The history of chess can be traced back nearly 1500 years to its earliest known predecessor, called
chaturanga
Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chines ...
, in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
; its prehistory is the subject of speculation. From India it spread to
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. Following the
Arab invasion and conquest of Persia,
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
was taken up by the
Muslim world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
and subsequently spread to
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
and the rest of
Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Alb ...
. The game evolved roughly into its current form by about 1500 CE.
"
Romantic chess
Romantic chess is a style of chess popular in the 18th century until the 1880s. This style of chess emphasizes quick, tactical maneuvers rather than long-term strategic planning. Romantic players consider winning to be secondary to winning with st ...
" was the predominant playing style from the late 18th century to the 1880s.
Chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
games of this period emphasized quick, tactical maneuvers rather than long-term strategic planning.
The Romantic era of play was followed by the Scientific,
Hypermodern, and New Dynamism eras.
In the second half of the 19th century, modern
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 am ...
play began, and the first official
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 matc ...
was held in 1886. The 20th century saw great leaps forward in
chess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. There is a large body of theory regarding how the game should be played in each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame. Those who wri ...
and the establishment of the
World Chess Federation. In 1997, an
IBM supercomputer beat
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...
, the then world chess champion, in the famous
Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov
Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov was a pair of six-game chess matches between the world chess champion Garry Kasparov and an IBM supercomputer called Deep Blue. The first match was played in Philadelphia in 1996 and won by Kasparov by 4–2. A ...
match, ushering the game into an
era of computer domination. Since then, computer analysis – which originated in the 1970s with the first
programmed chess games on the market – has contributed to much of the development in chess theory and has become an important part of preparation in professional human chess. Later developments in the 21st century made the use of computer analysis far surpassing the ability of any human player accessible to the public.
Online gaming, which first appeared in the mid-1990s, also became popular in the 21st century.
Origin
Precursors to
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
originated in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
. There, its early form in the 7th century CE was known as ''
chaturaṅga'' (), which translates to "four divisions (of the military)":
infantry
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...
,
cavalry
Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in ...
,
elephantry
A war elephant was an elephant that was trained and guided by humans for combat. The war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elepha ...
, and
chariot
A chariot is a type of cart driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, dated to c. 2000&n ...
ry. These forms are represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern
pawn
Pawn most often refers to:
* Pawn (chess), the weakest and most numerous piece in the game
* Pawnbroker or pawnshop, a business that provides loans by taking personal property as collateral
Pawn may also refer to:
Places
* Pawn, Oregon, an his ...
,
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...
,
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...
, and
rook, respectively.
Chess was introduced to
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility.
[ Around 600 CE in ]Sassanid Persia
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...
, the name for the game became ''chatrang'' ( fa, چترنگ), which subsequently evolved to ''shatranj
Shatranj ( ar, شطرنج; fa, شترنج; from Middle Persian ''chatrang'' ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as i ...
'' ( ar, شطرنج; fa, شترنج) after the conquest of Persia by the Rashidun Caliphate
The Rashidun Caliphate ( ar, اَلْخِلَافَةُ ٱلرَّاشِدَةُ, al-Khilāfah ar-Rāšidah) was the first caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was ruled by the first four successive caliphs of Muhammad after his ...
, due to the lack of native ''ch'' and ''ng'' sounds in the Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
.[Shenk, David. "The Immortal Game." Doubleday, 2006.] The rules were developed further during this time; 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 (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with ) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game.
In chess, the king is ...
) 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
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
after the early Arab Muslims
Arab Muslims ( ar, العرب المسلمون) are adherents of Islam who identify linguistically, culturally, and genealogically as Arabs. Arab Muslims greatly outnumber other ethnoreligious groups in the Middle East and North Africa. Arab M ...
conquered the Sassanid Empire, with the pieces largely keeping their Persian names. The Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinc ...
of North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
rendered the Persian term "''shatranj''" as ''shaṭerej'', which gave rise to the Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
', ' and '; in Portuguese it became , and in Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
(ζατρίκιον), but in the rest of Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
it was replaced by versions of the Persian ''shāh'' ("king"). Thus, the game came to be called or in Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, in Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, in Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
, in French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
(Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...
), in Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, in German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, in Polish, in Latvian, in Danish, in Norwegian, in Swedish, in Finnish, in South Slavic languages
The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches ( West and Eas ...
, in Hungarian and in Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
** Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
; 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 Iberia
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese language, Aragonese and Occitan language, Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a pe ...
and Greece) being ornamental chess kings brought in as curios by Muslim traders.
The Mongols
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...
call the game ''shatar'', and in Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
it is called ''senterej'', both evidently derived from ''shatranj''.
Chess spread directly from the Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
to Russia, where chess became known as шахматы (, literally "checkmates", a plurale tantum).
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.[Hooper and Whyld, 144-45 (first edition)] Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
by the Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinc ...
in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th-century Spanish manuscript covering ''shatranj'', backgammon
Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...
and dice
Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing ...
named the '' Libro de los juegos'', which is the earliest European treatise on chess as well as being the oldest document on European tables games
Tables games are a class of board game that includes backgammon and which are played on a tables board, typically with two rows of 12 vertical markings called points. Players roll dice to determine the movement of pieces. Tables games are among ...
.
Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking shape. Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
pilgrims, Silk Road
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and rel ...
traders and others carried it to the Far East
The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.
The t ...
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 is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
through Persia, the Byzantine empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
and the expanding Arabian empire.[ ]Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
carried chess to North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
, Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
, and Iberia
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese language, Aragonese and Occitan language, Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a pe ...
by the 10th century.
