History of Chess
(Part-1)

One of the oldest and most popular board games, Chess first appeared in India about 100 BC. The upper basin of the Ganges, or thereabouts, was the locale where this game first appeared. At the beginning it was known as "Chaturanga". Chaturanga is derived from the Indian word for “four”. Chess was named as such because it is a kind of mental battle, and in the ancient times, Indian army was made up of four elements: war chariots, cavalry, elephants, and foot soldiers.

In this version the infantrymen moved as pawns of all times and places, excepting the modern two-square debut. The cavalrymen were placed and manipulated in the same manner as the knight. The elephants' movements were diagonal and limited to two squares; therefore they were inherently weaker than the bishops into which they were later transformed. The chariots were equal in every respect to the castles which through some ripple in history came to be called rooks. And the counselor, beside the king, moved diagonally also and only one square per move; as time passed its powers were increased to that of the bishop, thereby considerably enhancing the complexity of the game.

By the 6th century AD chess spread from India to Persia (Iran). Persia bestowed the name to the game. Words, unlike mathematical formulae, both lose and gain in their sojourn through time and place. Aside from the usual etymological eddies, the development of the name flowed as follows. The Persian shah "king" came through the Arabic and the tangles of time to Europe as, among other variations, the Old French (e)sches, plural of (e)schek "check" derived from "shah." From there it was but a minor simplification to the Saxon and Modern English word "chess."

The culmination of this bloodless substitute for bloodletting is the murder of the enemy king, although the modern game ends euphemistically with the checkmate. This term, too, can be traced through a millennium to Persia. Shah mat "checkmate" means 'the king (shah) is dead,' where "mat" is related to the Latin stem mort- "death" found in "mortuary."

In the 7th century, the Arabs invaded Persia (Iran). As is usually the case, the two cultures became inextricably entwined and the Arabs became greatly interested in the game. When one of the first Caliphs, Omar b. Al-Khattab, was asked if chess were lawful he replied, "There is nothing wrong in it; it has to do with war." From that time forward it was the Islamic culture that became the primary vehicle of chess. As the game was carried from land to land it underwent a series of transmutations, some surprising and some not so surprising at all. The Elephant was reduced to its ears. That is it was simplified (for reasons of convenience and religion) to a lump of wood, with a cut extracted from its center. An item of far more interest concerns the Arab rukh which predates the English rook for crow. It is still a matter of some controversy whether the rook was actually a chariot, a bird, or even a ship. It is highly probable that in differing cultures in differing centuries it was each.

Soon chess was a commonplace throughout the world of Islam, from Andalus in the West to the Indus in the East. The Moors carried chess to the Iberian Peninsula during the eighth century of the Christian era, and the Eastern Empire in Byzantium also learned of the game before the century had waned. From Iberia it spread to the north of Europe, while Russia seems to have acquired the game directly from India. (In Russian chess bears its original name, shakh-maty.)

During the High Middle Ages chess became a leisure time activity of the feudal lords, and the pieces began to resemble the aristocracy. (The rukh became, curiously enough, a castle.) A knowledge of 'Nights and Days' was considered a social grace for every genteel and parfait knight. Obviously, one reason for this was the connection between chess and war.

In the earlier part of chess history the powers of certain were less. As regards individual pieces, the Rook, Knight and King seem to have the same move as present. The Pawn formerly could move only one square ahead. It was customary for it, on arriving at the eighth (first) rank, to be exchanged only for a Queen and no other piece. The Queen formerly moved one square diagonally and was consequently a weak piece. The Bishop could move only two squares in a diagonal and had no power over the intermediate square, which could leap over whether it was occupied or not. Not only mate but also stalemate was then considered to be a win. In the early part of the 16th century the powers of the chess pieces were increased, making the game much more lively or, if you prefer, deadly. In the mid-16th century when the latest improvement, castling, was introduced, the long evolution of old Chaturanga or Shataranj came to an end. Rules and set design slowly evolved until both reached today's standard in the early 19th century.

