History of chess

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For the book by H. J. R. Murray, see A History of Chess.


Real-size resin reproductions of the 12th century Lewis chessmen. The top row shows king, queen, and bishop. The
bottom row shows knight, rook, and pawn.
The history of chess spans some 1500 years. The earliest predecessor of the game probably
originated in India, before the 6th century AD. From India, the game spread to Persia. When the
Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to
Southern Europe. In Europe, chess evolved into roughly its current form in the 15th century. The
"Romantic Era of Chess" was the predominant chess playing style down to the 1880s. It was
characterized by swashbuckling attacks, clever combinations, brash piece sacrifices and dynamic
games. Winning was secondary to winning with style. These games were focused more on artistic
expression, rather than technical mastery or long-term planning. The Romantic era of play was
followed by the Scientific, Hypermodern, and New Dynamism eras.
[1]

In the second half of the 19th century, modern chess tournament play began, and the first World
Chess Championship was held in 1886. The 20th century saw great leaps forward in chess
theory and the establishment of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Developments in the 21st
century include use ofcomputers for analysis, which originated in the 1970s with the first
programmed chess games on the market. Online gaming appeared in the mid-1990s.
Contents
[hide]
1 Origin
2 India
3 Iran (Persia)
4 East Asia
o 4.1 China
o 4.2 Japan
o 4.3 Mongolia
o 4.4 East Siberia
5 Arab world
6 Europe
o 6.1 Early history
o 6.2 Shapes of pieces
o 6.3 Names of pieces
o 6.4 Early changes to the rules
7 Origins of the modern game
8 Modern competitive chess
9 Birth of a sport (18501945)
10 Post-war era (1945 and later)
11 See also
12 Notes
13 References
14 External links
Origin[edit]

a b c d e f g h

8

8
7

7
6

6
5

5
4

4
3

3
2

2
1

1

a b c d e f g h

Chaturanga starting position.
[2]
The kings do not face each other; the white king starts on e1 and the black
king on d8.

This example uses algebraic notation.
The precursors of chess originated in India during the Gupta Empire.
[3][4][5][6]
There, its early form in
the 6th century was known as chaturaga, which translates as "four divisions (of the
military)":infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. These forms are represented by the pieces that
would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively.
[7]
According to chess
historians Gerhard Josten and Isaak Linder, "the early beginnings" of chess can be traced back to
the Kushan Empire in Ancient Afghanistan, circa 50 BCE200 CE.
[8][9]

Chess was introduced to Persia from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education
ofPersian nobility.
[10]
In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name became chatrang, which
subsequently evolved to shatranj, due to Arab Muslims' lack of ch and ng native sounds,
[11]
and the
rules were developed further. Players started calling "Shh!" (Persian for "King!") when attacking the
opponent's king, and "Shh Mt!" (Persian for "the king is helpless" see checkmate) when the king
was attacked and could not escape from attack. These exclamations persisted in chess as it traveled
to other lands.
The game was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia, with the pieces
largely keeping their Persian names. The Moors of North Africa rendered Persian "shatranj"
asshaerej, which gave rise to the Spanish acedrex, axedrez and ajedrez; in Portuguese it
becamexadrez, and in Greek zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the
Persian shh("king"). Thus, the game came to be called ludus
scacchorum or scacc(h)i in Latin, scacchi in Italian, escacsin Catalan, checs in French (Old
French eschecs); schaken in Dutch, Schach in German, szachy in Polish, ahs in Latvian, skak in D
anish,sjakk in Norwegian, schack in Swedish, akki in Finnish, ah in South Slavic
languages, sakk in Hungarian and ah in Romanian; there are two theories about why this change
happened:
1. From the exclamation "check" or "checkmate" as it was pronounced in various languages.
2. From the first chessmen known of in Western Europe (except Iberia and Greece) being
ornamental chess kings brought in as curios by Muslim traders.
The Mongols call the game shatar, and in Ethiopia it is called senterej, both evidently derived
from shatranj.
Chess spread directly from the Middle East to Russia, where chess became known as
(shakhmaty, 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.
[12]
Introduced into the Iberian
Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th-century manuscript
covering shatranj, backgammon and dice named the Libro de los juegos.
Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking
shape.
[13]
Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road traders and others carried it to the Far East where it was
transformed and assimilated into a game often played on the intersection of the lines of the board
rather than within the squares.
[13][14]
Chaturanga reached Europe through Persia, the Byzantine
empire and the expanding Arabian empire.
[15]
Muslims carried chess to North Africa, Sicily,
and Iberia by the 10th century.
[13]