The game was developed extensively in Europe. By the late 15th century, it had survived a series of prohibitions and Christian Church
In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym fo ...
sanctions to almost take the shape of the modern game.[ ]Modern history
The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also called modern history or modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended approximately 1500 AD). This terminology is a historical periodization that is appli ...
saw reliable reference works,[ competitive chess tournaments,][ and exciting new variants. These factors added to the game's popularity,][ further bolstered by reliable timing mechanisms (first introduced in 1861), effective rules,][ and charismatic players.
]
India
The earliest precursor of modern chess is a game called chaturanga
Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chines ...
, 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. A common theory is that India's development of the board, and chess, was likely due to India's mathematical enlightenment involving the creation of the number zero. Other game pieces (speculatively called "chess pieces") uncovered in archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
findings are considered as coming from other, distantly related board games, which may have had boards of 100 squares or more.[Chess: Ancient precursors and related games (Encyclopædia Britannica 2002)]
Chess was designed for an '' ashtāpada'' (Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
for "having eight feet", i.e. an 8×8 squared board), which may have been used earlier for a backgammon
Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...
-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 into the center). Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8×8 board served as the main board for playing chaturanga
Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chines ...
.[Wilkins 2002: 46] 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.][Murray (1913), p. 42]
The Cox-Forbes theory, proposed in the late 18th century by Hiram Cox, and later developed by Duncan Forbes, asserted that the four-handed game chaturaji
Chaturaji (meaning "four kings") is a four-player chess-like game. It was first described in detail c. 1030 by Al-Biruni in his book ''India''. Originally, this was a game of chance: the pieces to be moved were decided by rolling two dice. ...
was the original form of chaturanga. The theory is no longer considered tenable.[Hooper 1992: 74]
In Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
, the word ''chaturaṅga'' literally means "having four limbs (or parts)" and in epic poetry
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
often means "army" (the four parts are elephants, chariots, horsemen, foot soldiers).[Meri 2005: 148] The name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the '' Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the K ...
. The game chaturanga was a battle-simulation game[ which rendered Indian military strategy of the time.][Kulke 2004: 9]
Some people formerly played chess using a die
Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life.
Die may also refer to:
Games
* Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers
Manufacturing
* Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...
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
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
religious objections.[Wilkins 2002: 48]
Scholars in areas to which the game subsequently spread, for example the Arab Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī
Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus ...
, detailed the Indian use of chess as a tool for military strategy
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word '' strategos'', the term strategy, when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow ...
, mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three ele ...
and even its vague association with astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
.[Wilkinson 1943] Mas'ūdī notes that ivory
Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals i ...
in India was chiefly used for the production of chess and backgammon
Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...
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 is a situation in the game of chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check and has no legal move. Stalemate results in a draw. During the endgame, stalemate is a resource that can enable the player with the infer ...
, 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, knight and bishop were renamed by words meaning (in this order) Boat, Horse, and Elephant, or Elephant, Horse, and 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
Stalemate is a situation in the game of chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check and has no legal move. Stalemate results in a draw. During the endgame, stalemate is a resource that can enable the player with the infer ...
:
*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)
Image:Shatranj.jpg, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
ian shatranj
Shatranj ( ar, شطرنج; fa, شترنج; from Middle Persian ''chatrang'' ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as i ...
set, glazed fritware
Fritware, also known as stone-paste, is a type of pottery in which frit (ground glass) is added to clay to reduce its fusion temperature. The mixture may include quartz or other siliceous material. An organic compound such as gum or glue ma ...
, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
Image:Persianmss14thCambassadorfromIndiabroughtchesstoPersianCourt.jpg, Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
n manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court
Image:Shams ud-Din Tabriz 1502-1504 BNF Paris.jpg, Shams-e-Tabrīzī as portrayed in a 1500 painting in a page of a copy of Rumi
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلالالدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...
's poem dedicated to Shams
File:The Chess Game.jpg, Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bakhazari, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch
The Karnamak-i Ardeshir-i Papakan
The Kār-Nāmag ī Ardašīr ī Pāpakān ("''Book of the Deeds of Ardeshir, Son of Papak''") (New fa, کارنامهٔ اردشیر بابکان), is a short Middle Persian prose tale written in the Sassanid period (226-651). The story narrates ...
, a Pahlavi epical treatise about the founder of the Sassanid
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
Persian Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...
, mentions the game of chatrang
Shatranj ( ar, شطرنج; fa, شترنج; from Middle Persian ''chatrang'' ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as i ...
as one of the accomplishments of the legendary hero, Ardashir I
Ardashir I (Middle Persian: 𐭠𐭥𐭲𐭧𐭱𐭲𐭥, Modern Persian: , '), also known as Ardashir the Unifier (180–242 AD), was the founder of the Sasanian Empire. He was also Ardashir V of the Kings of Persis, until he founded the new ...
, founder of the Empire.[Bell 1979: 57] The oldest recorded game in chess history is a 10th-century game played between a historian from Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
and a pupil.[Chess: Introduction to Europe (Encyclopædia Britannica 2007)]
A manuscript explaining the rules of the game called "Matikan-i-chatrang" (the book of chess) in Middle Persian
Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle P ...
or Pahlavi still exists.
In the 11th-century ''Shahnameh
The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 5 ...
