer was a German chess master and chess theoretician from Ludwigslust, Mecklenburg-Schwerin....
Handbuch des Schachspiels
Handbuch des Schachspiels
Handbuch des Schachspiels is a chess book, first published in 1843 by Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa. It was one of the most important opening references for many decades...
(Handbook of Chess), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.
Modern competition-style chess
Competitive chess became visible in 1834, and the 1851 London Chess tournament raised concerns about the time taken by the players to deliberate their moves. On recording time it was found that players often took hours to analyze moves, and one player took as much as two hours and 20 minutes to think over a single move at the London tournament. The following years saw the development of speed chess, five-minute chess and the most popular variant, a version allowing a bank of time to each player in which to play a previously agreed number of moves, e.g. two hours for 30 moves. In the final variant, the player who made the predetermined number of moves in the agreed time received additional time budget for his next moves. Penalties for exceeding a time limit came in form of fines and forfeiture. Since fines were easy to bear for professional players, forfeiture became the only effective penalty; this added "lost on time" to the traditional means of losing such as checkmateCheckmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
and resigning.
In 1861 the first time limits, using sandglasses, were employed in a tournament match at Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, England. The sandglasses were later replaced by pendulums. Modern clocks, consisting of two parallel timers with a small button for a player to press after completing a move, were later employed to aid the players. A tiny latch called a flag further helped settle arguments over players exceeding time limit at the turn of the 19th century.
A Russian composer, Vladimir Korolkov, authored a work entitled "Excelsior" in 1958 in which the White side wins only by making six consecutive captures by a pawn. Position analysis became particularly popular in the 19th century. Many leading players were also accomplished analysts, including Max Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
, Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...
, Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions . Smyslov was twice equal first at the Soviet Championship , and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won...
and Jan Timman
Jan Timman
Jan Timman is a Dutch chess Grandmaster who was one of the world's leading players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as "The Best of the West"...
. Digital clocks appeared in the 1980s.
Another problem that arose in competitive chess was when adjourning a game for a meal break or overnight. The player who moved last before adjournment would be at a disadvantage, as the other player would have a long period to analyze before having to make a reply when the game was resumed. Preventing access to a chess set to work out moves during the adjournment would not stop him from analyzing the position in his head. Various strange ideas were attempted, but the eventual solution was the "sealed move". The final move before adjournment is not made on the board but instead is written on a piece of paper which the referee seals in an envelope and keeps safe. When the game is continued after adjournment, the referee makes the sealed move and the players resume.
Birth of a sport (1850–1945)
London 1851 chess tournament
right|thumb|[[Adolf Anderssen]] won both the London International Tournament and the rival London Club Tournament.London 1851 was the first international chess tournament. The tournament was conceived and organised by English player Howard Staunton, and marked the first time that the best chess...
and won, surprisingly, by German Adolf Anderssen
Adolf Anderssen
Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen was a German chess master. He is considered to have been the world's leading chess player in the 1850s and 1860s...
, relatively unknown at the time. Anderssen was hailed as the leading chess master and his brilliant, energetic attacking style became typical for the time, although it was later regarded as strategically shallow. Sparkling games like Anderssen's Immortal game
Immortal game
The Immortal Game was a chess game played by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky on 21 June 1851 in London, during a break of the first international tournament. The very bold sacrifices made by Anderssen to finally secure victory have made it one of the most famous chess games of all time...
and Evergreen Game
Evergreen game
The Evergreen game is a famous chess game played in Berlin in 1852 between Adolf Anderssen and Jean Dufresne.Adolf Anderssen was one of the strongest players of his time, and was considered by many to be the world champion after winning the London 1851 tournament. Jean Dufresne, a popular author of...
or Morphy's
Paul Morphy
Paul Charles Morphy was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and an unofficial World Chess Champion. He was a chess prodigy...
Opera game
Opera game
The chess game played in 1858 at an opera house in Paris between the American chess master Paul Morphy and two strong amateurs, the German noble Duke Karl of Brunswick and the French aristocrat Count Isouard, is among the most famous chess games. Duke Karl and Count Isouard consulted together,...
were regarded as the highest possible summit of the chess art.
Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players. American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Paul Morphy
Paul Morphy
Paul Charles Morphy was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and an unofficial World Chess Champion. He was a chess prodigy...
, an extraordinary chess prodigy
Chess prodigy
Chess prodigies are children who play chess so well that they are able to beat Masters and even Grandmasters, often at a very young age. Chess is one of the few sports where children can compete with adults on equal ground; it is thus one of the few skills in which true child prodigies exist...
, won against all important competitors, including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863. Morphy's success stemmed from a combination of brilliant attacks and sound strategy; he intuitively knew how to prepare attacks. Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
-born Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...
later described how to avoid weaknesses in one's own position and how to create and exploit such weaknesses in the opponent's position. In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading Polish-German master Johannes Zukertort
Johannes Zukertort
Johannes Hermann Zukertort was a leading chess master of German-Polish-Jewish origin. He was one of the leading world players for most of the 1870s and 1880s, and lost to Wilhelm Steinitz in the World Chess Championship 1886, which is generally seen as the first World Chess Championship match, he...
in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger German mathematician Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions.
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...
(World champion 1921–27), who loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years until 1924. His successor was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
, a strong attacking player, who died as the World champion in 1946, having briefly lost the title to Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
player Max Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
in 1935 and regaining it two years later.
Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-called hypermodernists
Hypermodernism (chess)
Hypermodernism is a school of chess that emerged after World War I. It featured challenges on the chess ideologies presented by central European masters, such as on Wilhelm Steinitz’ approach to the centre. It also challenged in particular the dogmatic rules set down by Siegbert Tarrasch...
like Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born Danish unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential chess writer...
and Richard Réti
Richard Réti
Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram. It was published in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung 4 December 1921. It seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king...
. They advocated controlling the center of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, inviting opponents to occupy the center with pawns which become objects of attack.
Since the end of 19th century, the number of annually held master tournaments and matches quickly grew. Some sources state that in 1914 the title of chess grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the strongest chess players and most influential chess teachers of the late 19th century and early 20th century....
and Marshall, but this is a disputed claim. The tradition of awarding such titles was continued by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), founded in 1924 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1927, Women's World Chess Championship
Women's World Chess Championship
The Women's World Chess Championship is played to determine the women's world champion in chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE....
was established; the first to hold it was Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
-English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
master Vera Menchik
Vera Menchik
Vera Menchik was a British-Czech chess player who gained renown as the world's first women's chess champion. She also competed in chess tournaments with some of the world's leading male chess masters, defeating many of them, including future World Champion Max Euwe.The daughter of a Czech father...
.
Post-war era (1945 and later)
After the death of Alekhine, a new World Champion was sought in a tournament of elite players ruled by FIDE, who have controlled the title since then, with one interruption. The winner of the 1948 tournament, Russian Mikhail BotvinnikMikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...
, started an era of Soviet dominance in the chess world. Until the end of the Soviet Union, there was only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
(champion 1972–1975).
In the previous informal system, the World Champion decided which challenger he would play for the title and the challenger was forced to seek sponsors for the match. FIDE set up a new system of qualifying tournaments and matches. The world's strongest players were seeded into "Interzonal
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
tournaments", where they were joined by players who had qualified from "Zonal tournaments". The leading finishers in these Interzonals would go on the "Candidates" stage, which was initially a tournament, later a series of knock-out matches. The winner of the Candidates would then play the reigning champion for the title. A champion defeated in a match had a right to play a rematch a year later. This system worked on a three-year cycle.
Botvinnik participated in championship matches over a period of fifteen years. He won the world championship tournament in 1948 and retained the title in tied matches in 1951 and 1954. In 1957, he lost to Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions . Smyslov was twice equal first at the Soviet Championship , and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won...
, but regained the title in a rematch in 1958. In 1960, he lost the title to the Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
n prodigy Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal was a Soviet–Latvian chess player, a Grandmaster, and the eighth World Chess Champion.Widely regarded as a creative genius, and the best attacking player of all time, he played a daring, combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability....
, an accomplished tactician and attacking player. Botvinnik again regained the title in a rematch in 1961.