The game was developed extensively in Europe. By the late 15th century, it had survived a series of
prohibitions and Christian Church sanctions to almost take the shape of the modern
game.
[16]
Modern history saw reliable reference works,
[17]
competitive chess tournaments,
[18]
and
exciting new variants. These factors added to the game's popularity,
[18]
further bolstered by reliable
timing mechanisms (first introduced in 1861), effective rules,
[18]
and charismatic players.
[19]

India[edit]


Krishna and Radha playingchaturanga on an 88 Ashtpada
The earliest precursor of modern chess is a game called chaturanga, which flourished in India by the
6th century, and is the earliest known game to have two essential features found in all later chess
variationsdifferent 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.
[13]
The original chess
board was mathematically revolutionary, as reported by the infamous Wheat and chessboard
problem. A common theory is that Indias development of the board, and chess, was likely due to
Indias mathematical enlightenment involving the creation of the number zero.
[11]
Other game pieces
(speculatively called "chess pieces") uncovered in archaeological findings are considered as coming
from other, distantly related board games, which may have had boards of 100 squares or
more.
[13]
Findings in the Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (26001500 BCE) sites of the Indus Valley
Civilization show the prevalence of a board game that resembles chess.
[20]

Chess was designed for an ashtpada (Sanskrit for "having eight feet", i.e. an 88 squared board),
which may have been used earlier for abackgammon-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).
[21]
Ashtpada, the uncheckered 88 board served as the main board for
playing chaturanga.
[22]
Other Indian boards included the 1010 Dasapada and the
99 Saturankam.
[22]
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 ashtpada before chess was invented.
[21]

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 was the original form of
chaturanga.
[23]
The theory is no longer considered tenable.
[24]

In Sanskrit, "chaturanga" () literally means "having four limbs (or parts)" and in epic
poetry often means "army" (the four parts are elephants, chariots, horsemen, foot soldiers).
[10]
The
name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata.
[13]
The game
chaturanga was a battle-simulation game
[10]
which rendered Indian military strategy of the time.
[25]

Some people formerly played chess using a die to decide which piece to move. There was an
unproven theory that chess started as this dice-chess and that the gambling and dice aspects of the
game were removed because of Hindu religious objections.
[26]

Scholars in areas to which the game subsequently spread, for example the Arab Abu al-Hasan 'Al
al-Mas'd, detailed the Indian use of chess as a tool for military
strategy, mathematics, gambling and even its vague association with astronomy.
[27]
Mas'd notes
that ivory in India was chiefly used for the production of chess and backgammon pieces, and asserts
that the game was introduced to Persia from India, along with the bookKelileh va Demneh, during
the reign of emperor Nushirwan.
[27]

In some variants, a win was by checkmate, or by stalemate, or by "bare king" (taking all of an
opponent's pieces except the king).
In some parts of India the pieces in the places of the rook, 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.
[21]

In early chess the moves of the pieces were:
Original
name
Modern
name
Version Original move
king king all as now
adviser queen all one square diagonally, only
elephant bishop Persia and west two squares diagonally (no more or less), but could jump over a
piece between
an old Indian
version
two squares sideways or front-and-back (no more or less), but
could jump over a piece between
southeast and east
Asia
one square diagonally, or one square forwards, like four legs and
trunk of elephant
horse knight all as now
chariot rook all as now
foot-soldier pawn all
one square forwards (not two), capturing one square diagonally
forward; promoted to queen only
Two Arab travelers each recorded a severe Indian chess rule against stalemate:
[28]

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)[edit]

Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century. New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
[29]

Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the
Persian court.