'', Ferdowsi
, image = Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus, Iran 3 (cropped).jpg
, image_size =
, caption = Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus by Abolhassan Sadighi
, birth_date = 940
, birth_place = Tus, Samanid Empire
, death_date = 1019 or 1025 (87 years old)
, d ...
describes a Raja
''Raja'' (; from , IAST ') is a royal title used for South Asian monarchs. The title is equivalent to king or princely ruler in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
The title has a long history in South Asia and Southeast Asia, being attested ...
visiting from India who re-enacts the past battles on the chessboard.[ A translation in ]English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
, based on the manuscripts in the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, is given below:[
:One day an ambassador from the king of ]Hind A hind is a female deer, especially a red deer.
Places
* Hind (Sasanian province, 262-484)
* Hind and al-Hind, a Persian and Arabic name for the Indian subcontinent
* Hind (crater), a lunar impact crater
* 1897 Hind, an asteroid
Military ...
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, Bozorgmehr
Bozorgmehr-e Bokhtagan (Middle Persian: ''Wuzurgmihr ī Bōkhtagān''), also known as Burzmihr, Dadmihr and Dadburzmihr, was an Iranian sage and dignitary from the Karen family, who served as minister ('' wuzurg framadār'') of the Sasanian king ...
, solved the mystery and was richly rewarded by his delighted sovereign.
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 philosopher and theologian Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali ( – 19 December 1111; ), full name (), and known in Persian-speaking countries as Imam Muhammad-i Ghazali (Persian: امام محمد غزالی) or in Medieval Europe by the Latinized as Algazelus or Algazel, was a Persian poly ...
mentions chess in ''The Alchemy of Happiness
)
, translator = Muhammad Mustafa an-Nawali, Claud Field, Jay Crook
, image = Alchemy of Happiness.png
, caption = Cover of a 1308 Persian copy held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France
, author = Al ...
'' (c. 1100). He uses it as a specific example of a habit that may cloud a person's good disposition:
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. This is because of a Muslim ban on the game's lifelike pieces, as they were said to have been too like idols. The Islamic
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ma ...
sets of later centuries followed a pattern which assigned names and abstract shapes to the chess pieces, as Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
forbids depiction of animals and human beings in art. These pieces were usually made of simple clay and carved stone.
East Asia
China
As a strategy board game played in China, chess is believed to have been derived from the Indian chaturanga. Chaturanga was transformed into the game xiangqi
''Xiangqi'' (; ), also called Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. ''Xiangqi'' is in the same family of games as '' shogi'', '' janggi'', Western chess, '' ...
where the pieces are placed on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.[Bell 1979, V.I p.66] The object of the Chinese variation is similar to chaturanga, i.e. to render helpless the opponent's king, known as "general" on one side and "governor" on the other. 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. The game of Xianqi is also unique in that the middle rank represents a river, and is not divided into 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'' (; ), also called Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. ''Xiangqi'' is in the same family of games as '' shogi'', '' janggi'', Western chess, '' ...
or a predecessor thereof, existing in China since the 3rd century BC.[Li 1998] David H. Li
David H. Li is a Chinese-American accountant, chess player, sinologist, translator, and writer.
Biography and bibliography
He has written several books and also translated several Chinese classics to English. He was born in 1928 in Ningbo, Zhe ...
, a translator of ancient Chinese texts, hypothesizes that general Han Xin
Han Xin (; 231/230–196 BC) was a Chinese military general and politician who served Liu Bang during the Chu–Han Contention and contributed greatly to the founding of the Han dynasty. Han Xin was named as one of the "Three Heroes of the e ...
drew on the earlier game of Liubo
''Liubo'' () was an ancient Chinese board game played by two players. The rules have largely been lost, but 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, sym ...
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
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
minister Niu Sengru (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 shogi
, also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, '' chaturanga, Xiangqi'', Indian chess, and ''janggi''. ''Shōgi ...
, transmitted from India to China and Korea before finally reaching Japan. The three distinguishing features of shogi are:
# The captured pieces may be reused by the captor and played as a part of the captor's forces.
# Pawns capture as they move, one square straight ahead.
# The board is 9×9, with a second gold general on the other side of the king.
Drops were not originally part of shogi. In the 13th century, shogi underwent an expansion, creating the game of dai shogi, played on a 15×15 board with many new pieces, including the independently invented rook, bishop and queen of modern Western chess, the drunk elephant that promotes to a second king, and also the even more powerful lion, which among other idiosyncrasies has the power to move or capture twice per turn. Around the 14th or 15th centuries, the popularity of dai shogi then waned in favour of the smaller chu shogi, played on a smaller 12×12 board which removed the weakest pieces from dai shogi, similarly to the development of Courier chess
Courier chess is a chess variant that dates from the 12th century and was popular for at least 600 years. It was a part of the slow evolution towards modern chess from Medieval Chess.
Medieval rules
Courier chess is played on an 8x12 board (i.e ...
in the West. In the meantime, the original 9×9 shogi, now termed sho shogi, continued to be played, but was regarded as less prestigious than chu shogi and dai shogi. Chu shogi was very popular in Japan, and the rook, bishop, and drunk elephant from it were added to sho shogi, where the first two remain today.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, yet more shogi variants were described, on large boards and with many more pieces. The 1694 book ''Shōgi Zushiki
The ''Shōgi Zushiki'' (象戯図式), ''Sho Shōgi Zushiki'' (諸象戯図式), and ''Shōgi Rokushu no Zushiki'' (象棋六種之図式) are Edo period publications describing various variants
Variant may refer to:
In arts and entertainment
* ...
