history of chess

history of chess
The origin of the game chess remains a mystery, but the most accepted version suggests that chess was invented in Asia, probably in India, under the name chaturanga, and from there it spread to China, Russia, Persia and Europe, where it was found. established the current normative Chess Rules. However, recent research indicates a possible Chinese origin, in the region between Uzbekistan and ancient Persia, which could date back to the 3rd century BC. c.

One of the oldest literary records about chess is the Persian poem Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, written in the 6th century. From this era onwards, its evolution is better documented and widely accepted in the academic world. After the conquest of Persia by the Arabs, they assimilated the game and spread it in the West, taking it to North Africa and Europe, and even present-day Spain and Italy around the 10th century, from where it spread to the rest of the continent, reaching the region of Scandinavia and Iceland. In the East, chess has spread from its Chinese version, Xiangqi, to Korea and Japan in the 10th century.

In the 15th century, the game was widely spread in Europe and among the existing variants of the game, the European one stood out for its indicated speed and also for the inclusion of the queen and the bishop. Although chess literature already existed at that time, it was in this period that the first opening analyzes began to emerge due to the new playing possibilities.

Games began to be recorded more frequently and more theoretical studies have been published. In the 18th century, the first chess clubs and sports federations were founded in Europe, and due to the large number of small tournaments that occur throughout the continent, in 1851 the first international tournament was held in London. The popularity of international competitions led to the creation of the world champion title, won by Wilhelm Steinitz in 1886, and, in 1924, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) was founded in Paris, which organized the first Chess Olympiad. Chess and the women's world championship, won by Vera Menchik.

At the end of the 1950s, with the popularization of computers, the first programs that played chess began to emerge, accompanying the evolution of information processing and introducing the game into the modern era with online competitions and facilitating the analysis of the games.

Origin
The origin of chess remains a matter of debate among chess historians,1​2​3​ however, the most widespread theory4​ is that it was created in India during the Gupta Empire around the 6th century.5​ This theory It is confirmed by the first Persian literary records and by the analysis of the etymology of the words used in the game and its co-evolution with chess.6​

However, alternative theories propose that chess was created during an earlier period, in different places, such as China,7 Iran8 and Afghanistan.9 These versions explore archaeological, military,10 and literary evidence from phylogenetic evidence11 to challenge the Indian theory. The similarities between Chaturanga and Xiangqi, considered the Chinese version of chess, are explored indicating that these games could have influenced each other through contact between civilizations through the Silk Road, assimilating some aspects of its rules and forming hybrid versions,12​ which could date back to ancient Greece and Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia Minor in the 3rd century BC.13​ There is the prospect that, in the future, new analyzes of existing literature and discovery More archaeological objects in India and China allow us to definitively clarify the origin of chess.3​

India
Main article: Chess in India

Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an Ashtāpada board.
According to Harold Murray, philological analysis clearly connects the game to the word chaturanga,14 which designated the four parts of the Indian army - chariots, elephants, cavalry and infantry - since the 5th century BC. C.15​ Originally, the match was played in the council of Ashtāpada, another game whose significance was established around the 5th century BC. C., and suggested a familiar object.16​

Chaturanga is considered the oldest game with essential game-defining features found in later versions - two players face each other in an initial, symmetrical arrangement of pieces, with pieces of different moves and victory dependent on capturing a only piece.17​ It is not clear if chaturanga used dice to designate its movements, although the vast majority of Indian games used them.18​

One of the legends about the Indian origin

o, related in the Persian poem Chatrang Namag (c. Sec VII) and the Persian book Shāh-nāmeh (c. 11th century) relates that an Indian rajahnote 1​ sent his vizier Tâtarîtos to the court of Khosrow I Anôšag-Ruwan, Shah of Persia, with tributes and a challenge to discover the rules of chaturanga. Khosrau requested four days to solve the riddle, after having succeeded in the allotted time.19​20​note 2​

The book Shāh-nāmeh describes two more legends about the origin of chess. The first tells the legend of the Brahmin Sessa Ibn Daher, who created the game at the request of an Indian rajah and, as a reward, asked him for a grain of wheat for the first square on the board, progressively doubling the amount for each new square. Another story tells that the game was invented, at the request of King Gav's mother, to prove that he had not caused the death of his brother Talhend during a battle, reconstituted on the board.22 aram sam sam