Shams-e-Tabrz as portrayed in a 1500 painting in a page of a copy of Rumi's poem dedicated to
Shams.
The Karnamak-i Ardeshir-i Papakan, a Pahlavi epical treatise about the founder of
the Sassanid Persian Empire, mentions the game of chatrangas one of the accomplishments of the
legendary hero, Ardashir I, founder of the Empire.
[30]
The oldest recorded game in chess history is a
10th-century game played between a historian from Baghdad and a pupil.
[15]

A manuscript explaining the rules of the game called "Matikan-i-chatrang" (the book of chess)
in Middle Persian or Pahlavi still exists.
[citation needed]

In the 11th century Shahnameh, Ferdowsi describes a Raja visiting from India who re-enacts the
past battles on the chessboard.
[27]
A translation in English, based on the manuscripts in the British
Museum, is given below:
[30]

One day an ambassador from the king of Hind 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, solved the mystery and was richly rewarded by his delighted sovereign.
(Edward Lasker suggested that Bozorgmehr likely found the rules by bribing the Indian
envoys.)
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.
[31]
The poem uses the Persian term
"Shh mt" (check mate) to describe the fate of Talhand.
[32]

The philosopher and theologist Al-Ghazali mentions chess in The Alchemy of
Happiness (c. 1100). He uses it as a specific example of a habit that may cloud a
person's good disposition:
[33]

Indeed, a person who has become habituated to gaming with pigeons, playing
chess, or gambling, so that it becomes second-nature to him, will give all the
comforts of the world and all that he has for those (pursuits) and cannot keep
away from them.
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.
[34]
This is because of a Muslim ban on the games lifelike pieces, as they were
said to have brought upon images of idolatry.
[11]
The Islamic sets of later centuries
followed a pattern which assigned names and abstract shapes to the chess pieces,
as Islamforbids depiction of animals and human beings in art.
[34]
These pieces were
usually made of simple clay and carved stone.
[34]

East Asia[edit]
China[edit]
As a strategy board game played in China, chess is believed to have been derived from
the Indian chaturanga.
[35]
Chaturanga was transformed into the game xiangqi where the
pieces are placed on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the
squares.
[13]
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.
[35]
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.
[36]
Chinese chess pieces are usually flat and resemble those used
in checkers, with pieces differentiated by writing their names on the flat surface.
[35]

An alternative origin theory contends that chess arose from xiangqi or a predecessor
thereof, existing in China since the 3rd century BC.
[37]
David H. Li, a retired accountant,
professor of accounting and translator of ancient Chinese texts, hypothesizes that
general Han Xin drew on the earlier game of Liubo to develop an early form of Chinese
chess in the winter of 204203 BC.
[37]
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 Dynastyminister Niu Sengru (779847),
remains the first real source on the Chinese chess variant xiangqi.
[38]

Japan[edit]
A prominent variant of chess in East Asia is the game of shogi, transmitted from India to
China and Korea before finally reaching Japan.
[39]
The three distinguishing features of
shogi are:
1. The captured pieces may be reused by the captor and played as a part of the
captor's forces.
2. Pawns capture as they move, one square straight ahead.
[39]

3. The board is 99, with a second queen (called a gold general) on the other side
of the king.
Mongolia[edit]
Chess is recorded from Mongolian-inhabited areas, where the pieces are now called:
King: Noyon lord
Queen: Bers / Nohoi / dog (to guard the livestock)
Bishop: Tem camel
Knight: Mor horse
Rook: Tereg cart
Pawn: H boy (the piece often showed a puppy)
Names recorded from the 1880s by Russian sources, quoted in Murray,
[21]
among
the Soyot people (who at the time spoke the Soyot Turkic language)
include: merz (dog), tb (camel), ot (horse), l (child) and Mongolian names for the
other pieces.
The change with the queen is likely due to the Arabic word firzn or Persian
word farzn (= "vizier") being confused with Turkic or Mongolian native words (merz =
"mastiff", bar or bars = "tiger", arslan = "lion").
[21]

Chess in Mongolia is now played following the usual international rules.
East Siberia[edit]
Chess was also recorded from the Yakuts, Tunguses, and Yukaghirs; but only as a
children's game among the Chukchi. Chessmen have been collected from
the Yakutat people in Alaska, having no resemblance to European chessmen, and thus
likely part of a chess tradition coming fromSiberia.
[21]