'' details tenjiku shogi (16×16), dai dai shogi (17×17), maka dai dai shogi (19×19), and tai shogi (25×25); it also mentions wa shogi
Wa shogi (和将棋, ''wa shōgi'', harmony chess) is a large board variant of shogi (Japanese chess) in which all of the pieces are named for animals. It is played either with or without drops.
Because of the terse and often incomplete wording ...
(11×11), ko shogi Kō shōgi (広将棋 or 廣象棋 'broad chess') is a large-board variant of shogi, or Japanese chess. The game dates back to the turn of the 18th century and is based on xiangqi and go as well as shogi. Credit for its invention has been given ...
(19×19), and taikyoku shogi (36×36). It is not thought that these games were played very much.
Chu shogi declined in popularity after the addition of drops to sho shogi and the removal of the drunk elephant in the 16th century, becoming moribund around the late 20th century. These changes to sho shogi created what is essentially the modern game of shogi.
Thailand
The Thai variant of chess, makruk
''Makruk'' ( th, หมากรุก; ; ), or Thai chess, is a board game that is descended from the 6th-century Indian game of ''chaturanga'' or a close relative thereof, and is therefore related to chess. It is part of the family of chess ...
is a close living relative to chaturanga, retaining the vizier, non-checkered board, limited promotion, offset kings, and elephant-like bishop move.
Mongolia
Chess is recorded from Mongolian-inhabited areas, where the pieces are now called:
* King: Noyon – Ноён – lord
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage ...
* Queen: Bers / Nohoi – Бэрс / Нохой – dog (to guard the livestock)
* Bishop: Temē – Тэмээ – camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. ...
* Knight: Morĭ – Морь – horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...
* Rook: Tereg – Тэрэг – cart
A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) 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.
It is different from the flatbed ...
* Pawn: Hū – Хүү – boy (the piece often showed a puppy
A puppy is a juvenile dog. Some puppies can 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 York ...
)
Names recorded from the 1880s by Russian sources, quoted in Murray,[Murray (1913), p. 367, p. 372] among the Soyot
The Soyot are ethnic group of Turkic origin live mainly in the Oka region in the Okinsky District in the Buryatia, Russia. According to the 2010 census, there were 3,608 Soyots in Russia. Their extinct language (partly revitalized) was of a T ...
people (who at the time spoke the Soyot
The Soyot are ethnic group of Turkic origin live mainly in the Oka region in the Okinsky District in the Buryatia, Russia. According to the 2010 census, there were 3,608 Soyots in Russia. Their extinct language (partly revitalized) was of a T ...
Turkic language
The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...
) include: ''merzé'' (dog), ''täbä'' (camel), ''ot'' (horse), ''ōl'' (child) and Mongolian names for the other pieces. This game is called shatar; a large 10×10 variant called hiashatar was also played.
The change with the queen is likely due to the Arabic word ''firzān'' or Persian word ''farzīn'' (= "vizier
A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called '' katib'' (secretary), who was ...
") being confused with Turkic or Mongolian native words (''merzé'' = "mastiff", ''bar'' or ''bars'' = "tiger", ''arslan'' = "lion").[
Western chess is now the prevalent form of the game in Mongolia.
]
East Siberia
Chess was also recorded from the Yakuts
The Yakuts, or the Sakha ( sah, саха, ; , ), are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Districts ...
, Tunguses, and Yukaghirs; but only as a children's game among the Chukchi. Chessmen have been collected from the Yakutat people in Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...
, having no resemblance to European chessmen, and thus likely part of a chess tradition coming from Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...
.
Arab world
Chess passed from Persia to the Arab world, where its name changed to Arabic shatranj
Shatranj ( ar, شطرنج; fa, شترنج; from Middle Persian ''chatrang'' ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as i ...
. 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, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
. The game became so popular it was used in writing at that time, played by nobility and regular people. The poet al-Katib once said, "The skilled player places his pieces in such a way as to discover consequences that the ignorant man never sees... thus, he serves the Sultan's interests, by showing how to foresee disaster."
Russia
Chess has 1000 years of history in Russia. Chess was probably brought to Old Russia in 9th century via the Volga-Caspian trade route. From the 10th century cultural connections with the Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
and the Vikings
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
also influenced the history of chess in Russia. The vocabulary in Russian chess has various foreign-language elements and testifies to different influences in the evolution of chess in Russia. Chess is mentioned in folk poems as a popular game and is documented in the Old Russian '' byliny''. Numerous archeological finds of the chess game have already been found in the regions of Old Russia. From 1262 on chess was called in Russia ''shakhmaty''. Various foreign travellers commented that in the 16th century, chess was popular among all classes in Russia. Ivan IV the Terrible, who ruled Russia from 1530 to 1584, is said to have died while playing chess. In 1791 the popular chess book ''Morals of Chess'' by Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading int ...
was translated into Russian and published in the country. Chess enjoys a very high status in Russia and was gradually introduced as a school subject in all primary schools since 2017.
Europe
Early history
Shatranj
Shatranj ( ar, شطرنج; fa, شترنج; from Middle Persian ''chatrang'' ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as i ...
made its way via the expanding Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
ic Arabian
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...
empire to Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
.[ It also spread to the ]Byzantine empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, where it was called . Chess appeared in Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Alb ...
during the end of the first millennium, often introduced to new lands by conquering armies, such as the Norman Conquest of England
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqu ...
.[Riddler 1998] Previously little known, chess became popular in Northern Europe when figure pieces were introduced.[
In the 14th century, ]Timur
Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Kü ...
played an enlarged variation of the game which is commonly referred to as Tamerlane chess. This complex game involved each pawn having a particular purpose, as well as additional pieces.[Rudolph, Jess. "The History and Variants in West Asia." Case Western Reserve University.]