China
Main article: Chess in China
An alternative theory states that chess emerged from Xiangqi or its predecessors, which had existed in China since the 2nd century BC. C. David H. Li, a retired accountant and translator of ancient Chinese texts, hypothesized that General Han Xin was inspired by an earlier version of the game Liubo to develop a primitive version of Chinese chess in the winter of 204-203. to. C.23 German historian Peter Banaschak, however, points out that Li's theory is unfounded, stating that the work "Xuanguai lu", written by the minister of Niu Sengru (779-847) of the Tang dynasty remains as the first accepted source of the Chinese variant Xiangqi.24

Iran
Main article: Iranian theory on the origin of chess
Iranian historians questioned the absence of archaeological evidence prior to the 9th century in India, while Persian evidence was already found from the 6th century, as a hypothesis of the origin of chess belonging to ancient Persia, current Iran.25 In fact, a Although Indian literature prior to the 6th century is rich, it does not make any specific mention of chaturanga as a name for a game, and the clearest evidence in this regard emerged only in the 9th century.26 The etymology would not be objective either. respect to the use of the Sanskrit word chaturanga, which would only mean "army", it being unclear whether it is a reference to chess or some other game. The Persian influence on nomenclature, from whose language (Pahlavi) most of the words related to chess come, is also considered an argument in favor of the Iranian theory.27​

The figure of the elephant as a justification for Indian origin is also questioned. These animals are not exclusive to India, being known since the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, and are regularly used in the Persian armies.28 The Persian works Chatranj namâg and Shāh-nāmeh, which indicate the origin of the game as from another kingdom to west, reported as Hind and which brought chaturanga to the Persian court, could indicate an eastern province of the Persian Empire that includes the modern province of Sistan and Balochistan, which during the Achaemenid Empire was an extension of the province of Khuzestan.8​

Diffusion
ancient persia
Main article: Chess in ancient Persia

Illustration from the book Shāh-nāmeh, showing a game at the Persian court.
The poem Mâdayân î chatrang, or simply Chatrang nâmag, is the first literary evidence describing chess pieces and the arrival of chaturanga in Persia, although the dating of the text is controversial - historians estimate it to date between the 7th and 9th centuries. 29​

Around the 7th century another poem, Xusraw Kawadan ud redag, written in the Pahlavi language, mentions chaturanga, Ashtāpada and nard, the predecessor of backgammon. Khosrau was the shah of Persia from 531-579 and among the existing possibilities, he would be the first to receive a set of chess pieces from India.note 4

The oldest archaeological remains of the game were found in the region of Persia, located in the archaeological site of Afrasiab, near the city of Samarkand, in modern-day Uzbekistan. The so-called Afrasiab pieces are seven in number (1 King, 1 Tower, 1 Vizier, 2 Horses and 2 Pawns), with an average size of 3 cm, and were dated to the 7th century.31

The first adaptations to chaturanga were the translation of the game, which was renamed Shatranj, and of the pieces that maintained the Indian meaning of representing in the game the four components of the army at the time: chariots, cavalry, mounted elephants and soldiers gathered together. beyond the sovereign and his advisor.32 The Persians also introduced expressions into the game such as Shah, current check, used to threaten the adversary king, Shāh-mat (checkmate) that the king ambushed, captured or killed, indicating the end of a heading33​ and Shāh-rukh, which indicates a dob

t threatens the King and the Tower, which until then was the strongest piece.34​

From the beginning the game was popular, with variants cited in different manuscripts having been created, such as Murûj adh-dhahab and the encyclopedia Nafâ'is al-funûn, which describe a total of seven variants practiced at the time have been established, although they were already developed under Arab rule over Persia. The first describes oblong chess, decimal chess, circular chess, celestial (al-Falakîya) and Limbo (al-Jawârhîya). The second also describes the Citadel Chess (al-Husûn) and the large chess (al-Kabîr), later known as Tamburlaine Chess.35​