Arab world[edit]
Main article: Shatranj
Chess passed from Persia to the Arab world, where its name changed to
Arabic shatranj. 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
[21]
sources
found the old moves of queen and bishop still current in Ethiopia. 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 Sultans
interests, by showing how to foresee disaster.
[11]

Europe[edit]
Early history[edit]

This paragraph may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help
us clarify the paragraph; suggestions may be found on the talk
page. (May 2013)
Shatranj made its way via the expanding Islamic Arabian empire to Europe.
[15]
It also
spread to the Byzantine empire, where it was calledzatrikion. Chess appeared
in Southern Europe during the end of the first millennium, often introduced to new lands
by conquering armies, such as the Norman Conquest of England.
[16]
Chess remained
largely unpopular in Northern Europe but started gaining popularity as soon as figure
pieces were introduced.
[16]

In the 14th century, Timur developed his own 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.
[40]

The sides are conventionally called White and Black. But, in earlier European chess
writings, the sides were often called Red and Black because those were the commonly
available colors of ink when handwriting drawing a chess game layout. In such layouts,
each piece was represented by its name, often abbreviated (e.g. "ch'r" for French
"chevalier" = "knight").
The social value attached to the game seen as a prestigious pastime associated with
nobility and high culture is clear from the expensive and exquisitely made
chessboards of the medieval era.
[41]
The popularity of chess in the Western courtly
society peaked between the 12th and the 15th centuries.
[42]
The game found mention in
the vernacular and Latin language literature throughout Europe, and many works were
written on or about chess between the 12th and the 15th centuries.
[42]
Harold James
Ruthven Murray divides the works into three distinct parts: thedidactic works
e.g. Alexander of Neckham's De scaccis (approx. 1180); works of morality like Liber de
moribus hominum et officiis nobilium sive super ludo scacchorum (Book of the customs
of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess), written by Jacobus de Cessolis;
and the works related to various chess problems, written largely after 1205.
[42]
Chess
terms, like check, were used by authors as a metaphor for various situations.
[43]
Chess
was soon incorporated into the knightly style of life in Europe.
[44]
Peter Alfonsi, in his
work Disciplina Clericalis, listed chess among the seven skills that a good knight must
acquire.
[44]
Chess also became a subject of art during this period, with caskets and
pendants decorated in various chess forms.
[45]
Queen Margaret of England's green and
red chess sets made of jasper and crystal symbolized chess's position in royal art
treasures.
[43]
Kings Henry I, Henry II and Richard I of England were chess
patrons.
[13]
Other monarchs who gained similar status were Alfonso
X of Castile and Ivan IV of Russia.
[13]

Saint Peter Damian denounced the bishop of Florence in 1061 for playing chess even
when aware of its evil effects on the society.
[16]
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.
[16]
Two separate incidents in 13th
century London involving men of Essex resorting to violence resulting in death as an
outcome of playing chess further caused sensation and alarm.
[16]
The growing popularity
of the game now associated with revelry and violence alarmed the Church.
[16]

The practice of playing chess for money became so widespread during the 13th century
that Louis IX of France issued an ordinance against gambling in 1254.
[41]
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.
[41]

Knights Templar playing chess, Libro de los juegos, 1283

Otto IV of Brandenburg playing chess with a woman, 1305 to 1340

A couple playing chess, ivory mirror case c. 1300
Shapes of pieces[edit]
Under Christianity, the shapes of the pieces, originally Islamic nonrepresentational
(see piece values in shantranj), changed. 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.
[46]
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.
[47]
The initially nondescript pawn had now found
association with the pedes, pedinus, or the footman, which symbolized both infantry and
loyal domestic service.
[46]

Names of pieces[edit]
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:
[48][49]