Since at least the 15th century, chess has been known as the "royal game" because of its popularity among the nobility. In the 15th century chess related publication first appeared in Europe. Opening theory evolved in the 16th century, and its development reached to the peak in about 1850s. In the development of chess opening theory the name of Ruy Lopez de Segura, a clergyman of Zafra in Estramadura, Spain, should be mentioned.

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries a new Italian school of chess appeared. The Italian school developed the aesthetics of chess. It's most famous players were G. Leonardo, A. Salvio and G. Greco, whose work was regarded for almost a century as the best guide to chess. Players of the early Italian school were not very aware of the importance of the central squares. The famous French player Francois André Danican Philidor first gave importance to the central squares. In his famous book 'Analyse du Jeu des Echécs', he mentioned pawn as the soul of chess.

The first chess column appeared in Liverpool Mercury in 1813. In 1836 the first chess magazine 'Le Palamede' was published in France. Chess clock was first used in 1861. It was a sand clock. In 1849, the first unofficial chess tournament was held in London. But in 1851 the first official chess was tournament held in London, in which Andersson became the winner.

The first match to be proclaimed by the community of players as an official world championship was the match which Wilhelm Steinitz won against Johannes Zukertort in 1886. Before that however, a number of players were regarded as the most famous in the world, going back centuries before them, and these players were sometimes considered the strongest of their time. There were Ruy Lopez (circa 1560), Boi and Leonardo da Cutri (circa 1575), Alessandro Salvio (circa 1600), and Gioacchino Greco (circa 1620).

French players dominated between the 18th and 19th centuries. Legall de Kermeur (1730-1747), Francois-Andre Philidor (1747-1795), Alexandre Deschapelles (1800-1820) and Louis de la Bourdonnais (1820-1840) were regarded as the strongest of their time. In 1843, the Englishman Howard Staunton won a match against another Frenchman, Pierre-Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, and was considered to have been the world`s strongest player of that decade. However he only finished third in the 1851 London tournament, and was considered to have surrendered the role to the tournament`s winner, Adolf Anderssen (1851-1858). Other famous players of the 19th century were M. Chigorin, S. Tarrash, H.N. Pillsbury, etc. Chigorin was the founder of the Soviet School of Chess.

In 1858, Anderssen was then convincingly defeated in a match by the American Paul Morphy. He was toasted across the chess world as the champion. After winning against Anderssen, Morphy announced his retirement from chess, but many considered him the world champion until his death in 1884. With the death of Morphy, Anderssen was considered again as the world`s strongest active player specially after he won the strong London tournament of 1862. In 1866, he narrowly lost a match against Wilhelm Steinitz, and some regard this to be the first world championship match. However, the match was not announced as a world championship at that time.

Only after the death of Morphy in 1884 was a World Championship Match declared. The match between Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort in 1886 was won by Steinitz. Though not held under the auspices of any official body, it is widely regarded as the first official World Chess Championship Match and Steinitz the first official World Champion. The players who held the title until World War II were Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, Jose Raul Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, and Max Euwe, each one defeating the previous title holder in a match. The post war world chess champions (till 19993) were Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Robert James Fischer, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov.

In the establishment of the modern chess the names of Aron Nimzovich, Richard Reti and G. Brewer should be mentioned. The method of play initiated by these great men came to be known as the ‘Hyper-modern School’ of chess.

On 20 July 1924, the World Chess Federation (Federation Internationale des Echecs, known as FIDE from its French acronym) was founded in Paris. In its establishment 15 countries took part - Netherlands, France, Britain, Argentina, Italy, Rumania, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The great chess power USSR joined FIDE in 1947. FIDE is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the supreme body, responsible for the organization of chess and its championships at global and continental levels. Following its recognition as an International Organization in 1989, FIDE was recognized by the IOC in June 1999 as an International Sports Federation. Although efforts were made by the players in 1922, some two years before the birth of FIDE, to establish regulations for the World Champions, it was not untill the death of world chess champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946 that FIDE got the right to take over the management and administration of the World Chess Championships. The first world championship held under FIDE was 1948 champion deciding tournament, in which Mikhail Botvinnik became the champion.

In 1930 the first chess Olympiad was held in Hamburg and Poland became the winner. The Women's World Championship began in 1933 and Vera Menchik became the first world women champion. (See Part-2)