The Persians introduced the chatrang to the Byzantine Empire around the 7th century, which was assimilated under the name zatrikion. However, the first evidence of zatrikion for which it is possible to establish a correct date is from the 12th century, in a passage from the biography of Emperor Alexius I Komnenos, written by his daughter Anna Komnenos. The rules of the game that were played in the Byzantine court are not exactly known and with the fall of the empire in 1453, the current version of the game was replaced by the Turkish version that would later be replaced by the European version.36

The Arab conquest
Main article: Chess in Arabia

Set of Shatranj pieces dating from the 12th century.37​
By the time the Arabs dominated Persia in 651, the Prophet Muhammad had already died, sparking a long debate among Islamic theologians about the legality of gambling practice. Finally, their practices were permitted under certain conditions, which included no gambling, no disputes or blasphemy, and no representation of the pieces figuratively.38

The game became popular among caliphs such as Harun al-Rashid, who sponsored the best players at his court, and at the end of the 9th century, it was widely accepted and spread in the Arab world, being taken to North Africa, Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula. Then the first great players emerged, notable in their time for the ability to play even giving pawn advantages and even rooks to their opponents. Al-Adli, Al-Razi and As-Suli were the great names of this period, having excelled in both chess and the arts and sciences.39​40​

The Arabs were the first to study phases of the method of analyzing openings, middlegames and endgames, trying to exploit the weaknesses existing in each of them. They created numerous problems, called mansūbāt, representing the typical endings of a game, using the rules of Shatranj, an Arabicized version of Persian Chatrang. From this period it is also the first reference to a blindfold chess game, reported by Al-Safadi in a 14th century Arabic manuscript.40​41​

Expansion through Asia
Main articles: Chess in Burma, Korea, Japan, Russia and Thailand.
The etymological analysis of the chess pieces indicates that chess was introduced to Russia from the chatrang, of Persian origin. While in Europe the figure of the fers had already been transformed into a lady, in Russia the piece remained masculinized as a ferz, and the bishop and rook figured as an elephant and a ship, respectively. The most important archaeological evidence was excavated in the city of Novgorod, indicating that the game was introduced around the 9th century.42

By the time Europeans came into contact with Russian culture, the game was already fully established and the European version of the rules slowly replaced the Chatrang rules, although as late as the 18th century some tribes in the Far East made use of the old rules. As in Europe, the monarchy also showed interest in the game, patronizing the best players. Tsars Ivan IV of Russia, Catherine II of Russia and Peter I of Russia are among the monarchs who have shown such interest.

Current chess theory states that Xiangqi is the result of the assimilation of Chaturanga. The purpose of the Chinese variant is similar to the Indian game, that is, to capture the opponent's king, which is called "general." Xiangqi also incorporates elements of the board game Go, known in China since the 6th century BC, in which pieces move at the intersections of lines on the board, rather than squares. In Chinese chess the pieces are generally disc-shaped, as in Checkers, differentiated by ideograms at the top.43 In China, chaturanga was possibly introduced along the silk road between the Kashmir region and the Chinese empire. around the 8th century.44 However, the Chinese empire was closed to contact with the outside world, making it difficult to penetrate the game, which was only changed after the Second World War and the closer foreign relations with the Soviet Union.45 ​

Arrival in Europe

Bowling of San Genadio, chess pieces

originating from the monastery of Santiago de Peñalba in the 9th century.
Main article: Chess in Europe
Shatranj was introduced to Europe by the Arabs around the 10th century, through the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, where it quickly became popular, reaching the entire European continent by the end of the 11th century.46 Religious restrictions in practice of chess were maintained, despite the fact that they continue to be disobeyed by both the European court and the clergy. The first literary record on European soil, the poem Versus by Scachis, found in a monastery in Switzerland, describes the movement of the chess pieces, the rules of the game and the board with the standard dichromatic pattern currently used. The rules described were still the same as those of the Shatranj; However, this poem makes the first mention of the Queen (Regina, in Latin), although still with the same movements of the fers and different rules for the promotion of the pawn, which prevented the presence of two queens on the board, following the order to maintain the regulations of real monogamy.47​

Templars playing a game of chess in a miniature from the Book of Games (1283).