Following the 1961 event, FIDE abolished the automatic right of a deposed champion to a rematch, and the next champion, Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet-Armenian grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his playing style because of his almost impenetrable defence, which emphasised safety above all else...
, a genius of defense and strong positional player, was able to hold the title for two cycles, 1963–1969. His successor, Boris Spassky
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from late 1969 to 1972...
from Russia (1969–1972), was a player able to win in both positional and sharp tactical style.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, American Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
, who defeated his Candidates opponents by unheard-of margins and clearly won the world championship match. In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
when FIDE refused to meet his demands, and Karpov obtained the title by default. Karpov defended his title twice against Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ; pronounced in the original Russian as "karch NOY"; Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, born March 23, 1931 is a professional chess player, author and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the tournament circuit...
and dominated the 1970s and early 1980s with a string of tournament successes.
Karpov's reign finally ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player, Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world title matches between 1984 and 1990; Karpov never won his title back.
In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short
Nigel Short
Nigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...
broke with FIDE to organize their own match for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess Association
Professional Chess Association
The Professional Chess Association , which existed between 1993 and 1996, was a rival organisation to FIDE, the international chess organization...
(PCA). From then until 2006, there were two simultaneous World Champions and World Championships: the PCA or Classical champion extending the Steinitzian tradition in which the current champion plays a challenger in a series of many games; the other following FIDE's new format of many players competing in a tournament to determine the champion. Kasparov lost his Classical title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
of Russia.
Earlier in 1999, Kasparov as the reigning world champion played a game online against the world team composed of more than 50,000 participants from more than 75 countries. The moves of the world team were decided by plurality vote, and after 62 moves played over four months Kasparov won the game. The number of ideas, the complexity, and the contribution it has made to chess theory
Chess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...
make it one of the most important chess games ever played.
The FIDE World Chess Championship 2006
FIDE World Chess Championship 2006
The World Chess Championship 2006 was a chess match between Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik, and FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov. The match, which was won by Kramnik, determined the undisputed World Chess Champion for the first time in 13 years...
reunified the titles, when Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov
Veselin Topalov
Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster. He currently has the sixth highest rating in the world, and was the challenger facing world champion Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship 2010, losing the match 6½–5½....
and became the undisputed World Chess Champion. In September 2007, Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand
V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....
from India became the next champion by winning a championship tournament. In October 2008, Anand retained his title, decisively winning the rematch against Kramnik.
See also
- Timeline of chessTimeline of chess-Early history:* 6th century - The game Chaturanga probably evolved into its current form around this time in India.* 569 A Chineses emperor wrote a book of Xiangqi, Xiang Jing in AD 569...
- Outline of chessOutline of chessThe following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chess:Chess – two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Each player begins the game with sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks,...
- List of chess historians
- Schools of chess
Books
- Bird, Henry Edward (1893). Chess History and Reminiscences. London. (Republished version by Forgotten Books). ISBN 1-60620-897-7.
- Forbes, Duncan (1860). The History of Chess: From the Time of the Early Invention of the Game in India Till the Period of Its Establishment in Western and Central Europe. London: W. H. Allen & Co. Reprint: (1996) ISBN 0-19-280049-3
- Leibs, Andrew (2004). Sports and Games of the Renaissance. Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-32772-6
- Musser Golladay, Sonja, "Los Libros de acedrex dados e tablas: Historical, Artistic and Metaphysical Dimensions of Alfonso X’s Book of Games" (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2007)
- Robinson, Dindy & Estes, Rebecca (1996). World Cultures Through Art Activities. New Hampshire: Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 1-56308-271-3
Journals
- Anand, ViswanathanViswanathan AnandV. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....
, "The Indian Defense", TIMETime (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, Thursday, Jun. 19, 2008. An article on the history of chess by the 2007-10 chess world champion. (PDF version)
External links
- Origin and history of Chess, Xiangqi, Shogi and more
- Chess. (2007). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved July 30, 2007, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online
- "Chess," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007 (Archived 2009-10-31)
- Initiative group Koenigstein
- Goddess Chess Chessays
- Chess for all ages
- Alfonso X y el ajedrez - Alfonso X and Chess