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 colours 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
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...
").
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.][Gamer 1954] The game found mention in the vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
and Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
language literature throughout Europe, and many works were written on or about chess between the 12th and the 15th centuries.[ ]H. J. R. Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray (24 June 1868 – 16 May 1955) was a British educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. His book, ''A History of Chess'', is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive hist ...
divides the works into three distinct parts: the didactic
Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature, art, and design. In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is an emerging conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need t ...
works e.g. Alexander of Neckham
Alexander Neckam (8 September 115731 March 1217) was an English magnetician, poet, theologian, and writer. He was an abbot of Cirencester Abbey from 1213 until his death.
Early life
Born on 8 September 1157 in St Albans, Alexander shared his b ...
's ''De scaccis'' (c. 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 ( it, Jacopo da Cessole; c. 1250 – c. 1322) was an Italian author of the most famous morality book on chess in the Middle Ages.
In the second half of the 13th century, Jacobus de Cessolis, a Dominican friar in Cessole ...
; 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.][Vale 2001: 177]
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
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...
must acquire.[Vale 2001: 171] Chess also became a subject of art during this period, with caskets and pendants decorated in various chess forms. Queen Margaret of England had green and red chess sets made of jasper and crystal.[ Kings ]Henry I Henry I may refer to:
876–1366
* Henry I the Fowler, King of Germany (876–936)
* Henry I, Duke of Bavaria (died 955)
* Henry I of Austria, Margrave of Austria (died 1018)
* Henry I of France (1008–1060)
* Henry I the Long, Margrave of the N ...
, Henry II and Richard I
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was ...
of England were chess patrons.[ King ]Alfonso X
Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, es, el Sabio; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Ger ...
of Castile and Tsar Ivan IV of Russia
Ivan IV Vasilyevich (russian: Ива́н Васи́льевич; 25 August 1530 – ), commonly known in English as Ivan the Terrible, was the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the first Tsar of all Russia from 1547 to 1584.
Iva ...
gained a similar status.[
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 incidents in 13th-century ]London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, in which men of Essex
Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...
resorted to violence resulting in death as an outcome of playing chess, caused further 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 (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the d ...
issued an ordinance against gambling in 1254.[Vale 2001: 172] 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.[
Image:KnightsTemplarPlayingChess1283.jpg, ]Knights Templar
, colors = White mantle with a red cross
, colors_label = Attire
, march =
, mascot = Two knights riding a single horse
, equipment ...
playing chess, '' Libro de los juegos'', 1283
Image:Meister der Manessischen Liederhandschrift 004.jpg, Otto IV of Brandenburg
Otto IV, Margrave of Brandenburg-Stendal, nicknamed ''Otto with the arrow'' ( – 27 November 1308 or 1309) was the Margrave of Brandenburg from the House of Ascania from 1266 until his death.
Life
Otto was the son of John I and his first ...
playing chess with a woman, 1305 to 1340
Image:Chess playing Louvre OA117.jpg, A couple playing chess, ivory mirror case c. 1300
Shapes of pieces
The pieces, which had been nonrepresentational in Islamic countries (see piece values in shantranj), changed shape in Christian cultures. Carved images of men and animals reappeared. The shape of the rook, originally a rectangular block with a V-shaped cut in the top, changed; the two top parts separated by the split tended to get long and hang over, and in some old pictures look like horses' heads. The split top of the piece now called the bishop was interpreted as a bishop's mitre or a fool's cap.
By the mid-12th century, the pieces of the chess set were depicted as kings, queens, bishops, knights and men at arms.[Vale 2001: 173] 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
A footman is a male domestic worker employed mainly to wait at table or attend a coach or carriage.
Etymology
Originally in the 14th century a footman denoted a soldier or any pedestrian, later it indicated a foot servant. A running footman deli ...
, which symbolized both infantry and loyal domestic service.[
]
Names of pieces
The following table provides a glimpse of the changes in names and character of chess pieces as they crossed from India through Persia to Europe:
The game, as played during the early Middle Ages, was slow, with many games lasting days.[ Some variations in rules began to change the shape of the game by the year 1300. 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 received new names:
* Fers: "queen", because it starts beside the king.
* Aufin: "bishop", because its two points looked like a bishop's ]mitre
The mitre (Commonwealth English) (; Greek: μίτρα, "headband" or "turban") or miter (American English; see spelling differences), is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in ...
. Its Latin name was reinterpreted many ways.
Early changes to the rules
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 passant'' 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 castling
Castling is a move in chess. It consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook on the same and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over. Castling is permitted only if neither the king nor the rook has previously move ...
.)
* Queen on its first move moving two squares straight or diagonally to a same-coloured square, with jump. (This rule sometimes also applied to a queen made by promoting a pawn.)
* The short assize. ("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.
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), Bxe7 would allow Rxc8 in reply.
Origins of the modern game
The queen and bishop remained relatively weak until between 1475 AD and 1500 AD, in Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
(in the Kingdom of Valencia
Kingdom commonly refers to:
* A monarchy ruled by a king or queen
* Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy
Kingdom may also refer to:
Arts and media Television
* ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...
), the queen's and bishop's modern moves started and spread, making chess close to its modern form.[ The first document showing the Queen (or Dama) moving this way is the allegorical poem ]Scachs d'amor
''Scachs d'amor'' (Valencian for ''Chess of Love''), whose complete title is ''Hobra intitulada scachs d'amor feta per don Francí de Castellví e Narcis Vinyoles e mossèn Fenollar'', is the name of a poem written by Francesc de Castellví, Be ...