European king playing a game of chess in a miniature from the Liber de Moribus, (approx. 1300).
Just as among Islamic theologians, the practice of chess was discussed among Catholic theologians and prohibited, despite differences in canon law. A letter from Peter Damian, bishop of Ostia in approximately 1061, to the elected Pope Alexander II discussed the matter.48​49​ Until approximately the 14th century, the practice of chess was prohibited on several occasions in different countries (France, Russia, England and Germany) and religions (Orthodox Church,50 Judaism48 and Catholicism49).

Little by little, the game began to be accepted by the nobility, being considered a suitable entertainment for knights, soldiers, crusaders and ministers.39​48​ A man was also allowed to visit a Lady's room with the intention of playing. to chess.46​

Around 1250 the first sermons that used chess as a metaphor for teaching ethics and morals emerged. These works were called moralities and became very popular at the time. The first work of its kind was Quaedam moralitas de scaccario by Innocentium papum ("The Innocent Morals"), authorship attributed to Pope Innocent III (1163-1216), a prolific sermon writer, and later to a Franciscan friar named John of Wales (1220/90) the nobles or the Book of Chess"), a work that became very popular, being translated into several languages and the basis of the book The Game and Playe of the Chesse, one of the first books printed in English.48​

Origin of the modern game
At the end of the 15th century, the game underwent the main alteration in its history, with the replacement of the slow Alferza (or Fers) and Fil by the Queen and the Bishop respectively. Three Valencian poets Bernat Fenollar, Francí de Castellví and Narcís Vinyoles wrote the allegorical poem Scachs d'amor, where some consider that the movement of the queen or lady is described for the first time.53​. On May 15, [1495] the “Llibre dels jochs partits dels schachs en nombre de 100” was published in Valencia in which the Segorbino Francesch Vicent, unfortunately no copy is preserved that allows us to know its content. The first book that is preserved where the new rules appear is that of Luis Ramírez de Lucena in Repetition of loves and the art of chess (Salamanca, 1497), which was followed by others such as Damiano in Questo Libro e da Imparare Giocare a Scachi (1512 ) and Ruy López de Segura in Book of the liberal invention and art of the game of chess (1561), the latter being the strongest player of the time54 and the first to formalize the rules of castling in a single move55 and capture in step.56 Other names emerged such as Paolo Boi, Polerio and Greco who were patrons in different courts, producing a great variety of manuscripts with new theories in openings57. Thanks to the printing press58​ the new rules of the game quickly became popular in Europe, making all previously acquired knowledge about the theory of openings and endings obsolete, due to the great mobility of the new pieces57​.

The schools of thought

Engraving by Philidor in L’analyse des échecs. London, second edition, 1777.
In 1749, Philidor published his book L'analyse des échecs, discussing in detail strategy as a whole and the importance of the pawn structure in the game as a positional factor. His book included fourteen games and several fictional middlegame annotations discussing features such as pe

isolated ones, doubled, delayed, passed and the island of pawns.59​

Philidor was the greatest chess player of his time and his book remained a reference work on modern chess for more than a century, being translated into several languages.60 His ideas served as the basis for the first chess school of thought, the School of Philidor. However, the Italian school, developed by Ponziani, Lolli and Del Rio around 1750, advocated, in opposition to Philidor, a rapid development of the pieces and the direct attack against the adversary king, dominating the development of the theory until the end of the 1840s.59​

In the same period, the first cafes emerged in London and Paris that popularized the practice of the game. Slaughter's (in London) and the Café de la Régence (in Paris) witnessed the first confrontation between the best players of the period, such as Stamma, Kermeur and Philidor.61 Already at the beginning of the 19th century, the first establishments dedicated to exclusively to the practice of chess, the chess clubs in London, Prague, Vienna and Paris. This increased the need to formalize the rules, envisioning the holding of tournaments in the guilds - starting in 1803 the clubs began to publish their sets of rules.62​

By the 1840s, the center of European chess was still in France, which celebrated the best players of the time, such as Bourdonnais and Saint-Amant. However, after Staunton's victory over the latter, England became the world center of chess, drawing on the English school of thought.63 Lasa, Staunton and Jaenisch (independently) published the first rule books. of chess at the end of this period, which were the basis of later competitions. Lasa was co-author of the Handbuch des Schachspiels (1843), used in the German language, and Staunton published the book Chess Praxis (1860).62​64​

Birth of the sport
Main articles: World Chess Championship and Women's World Chess Championship.