A comparison of the terms for chessmen in Sanskrit, Bengali, Persian, Arabic, Turkish,
Latin, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and Catalan
Sanskrit
Bengal
Per
sia
Arabi
Tu
rki
Latin English
Span
Port
ugue
Italia Fre Catal
i n c sh ish se n nch an
Raja (Kin
g)
Raja(Ki
ng)
Sha
h
Malik ah Rex King Rey Rei Re Roi Rei
Mantri (
Minister)
Mantri(
Ministe
r)
Va
zr
(Vi
zir)
Wazr
/Firz
Vez
ir
Regina Queen
Reina
/Dam
a
Dam
a
Regin
a
Da
me
Dam
a/Rei
na
Gajah (w
ar
elephant)
Hati Pil Al-Fl Fil
Episcopus/
Comes/Cal
vus
Bishop/Co
unt/Council
lor
Alfil/
Obisp
o
Bisp
o
Alfier
e
Fou Alfil
Ashva (h
orse)
Ghora
(horse)
As
p
Fars/
Hisan
At
Miles/Eque
s
Knight
Cabal
lo
Cava
lo
Cavall
o
Ca
vali
er
Caval
l
Ratha (ch
ariot)
Nowka
Ro
kh
Qal`a/
Rukhk
h
Kal
e
Rochus/Ma
rchio
Rook/Marg
rave/Castle
Torre
/Roq
ue
Torre
Torre/
Rocco
To
ur
Torre
Padati
(footman/
footsoldie
r)
Shoinn
ya
Pia
deh
Baida
q/Jond
i
Pio
n
Pedes/Pedi
nus
Pawn Pen Peo
Pedon
e/Pedi
na
Pio
n
Pe
The game, as played during the early Middle Ages, was slow, with many games lasting
for days.
[16]
Some variations in rules began to change the shape of the game by 1300
AD.
[50]
A notable, but initially unpopular, change was the ability of the pawn to move two
places in the first move instead of one.
[50]

In Europe some of the pieces gradually got new names:
Fers: "queen", because it starts beside the king.
Aufin: "bishop", because its two points looked like a bishop's mitre; In French fou;
and others. Its Latin name alfinus was reinterpreted many ways.
Early changes to the rules[edit]

a b c d e f g h

8

8
7 7
6 6
5





5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1

a b c d e f g h

Check by pinned piece
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.
[51]

King jumping once, to make it quicker to put the king safe in a corner. (This
eventually led to castling.)
Queen on its first move moving two squares straight or diagonally to a same-colored
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.
[21]

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.
[21]

Origins of the modern game[edit]
The queen and bishop remained relatively weak until
[16]
between 1475 AD and 1500 AD,
in either Spain, Portugal, France or Italy, the queen's and bishop's modern moves
started and spread, making chess close to its modern form. This form of chess got such
names as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess" (Italian alla rabiosa = "with the
madwoman").
[52]
This led to much more value being attached to the previously minor
tactic of pawn promotion.
[21]
Checkmate became easier and games could now be won in
fewer moves.
[50][53]
These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe and
in Spain,
[54][55]
with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in
the early 19th century.
[56]
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), the queen could also move like a knight.
A poem Cassa published in 1527 led to the chess rook being often renamed as
"castle", and the modern shape of the rook chess piece; seeVida's poem for more
information.
An Italian player, Gioacchino Greco, regarded as one of the first true professionals of
the game, authored an analysis of a number of composed games that illustrated two
differing approaches to chess.
[17]
This influential work went to some extent in
popularizing chess and demonstrated the many theories regarding game play and
tactics.
[17]

The first full work dealing with the various winning combinations was written
by Franois-Andr Danican Philidor of France, regarded as the best chess player in the
world for nearly 50 years, and published in the 18th century.
[17]
He wrote and
published L'Analyse des checs (The Analysis of Chess), an influential work which
appeared in more than 100 editions.
[17]

A woodcut drawn fromCaxton's chess book printed in England in 1474

A tactical puzzle fromLucena's 1497 book

A Russian set made ofwalrus ivory, 1750s

Portrait of Franois-Andr Danican Philidor from Lanalyse des checs. London, second
edition, 1777