, written in Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
in Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
in 1475. This form of chess got such names as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess" (Italian ''alla rabiosa'' = "with the madwoman").[Murray (1913), p.777] This led to much more value being attached to the previously minor tactic of pawn promotion
In chess, promotion is the replacement of a pawn with a new piece when the pawn is moved to its last . The player replaces the pawn immediately with a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same . The new piece does not have to be a previously ...
.[ ]Checkmate
Checkmate (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with ) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game.
In chess, the king is ...
became easier and games could now be won in fewer moves. These new rules quickly spread in Spain and throughout the rest of Western Europe,[Calvo, Ricardo]
Valencia Spain: The Cradle of European Chess
. Retrieved 10 December 2006 with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early 19th century. The modern move of the queen may have started as an extension of its older ability to once move two squares with jump, diagonally or straight. Marilyn Yalom says that the new move of the queen started in Spain: see history of the queen.
In some areas (e.g. Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
), 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
Gioachino Greco (c. 1600 – c. 1634) ( ελληνικά/greek: Τζοακίνο Γκρέκο), surnamed Cusentino and more frequently ''il Calabrese'', was an Italian chess player and writer. He recorded some of the earliest chess games kn ...
, 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.[ His work was influential in popularizing chess, and demonstrated many theories regarding game play and tactics.][Chess: Development of Theory (Encyclopædia Britannica 2002)]
The first full work dealing with the various winning combinations was written by François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor (7 September 1726 – 31 August 1795), 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.][
Image:EnxadrismoGravuras.003.jpg, A ]woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...
drawn from Caxton's chess book printed in England in 1474
Image:Lucena1497.jpg, A tactical puzzle from Lucena's 1497 book
Image:Gaming table with chessboard.jpg, A gaming table with chessboard (Germany, 1735).
File:Chess, walrus ivory (18th c., Russia, GIM).jpg, A Russian set made of walrus ivory, 1750s
Image:André Philidor.jpg, Portrait of François-André Danican Philidor from ''L'analyse des échecs''. London, second edition, 1777
Image:JaquesCookStaunton.jpg, Original Staunton chess pieces by Nathaniel Cooke
Nathaniel Cooke was the designer of a set of chess figures called the Staunton chess set which is now the standard set.
Chess set
Cooke registered his design at the United Kingdom Patent Office on 1 March 1849 under the Ornamental Designs A ...
from 1849
Writings on 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
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
churchman Luis Ramirez de Lucena
Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...
was published in Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...
in 1497. Lucena and later masters like Portuguese Pedro Damiano, Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona, Giulio Cesare Polerio
Giulio Cesare Polerio (c. 1550, – c. 1610; reconstruction of places and dates by Adriano Chicco) was an Italian chess theoretician and player.
Name affixes used for him are ''l'Apruzzese'', Giu io Cesare ''da Lanciano'' (Salvio/Walker), and ''L ...
and Gioachino Greco or Spanish bishop Ruy López de Segura developed elements of openings 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
François-André Danican Philidor (7 September 1726 – 31 August 1795), 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 who won a famous series of matches with the Irish master Alexander McDonnell Alexander McDonnell may refer to:
*Alexander McDonnell (chess player) (1798–1835), Irish chess master
*Alexander McDonnell (engineer) (1829–1904), locomotive engineer of the Great Southern & Western Railway (Ireland), & North Eastern Railway (En ...
in 1834. Centers of chess life in this period were coffee house
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-caf ...
s in big European cities like ''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's masters included, but are not limited to:
* Paul Morphy
* François ...
'' in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
and '' Simpson's Divan'' in London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
As the 19th century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess club
A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs often provide for both informal and tournament games and sometimes offer league play. Traditionally clubs host over the board, face to face chess more ...
s, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...
became a regular part of 19th-century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz
Bernhard Horwitz (1807 in Neustrelitz – 1885 in London) was a German and British chess master, chess writer and chess composer.
Horwitz was born in Neustrelitz and went to school in Berlin, where he studied art. From 1837 to 1843, he was part ...
, Josef Kling and Samuel Loyd
Samuel Loyd (January 30, 1841 – April 10, 1911), was an American chess player, chess composer, puzzle author, and recreational mathematician. Loyd was born in Philadelphia but raised in New York City.
As a chess composer, he authored a numb ...
composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa
Tassilo, Baron von Heydebrand und der Lasa (known in English as Baron von der Lasa, 17 October 1818, Berlin – 27 July 1899, Storchnest near Lissa, Greater Poland, then German Empire) was a German chess master, chess historian and theor ...
published his and Bilguer's '' Handbuch des Schachspiels'' (''Handbook of Chess''), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.
Modern competitive chess
Competitive chess became visible in 1834 with the La Bourdonnais-McDonnell matches, 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 checkmate
Checkmate (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with ) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game.
In chess, the king is ...
and resigning.[Chess: The time element and competition (Encyclopædia Britannica 2002)]
In 1861 the first time limits, using sandglasses, were employed in a tournament match at Bristol
Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Glouces ...
, 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.][Chess: Chess composition (Encyclopædia Britannica 2002)] Position analysis became particularly popular in the 19th century.[ Many leading players were also accomplished analysts, including ]Max Euwe
Machgielis "Max" Euwe (; May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981) was a Dutch chess player, mathematician, author, and chess administrator. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 until 1937. He served as ...
, Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, ( – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist and was a pioneer in computer chess.
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
Some board games, such as chess and Go, use an adjournment mechanism to suspend the game in progress so it can be continued at another time, typically the following day. The rationale is that games often extend in duration beyond what is reasonab ...
". 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)
The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and won, surprisingly, by German Adolf Anderssen, who was 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 retrospectively regarded as strategically
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art ...
shallow. Sparkling games like Anderssen's Immortal game and Evergreen Game or Morphy's Opera game
The Opera Game was an 1858 chess game, played at an opera house in Paris. The American master Paul Morphy played against two strong amateurs: the German noble Karl II, Duke of Brunswick, and the French aristocrat Comte Isouard de Vauvenargues. ...
were regarded as the highest possible summit of the chess art.
Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players. American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
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
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
-born Wilhelm Steinitz
William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz; May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first official World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and c ...
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 Hermann Zukertort (Polish: ''Jan Hermann Cukiertort''; 7 September 1842 – 20 June 1888) was a Polish chess master. He was one of the leading world players for most of the 1870s and 1880s, but lost to Wilhelm Steinitz in the World Che ...
in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 matc ...
. 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
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...
, José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (19 November 1888 – 8 March 1942) was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. A chess prodigy, he is widely renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play.
Capabl ...
(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 Aleksandrovich Alekhine, ''Aleksándr Aleksándrovich Alékhin''; (March 24, 1946) was a Russian and French chess player and the fourth World Chess Champion, a title he held for two reigns.
By the age of 22, Alekhine was already a ...
, a strong attacking player, who died as the World champion in 1946, having briefly lost the title to Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
player Max Euwe
Machgielis "Max" Euwe (; May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981) was a Dutch chess player, mathematician, author, and chess administrator. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 until 1937. He served as ...
in 1935, regaining it two years later.
Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-called hypermodernists like Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch ( lv, Ārons Nimcovičs, russian: Аро́н Иса́евич Нимцо́вич, ''Aron Isayevich Nimtsovich''; 7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935) was a Latvian-born Danish chess player and writer. In the late 1920s, Nimz ...
and Richard Réti
Richard Selig Réti (28 May 1889 – 6 June 1929) was an Austro-Hungarian, later Czechoslovakian, chess player, chess author, and composer of endgame studies.
He was one of the principal proponents of hypermodernism in chess. With the ex ...
. 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
Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...
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
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
), founded in 1924 in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
. In 1927, Women's World Chess Championship
The Women's World Chess Championship (WWCC) is played to determine the world champion in women's chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE.
Unlike with most sports recognized by the International Olympic Committee, w ...
was established; the first to hold it was Czech-English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
master Vera Menchik
Vera Francevna Mencikova (russian: Вера Францевна Менчик, ''Vera Frantsevna Menchik''; cz, Věra Menčíková; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in En ...
.
During World War II, many prominent chess players died or were killed, including: Isaak Appel, Zoltan Balla, Sergey Belavenets
Sergey Vsevolodovich Belavenets (russian: Серге́й Всеволодович Белавенец; 18 July 19106 March 1942) was a Soviet chess master, theoretician, and chess journalist.
Early life
Belavenets was born in Smolensk to a n ...
, Henryk Friedman
Henryk Friedman (Friedmann) (1903–1942) was a Polish chess master.
He lived in Lviv (Lwów, Lemberg). In 1926–1934, Friedman won seven times in succession the Championship of Lviv but 1930, when he took 2nd place behind Stepan Popel. Friedman ...
, Achilles Frydman
Achilles Frydman (March 19, 1904, Łódź – 1940) was a Polish chess player.
Biography
He lived in Łódź where he took 4th place (1930, 1931, 1934) and tied for 5-6th (1933) in the city championships. In 1935, he took 5th in Warsaw at the 3 ...
, Eduard Gerstenfeld, Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky, Mikhail Kogan
Mikhail Borisovich Kogan ( rus, Михаил Борисович Коган; September 5, 1893 in Zhitomir, Russian Empire – November 26, 1951 in Moscow, USSR) was a Soviet medical doctor, and head of the therapy department of 2nd Moscow M ...
, Jakub Kolski, Leon Kremer, Arvid Kubbel, Leonid Kubbel
Leonid Ivanovich Kubbel (russian: Леонид Иванович Куббель; 1891 or 1892 – 1942) was a Russian composer of chess endgame studies and problems.
Life
He was born in Saint Petersburg at the end of 1891, or beginning of 1892 ...
, Salo Landau
Salo (Salomon) Landau (1 April 1903, Bochnia, Galicia, Austria-Hungary – March 1944,Westerbork Cartotheek NIOD Amsterdam Grodziszcze, Świdnica County, Poland) was a Dutch chess player, who died in a Nazi concentration camp.
Biography
Early ...
, Moishe Lowtzky, Vera Menchik
Vera Francevna Mencikova (russian: Вера Францевна Менчик, ''Vera Frantsevna Menchik''; cz, Věra Menčíková; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in En ...
, Vladimir Petrov, David Przepiorka, Ilya Rabinovich, Vsevolod Rauzer, Nikolai Riumin, Endre Steiner
Endre (Andreas) Steiner (27 June 1901 – 29 December 1944) was a Hungarian chess player, born in Budapest.
Endre Steiner played for Hungary in five official and one unofficial Chess Olympiads.
* In 1927, he played at first reserve board at 1st ...