Wilhelm Steinitz, the first world champion.
In 1851, the first international was held in London, won by Adolf Anderssen.65 From then on, several tournaments were held in the main cities of Europe such as London (1862),65 Paris (1867),66 Baden-Baden (1870),67​ Vienna (1873),68​ Berlin (1881)69​ and Hastings (1895).70​

In this period the first professional chess players also appeared, first in London, the main chess center at the time, and later in other cities. Initially, these players fought matches in their clubs, often simultaneously and blindly, charging small amounts for it. With the tournaments gaining popularity, top players dedicated themselves to these competitions, such as Joseph Henry Blackburne, Louis Paulsen, Wilhelm Steinitz, Johannes Zukertort, Cecil Valentine De Vere, Szymon Winawer, Isidor Gunsberg, Mikhail Chigorin, Samuel Rosenthal and Johannes Minckwitz.note 5​

In 1886 the first official race for the title of world champion was played between Steinitz and Zukertort, although the term had already been used before.73 Steinitz, the best player of the time, won the race and held the title until 1894. , when he was defeated by Emanuel Lasker.74 New players then emerged, in addition to Lasker, who used a more positional style of play, known as the modern school of chess, with names such as: Siegbert Tarrasch, Frank Marshall, Dawid Janowski, Carl Schlechter, Akiba Rubinstein, Harry Nelson Pillsbury and Géza Maróczy.75​

Although the first concepts of the orthodox school were proposed by Steinitz, considered the founder of this, only that generation of players recognized the work of Steinitz, including Lasker, his successor.76 Then the Cuban prodigy José Raúl Capablanca emerged, who won the Lasker world title in 1921, ending Germanic dominance of European players. Capablanca remained undefeated for eight years in competition, being considered an idol of the sport and only defeated in 1927 by Alexander Alekhine.77

After the First World War, chess began to be revolutionized by a new style, called hypermodern, by the theorists Richard Reti, Savielly Tartakower, Gyula Breyer and notably Aron Nimzowitsch, the main author of this school with the work Mein System (My System). ), which advocated controlling the center from a distance and the use of flanked bishops and open openings.78​

Emergence of FIDE
Main article: FIDE

Russian postage stamps, with the FIDE logo in the background.
Starting with the Saint Petersburg tournament of 1914, initiatives grew to create a sports regulatory body. Finally, in 1924 FIDE was created. The first event organized by the entity was the Chess Olympiad, won by the Hungarian team, and the World Championship.

to the Women's Chess Championship won by Vera Menchik, held in London in 1927.79​80​

The FIDE congresses of 1925 and 1926 already expressed interest in also organizing the men's world championship, but the prize fund of $10,000 required by Capablanca was impracticable by the entity, which decided to create a parallel title of "FIDE Champion " in 1928. Bogoljubow won against Euwe, but was forgotten after his defeat in the next world championship in 1929 against Alekhine, the then world champion after defeating Capablanca in 1927. Alekhine agreed to compete for the title organized by FIDE, except against Capablanca, where he demands the same conditions as the departure made in 1927.81

After the Russian Revolution, the leaders of the newly formed Soviet Union encouraged the teaching of chess to the masses for the training of the mind and preparation for war in peacetime.82 The state took control of the organization of chess. competitions, including international events such as in Moscow in 1925.83 Government incentives led to the creation of the Soviet Chess School, led by future world champion Mikhail Botvínnik. The Soviet school advocated a physical and psychological preparation that also included a detailed analysis of the opponents' games to exploit weaknesses and strengthen their own strategy for confrontation.84​

Postwar period

Kasparov and Karpov greeting each other before a match at the 1985 championship.
After World War II, FIDE resumed its activities with the organization of the 1946 World Cup. Meanwhile, Alekhine died before the competition, leaving the title vacant. Then, at the entity's congress in 1947, the participants of a tournament that would aim for the new world champion were decided, now with the support of the Soviet federation. FIDE nominated Paul Keres, Reuben Fine, Mijaíl Botvínnik, Samuel Reshevsky, Vasily Smyslov and Max Euwe for the following year's competition.85

