History of chess

The history of chess spans some 1500 years. The earliest predecessors of the game originated in India, before the 6th century AD. From India, the game spread to Persia. When the Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to Southern Europe. In Europe, chess evolved into its current form in the 15th century. In the second half of the 19th century, modern chess tournament play began, and the first world Chess Championship was held in 1886. The 20th century saw great leaps forward in chess theory and the establishment of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Developments in the 21st century include use of computers for analysis, which originated in the 1970s with the first programmed chess games on the market. Online gaming appeared in the mid 1990's.

Origin
The precursors of chess probably originated in India during the Gupta Empire, where its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaga, which translates as "four divisions (of the military)": infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively. Chess was introduced to Persia from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility. In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name became "Chatrang" which subsequently evolved to shatranj and the rules were developed further, and 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 travelled to other lands thereafter. The game was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia, with the pieces largely keeping their Persian names. The Moors of North Africa rendered Persian "shatranj" as shaerej, which gave rise to the Spanish acedrex, axedrez and ajedrez; in Portuguese it became xadrez, and in Greek zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shh ("king"). Thus, the game came to be called ludus scacchorum or scacc (h) i in Latin, scacchi in Italian, escacs in Catalan, checs in French (Old French eschecs); schaken in Dutch, Schach in German, szachy in Polish, ahs in Latvian, skak in Danish, sjakk in Norwegian, schack in Swedish, akki in Finnish, ah in Slovene, 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, treated as a plural). The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering shatranj and backgammon and dice named the Libro de los juegos. Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking shape. Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road traders and others carried it to the Far East where it was transformed and assimilated into a game often played on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares. Chaturanga reached Europe through Persia, the Byzantine Empire and the expanding Arabian empire. Muslims carried chess to North Africa, Sicily, and Iberia by the 10th century. The game was developed extensively in Europe, and by the late 15th century, it had survived a series of prohibitions and Christian Church sanctions to almost take the shape of the modern game. Modern history saw reliable reference works, competitive chess tournaments and exciting new variants which added to the game's popularity, further bolstered by reliable timing mechanisms (first introduced in 1861), effective rules and charismatic players.

India

The earliest precursor of modern chess is a game called chaturanga, which flourished in India by the 6th century, and is the earliest known game to have two essential features found in all later chess variations different pieces having different powers (which was not the case with checkers and go), and victory depending on the fate of one piece, the king of modern chess. Other game pieces (speculatively called "chess pieces") uncovered in archaeological findings are considered as coming from other, distantly related, board games, which may have had boards of 100 squares or more. Findings in the Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa (2600 1500 BCE) sites of the Indus Valley Civilization show a prevalence of a board game that resembles chess. Chess was designed for an ashtpada (Sanskrit for "having eight feet", i.e. an 8x8 squared board), which may have been used earlier for a backgammon-type race game (perhaps related to a dice-driven race game still played in south India where the track starts at the middle of a side and spirals in to the center). Ashtpada, the uncheckered 88 board served as the main board for playing Chaturanga. Other Indian boards included the 1010 Dasapada and the 99 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 ashtpada before chess was invented. The Cox-Forbes theory, started in the late 19th century, mainly from the works of Captain Hiram Cox and Duncan Forbes, proposed that the four-handed game chaturaji was the original form of chaturanga. Other scholars dispute this and say that the two-handed form was the first.]

In Sanskrit, "chaturanga" ( ) literally means "having four limbs (or parts)" and in epic poetry often means "army" (the four parts are elephants, chariots, horsemen, foot soldiers). The name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. The game Chaturanga was a battle simulation game which rendered Indian military strategy of the time. Some people formerly played chess using a die to decide which piece to move. There was an unproven theory that chess started as this dice-chess and that the gambling and dice aspects of the game were removed because of Hindu religious objections. Scholars in areas to which the game subsequently spread, for example the Arab Abu al-Hasan '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. 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 book Kelileh va Demneh, during the reign of emperor Nushirwan. In some variants, a win was by checkmate, or by stalemate, or by "bare king" (taking all of an opponent's pieces except the king). In some parts of India the pieces in the places of the Rook and Knight and Bishop were renamed by words meaning (in this order) Boat, Horse, Elephant, or Elephant, Horse, Camel, but keeping the same moves. In early chess the moves of the pieces were:

King: as now. Queen: one square diagonally, only. Bishop: o In the version that went into Persia: two squares diagonally (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between o In a version sometimes found in India in former times: two squares sideways or front-and-back (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between. o In versions found in Southeast Asia: one square diagonally, or one square forwards. Knight: as now. Rook: as now. Pawn: one square forwards (not two), capturing one square diagonally forward; promoted to queen only.

Two Arab travellers each recorded a severe Indian chess rule against stalemate: 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.