, Mark Stolberg, Abram Szpiro
Abram (Abraham) Szpiro (1912 in Stringenau, Russian Empire – 16 February 1943, in Auschwitz) was a Polish chess master.
Born in Russian Empire (now Poland), he moved with his family to Łódź. He tied for 7-8th (1930), shared 4th (1931), a ...
, Karel Treybal, Alexey Troitzky, Samuil Vainshtein, Heinrich Wolf
Heinrich Wolf (20 October 1875 – December 1943) was an Austrian journalist and chess master.
Biography
In 1897, he tied for 5-7th in Berlin ( Géza Maróczy won). In 1900 he tied for 7-10th in Munich (the 12th DSB Congress, Maroczy, Ca ...
, and Lazar Zalkind
Lazar Borisovich Zalkind (1886, in Kharkiv – 1945, in Komsomolsk-on-Amur) was a Jewish Ukrainian economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, deve ...
.
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 a sole interruption. The winner of the 1948 tournament, Russian Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, ( – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist and was a pioneer in computer chess.
Botvinnik ...
, ushered in an era of Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
dominance in the chess world. Until the end of the Soviet Union, there was only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer
Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 11� ...
(champion 1972–75).
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 chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the C ...
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
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
n prodigy Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal; rus, Михаил Нехемьевич Таль, ''Mikhail Nekhem'yevich Tal' '', ; sometimes transliterated ''Mihails Tals'' or ''Mihail Tal'' (9 November 1936 – 28 June 1992) was a Soviet-Latvian chess player ...
, 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 (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''O ...
n Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (, ; 17 June 1929 – 13 August 1984) was a Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost-impenetrable defensive playing style ...
, a genius of defense and strong positional player, was able to hold the title for two cycles, 1963–69. His successor, Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky ( rus, Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский, Borís Vasíl'yevich Spásskiy; born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 ...
from Russia (1969–72), was a player able to win in both positional and sharp tactical style.
The next championship saw the first non-Soviet challenger since World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, Bobby Fischer
Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 11� ...
, who defeated his Candidates opponents by unheard-of margins and won the world championship match. In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Che ...
when FIDE refused to meet his demands, and Karpov obtained the title by default. Karpov defended his title twice against Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. H ...
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 Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...
. 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 David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach, and commentator, who is the vice-president of FIDE since October 2018. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the ...
cut ties 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
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (russian: Влади́мир Бори́сович Кра́мник; born 25 June 1975) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Ch ...
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.[Harding, T. (2002). ''64 Great Chess Games'', Dublin: Chess Mail. .]
The FIDE World Chess Championship 2006
The World Chess Championship 2006 was a match between Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik, and FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov. The title of World Chess Champion had been split for 13 years. This match, played between Sept ...
reunified the titles, when Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov
Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; bg, Весели́н Александров Топа́лов; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion.
Topalov became FIDE World Chess Champion by wi ...
and became the undisputed World Chess Champion. In September 2007, Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have ...
from India became the next champion by winning a championship tournament. In October 2008, Anand retained his title, decisively winning the rematch against Kramnik. Anand retained his title until 2013, when he lost it to Magnus Carlsen
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the reigning five-time World Chess Champion. He is also a three-time World Rapid Chess Champion and five-time World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen has h ...
from Norway, the current World Chess Champion. Carlsen defended his title four times. However, he declined to defend his title in the 2023 championship, and thus will relinquish it to the winner of that match.
Rule changes
Stalemate was originally considered an inferior form of victory; at various times it has been considered a win, a draw, or even a loss for the player delivering it. Since the 18th century, it has been considered a draw.
The convention that White moves first was established in the 19th century; previously either White or Black could move first.
Castling rules have varied, variations persisting in Italy until the late 19th century.
Rules concerning Draw by repetition, draws by repetition and the fifty-move rule have been refined and now require a formal claim. Perpetual check is no longer included in the rules of chess.
There have been no recent changes to the moves of the pieces, but the wording of some rules has been changed for the purposes of clarity.
The London 1883 chess tournament introduced chess clocks, creating a new rule for loss on time.
In line with the rule against receiving outside assistance, if a player's mobile phone or other electronic device generates sound, the player is immediately forfeited. In amateur tournaments players are asked to hand their phones to the tournament director; in professional tournaments they may be required to go through a metal detector.
See also
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* Chess in the arts
* Computer chess
* History of chess engines
* List of chess historians
* List of chess variants
* List of games that Buddha would not play
* School of chess
* Timeline of chess
* Wheat and chessboard problem
Notes
References
Encyclopædia Britannica
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WWW
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Books
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* Henry Bird (chess player), Bird, Henry Edward (1893). ''Chess History and Reminiscences''. London. (Republished version by Forgotten Books). .
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* Duncan Forbes (linguist), 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.
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* Reprint: (1996)
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* Leibs, Andrew (2004). ''Sports and Games of the Renaissance''. Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group.
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* 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)
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* Saidy, Anthony. ''The battle of chess ideas'' (Batsford, 1972); scholarly history; ''The March of Chess Ideas: How the Century's Greatest Players Have Waged the War Over Chess Strategy'' (1994)
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Journals
* Viswanathan Anand, Anand, Viswanathan
"The Indian Defense"
Time (magazine), TIME, Thursday, Jun. 19, 2008. An article on the history of chess by the 2007-10 chess world champion.
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PDF version
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External links
Origin and history of Chess, Xiangqi, Shogi and more
Initiative group Koenigstein
Alfonso X y el ajedrez - Alfonso X and Chess
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Chess
History of chess,