Original Staunton chess pieces by Nathaniel Cook from 1849
Writings about the theory of how to play chess began to appear in the 15th century. The
oldest surviving printed chess book, Repeticin de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez (Repetition
of Love and the Art of Playing Chess) by Spanish churchman Luis Ramirez de
Lucena was published inSalamanca in 1497.
[54]
Lucena and later masters
like Portuguese Pedro Damiano, Italians Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona, Giulio Cesare
Polerioand Gioachino Greco or Spanish bishop Ruy Lpez 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 Franois-Andr Danican Philidor, a
musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy,
and later Louis-Charles Mah de La Bourdonnais who won a famous series of matches
with the Irish master Alexander McDonnell in 1834.
[57]
Centers of chess life in this period
were coffee houses in big European cities like Caf de la
Rgence in Paris
[58]
and Simpson's Divan in London.
[59]

As the 19th century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess
clubs, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches
between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against
the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824.
[60]
Chess problems became a regular part of 19th
century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz, Josef Kling and Samuel Loyd composed some
of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa published his
and Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels (Handbook of Chess), the first
comprehensive manual of chess theory.
Modern competitive chess[edit]
Competitive chess became visible in 1834, and the 1851 London Chess
tournament raised concerns about the time taken by the players to deliberate their
moves. On recording time it was found that players often took hours to analyze moves,
and one player took as much as two hours and 20 minutes to think over a single move
at the London tournament. The following years saw the development of speed chess,
five-minute chess and the most popular variant, a version allowing a bank of time to
each player in which to play a previously agreed number of moves, e.g. two hours for 30
moves. In the final variant, the player who made the predetermined number of moves in
the agreed time received additional time budget for his next moves. Penalties for
exceeding a time limit came in form of fines and forfeiture. Since fines were easy to bear
for professional players, forfeiture became the only effective penalty; this added "lost on
time" to the traditional means of losing such ascheckmate and resigning.
[18]



Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991
In 1861 the first time limits, using sandglasses, were employed in a tournament match
at Bristol, England. The sandglasses were later replaced by pendulums. Modern clocks,
consisting of two parallel timers with a small button for a player to press after completing
a move, were later employed to aid the players. A tiny latch called a flag further helped
settle arguments over players exceeding time limit at the turn of the 19th century.
[18]

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.
[19]
Position analysis became particularly popular in the 19th century.
[19]
Many
leading players were also accomplished analysts, including Max Euwe, Mikhail
Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov and Jan Timman.
[19]
Digital clocks appeared in the 1980s.
[18]

Another problem that arose in competitive chess was when adjourning a game for a
meal break or overnight. The player who moved last before adjournment would be at a
disadvantage, as the other player would have a long period to analyze before having to
make a reply when the game was resumed. Preventing access to a chess set to work
out moves during the adjournment would not stop him from analyzing the position in his
head. Various strange ideas were attempted, but the eventual solution was the "sealed
move". The final move before adjournment is not made on the board but instead is
written on a piece of paper which the referee seals in an envelope and keeps safe.
When the game is continued after adjournment, the referee makes the sealed move and
the players resume.
Birth of a sport (18501945)[edit]

The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and won, surprisingly,
by German Adolf Anderssen, relatively unknown at the time. Anderssen was hailed as
the leading chess master and his brilliant, energetic attacking style became typical for
the time, although it was later regarded asstrategically shallow.
[61][62]
Sparkling games
like Anderssen's Immortal game and Evergreen Game orMorphy's Opera game were
regarded as the highest possible summit of the chess art.
[63]

Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players. American Paul
Morphy, an extraordinary chess prodigy, won against all important competitors,
including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863. Morphy's
success stemmed from a combination of brilliant attacks and sound strategy; he
intuitively knew how to prepare attacks.
[64]
Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz later described
how to avoid weaknesses in one's own position and how to create and exploit such
weaknesses in the opponent's position.
[65]
In addition to his theoretical achievements,
Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading Polish-German
master Johannes Zukertort in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess
Championship. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger German
mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest
tenure of all World Champions.
[66]



Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Chess Champion
It took a prodigy from Cuba, Jos Ral Capablanca (World champion 192127), who
loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in
chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years until 1924. His successor
was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player, who died as the
World champion in 1946, having briefly lost the title to Dutch player Max Euwe in 1935,
regaining it two years later.
[67]

Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-
called hypermodernists likeAron Nimzowitsch and Richard Rti. 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.
[68]

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 Russiato Lasker,
Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, but this is a disputed claim.
[69]
The
tradition of awarding such titles was continued by the World Chess Federation (FIDE),
founded in 1924 in Paris. In 1927,Women's World Chess Championship was
established; the first to hold it was Czech-English master Vera Menchik.
[70]

Post-war era (1945 and later)[edit]


World Champions Jos Ral Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Laskerin 1925
After the death of Alekhine, a new World Champion was sought in a tournament of elite
players ruled by FIDE, who have controlled the title since then, with one interruption.
The winner of the 1948 tournament, Russian Mikhail Botvinnik, started an era
of Soviet dominance in the chess world. Until the end of the Soviet Union, there was
only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer (champion 197275).
[71]

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.
[72]
FIDE set up a new system of qualifying tournaments and matches. The
world's strongest players were seeded into "Interzonal tournaments", where they were
joined by players who had qualified from "Zonal tournaments". The leading finishers in
these Interzonals would go on the "Candidates" stage, which was initially a tournament,
later a series of knock-out matches. The winner of the Candidates would then play the
reigning champion for the title. A champion defeated in a match had a right to play a
rematch a year later. This system worked on a three-year cycle.
[72]

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 Latvian prodigy Mikhail Tal, an accomplished
tactician and attacking player. Botvinnik again regained the title in a rematch in 1961.
Following the 1961 event, FIDE abolished the automatic right of a deposed champion to
a rematch, and the next champion, Armenian Tigran Petrosian, a genius of defense and
strong positional player, was able to hold the title for two cycles, 196369. His
successor, Boris Spassky from Russia (196972), was a player able to win in both
positional and sharp tactical style.
[73]



Current World Champion Magnus Carlsen
The next championship saw the first non-Soviet challenger since World War II, Bobby
Fischer, 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 when FIDE refused to meet his demands, and Karpov obtained
the title by default. Karpov defended his title twice againstViktor Korchnoi and
dominated the 1970s and early 1980s with a string of tournament successes.
[74]

Karpov's reign finally ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player, Garry
Kasparov. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world title matches between 1984 and
1990; Karpov never won his title back.
[75]

In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke with FIDE to organize their own match
for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess Association (PCA). From then
until 2006, there were two simultaneous World Champions and World Championships:
the PCA or Classical champion extending the Steinitzian tradition in which the current
champion plays a challenger in a series of many games; the other following FIDE's new
format of many players competing in a tournament to determine the champion.
Kasparov lost his Classical title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
Earlier in 1999, Kasparov as the reigning world champion played a game online against
the world team composed of more than 50,000 participants from more than 75
countries. The moves of the world team were decided by plurality vote, and after 62
moves played over four months Kasparov won the game. The number of ideas, the
complexity, and the contribution it has made to chess theory make it one of the most
important chess games ever played.
[76]

The FIDE World Chess Championship 2006 reunified the titles, when Kramnik beat the
FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov and became the undisputed World Chess
Champion.
[77]
In September 2007, Viswanathan Anand from India became the next
champion by winning a championship tournament.
[78]
In October 2008, Anand retained
his title, decisively winning the rematch against Kramnik.
[79]

There have been no recent changes to the moves of the pieces, but the wording of
some rules were changed. Publicity (e.g. by chess problem setters) showed that the old
wording of two rules allowed unintended types of moves:
The promotion rule was found to say that a pawn is to be promoted to "a piece" of
unspecified color, thus including an enemy piece (thus on occasion blocking the
enemy king in, or preventing stalemate by giving the opponent something to move).
The castling rule was found to allow (White) Ke1e3 and Re8e2, and (Black) Ke8
e6 and Re1e7, if "the rook had not been moved" as a rook because it had been a
pawn underpromoted on e8/e1.
The wording of both rules was changed to forbid the unintended allowed moves.
Further information: Offbeat interpretations of the rules of chess
In recent times, more ways to lose have been brought in:
Losing on time.
A player whose mobile phone rings during a game, thereby loses.