Botvinnik won the tournament, beginning an era of Soviet world champions until the 1990s. This dominance was not interrupted until 1972, at the height of the Cold War, when American prodigy Bobby Fischer became champion by defeating Boris Spassky.86​ The game, known as Match of the Century, had a great impact in the media, causing a significant increase in interest in chess, especially in the United States.87​ However, Fischer was not there to defend his title in 1975 because FIDE refused to accept the conditions for playing the game, proposed by himnote 6​, granting the title to the challenger Anatoly Karpov.89​

Karpov successfully defended his title on three occasions, being defeated in 1985 by Garry Kasparov, who became the youngest world champion of all time.90 Kasparov successfully defended the title on three occasions against Karpov. However, in 1992, when he would defend the title against Nigel Short, he broke with FIDE and came to found the PCA with the challenger Short with the aim of regulating the dispute for the world title. Kasparov and Short argued that FIDE did not include them in the negotiations with sponsors to play the match, which was the reason for the founding of the rival association. Funded by Intel, the PCA organized two title contests in 1993, in which Kasparov retained the title against Short, and in 1995 in which Kasparov again retained the title against Anand.91 FIDE continued to organize the world title, and in 1993 Karpov regained the title against Jan Timman. In 1997, with the collapse of the PCA due to a lack of sponsors, discussions began to reunify the title which occurred in 2006, when Vladimir Krámnik, champion of the PCA, defeated Veselin Topalov of FIDE.92​93​94 The current next champion was Magnus Carlsen, who won the title in 2013. However, in 2023 he renounced the title, which was won by the Chinese Ding Liren. 95​

Present
Over time, the duel between machines (computers) and man became more accentuated, and chess was no exception. The first attempts at this interaction date back to the 19th century, with attempts at automatic annotation of a game using electromagnetic devices on the board, connected to a printing device. In the 1950s, with the arrival of the first computers, computer scientists immediately began to develop programs dedicated to chess.96 With the advancement of computing, the most sophisticated engines began to include evaluation functions, having take into account the position of the pieces in order to look for the possibilities of a large tree deal according to the strategy of the game.97 In 1974 the first world championship dedicated exclusively to computers was held, won by

or the Soviet Kaissa program. Since then, these types of contests have become routine and with the advancement of computing, the man-machine confrontation reached the level of grandmasters: Bent Larsen was defeated in 1988 by a computer in a tournament.98​

In 1997, the supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Kasparov, the ACP world champion, in a six-match match. The confrontation was widely covered in the press and was considered by Frederic Friedel as "the most spectacular event in the history of chess."99 However, Kasparov questioned some of the moves made by the team specifically in game two, raising doubts. about human intervention in the games, which was denied by IBM.100 Since then, software victories in chess practice against Grandmasters have become more frequent, even with computers with processing capacity lower than Deep Blue.98 ​

See also
See the portal about Chess Portal:Chess. Content related to Chess.
Romantic chess school
modern chess school
Hypermodern chess school
List of the youngest GMs in history
world chess championship
chess schism
Famous chess games
Annex:Chronology of chess
Arabic chess
Luis Ramírez de Lucena
Luis de Lucena
Ruy López de Segura
Grades
  The original Pahlavi text does not clearly indicate which Hindu king sent the chaturanga and historians present as the most probable Dêwišarm (identified as the king of Kanauj of the Maukhari dynasty), Râe Hendi, Râe of Kanouj or the king of Dabishlun.19​
  Although the story is not considered true for the creation of chess, recent theories suggest that a mathematical rule related to the magic square could govern the movements of the pieces, which allowed Buzurdjmir to unravel chaturanga.21​
  Which results in 9,223,372,036,854,780,000 (9.2 trillion) grains of wheat.
  The original text uses the word Hind, which according to Majid Yekta'i was not used to refer to India before the 11th century. Therefore, the word may refer to other places, such as Khuzestan or Balochistan, as the place of origin of the game.30
  The most important tournaments of this period were Baden-Baden in 1870 and Hastings in 1895, in which the best players of the time are considered to have participated.71​72​
  The conditions proposed by Fischer were: the first player to win 10 games wins, unlimited number of games, ties do not count, if a result of a tie of nine wins for each player is achieved, the champion keeps the title.88​