The history of Chess

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Photographs of 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, specifically that of Western Chess, spans some 1500 years. The earliest predecessors of the game originated in India in the 6th century AD and spread to Persia from there. When the Arabs conquered Persia chess was taken up by the Muslim world, from where it reached Southern Europe. In Europe, the game evolved into its current form in the 15th century. In the second half of the 19th century, modern 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 the employment of computers for analysis, team consultations, and online gaming.

Contents [hide] 1 Origin 2 India 3 Iran (Persia) 4 East Asia 4.1 China 4.2 Japan 4.3 Mongolia 4.4 East Siberia 5 Islam 6 Europe 6.1 Early history 7 Origins of the modern game 8 Modern competition-style chess 9 Birth of a sport (1850–1945) 10 Post-war era (1945 and later) 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 13.1 Encyclopedia Britannica 13.2 WWW 13.3 Books 13.4 Journals 14 External links

[edit] Origin

The precursors of chess originated in India during the Gupta empire,^[1][2][3][4] where its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga, 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.^[5] In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name became chatrang and the rules were developed further, and players started calling "Shāh!" (Persian for "King!") when attacking the opponent's king, and "Shāh māt!" (Persian for "the king is finished") when the king was attacked and could not escape from attack; these exclamations persisted in chess as it traveled to other lands thereafter.

Map showing origin and diffusion of chess from India to Asia, Africa, and Europe, and the changes in the native names of the game in corresponding places and time

The game was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names; in Arabic "māt" or "māta" مَاتَ means "died", "is dead". In Arabic, the game became shatranj. The Moors of North Africa rendered "shatranj" as shaterej 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 shāh ("king"). Thus, the game came to be called şah in Romanian, šah in Slovene, schach in German, schaken in Dutch, shakki in Finnish, szachy in Polish, scacchi in Italian, šahs in Latvian, skak in Danish, schack in Swedish, escacs in Catalan, and échecs in French (Old French eschecs); 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.

Chess spread directly from the Middle East to Russia, where chess became known as шахматы (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.^[6] 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.
Another, but less likely, theory is that chess arose from the game xiangqi (Chinese Chess) or one of its predecessors.^[7] However, the game of chess has been attributed, not to the Chinese, but to the Indians by both Persian and Arab historians and literary writers.^[8][9]
Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking shape.^[10][11] This game was introduced to the Near East from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility.^[12]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.^[11] Chaturanga reached Europe through Persia, the Byzantine empire and the expanding Arabian empire.^[13]Muslims carried chess to North Africa, Sicily, and Spain by the 10th century.^[11]
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.^[14]Modern times saw reliable reference works,^[15] competitive chess tournaments^[16] and exciting new variants which added to the game's popularity,^[16] further bolstered by reliable timing mechanisms (first introduced in 1861), effective rules^[16] and charismatic players.^[17]

[edit] India

Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8x8 Ashtāpada.

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.^[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.^[11]
Chess was designed for an ashtāpada (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).^[18] Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8×8 board served as the main board for playing Chaturanga.^[19] Other Indian boards included the 10×10 Dasapada and the 9×9 Saturankam.^[19] 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.^[18]
A theory started in the late 19th century, mainly from the works of Captain Hiram Cox and Duncan Forbes, that the four-handed game chaturaji was the original form of chaturanga.^[20] Other scholars dispute this and say that the two-handed form was the first.^[21]
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).^[12] The name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata.^[11] The game Chaturanga was a battle simulation game^[12] which rendered Indian military strategy of the time.^[22]
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 and Muslim religious objections.^[23] Such theories arose later among some Christian religious bodies in Europe, resulting in some priests trying to forbid chess as a game of chance, including forbidding the diceless version by classing it as an "evasion".^[24]
The Arab scholar Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī detailed the use of chess as a tool for military strategy, mathematics, gambling and even its vague association with astronomy in India and elsewhere.^[8] Mas'ūdī 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.^[8]
In some variants, including in its Arabic form shatranj, 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.^[18]
In early chess the moves of the pieces were:

• King: as now.
• Queen: one square diagonally, only.
• Bishop:
  • In the version that went into Persia: two squares diagonally (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between
  • 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.
  • 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.

[edit] Iran (Persia)

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

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

Shams-e-Tabrīzī 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 chatrang as one of the accomplishments of the legendary hero, Ardashir I, founder of the Empire.^[25] The oldest recorded game in chess history is a 10th century game played between a historian from Baghdad and a pupil.^[13]
In the 11th century Shahnameh, Ferdowsi describes a Raja visiting from India who re-enacts the past battles on the chessboard.^[8] A translation in English, based on the manuscripts in the British Museum, is given below:^[25]

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.

(One recent chess book author thought that this story may be true, and that Bozorgmehr likely found the rules by bribing the Indian envoys.)

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.^[26] The Islamic sets of later centuries followed a pattern which assigned names and abstract shapes to the chess pieces, as Islam forbids depiction of animals and human beings in art.^[26] These pieces were usually made of simple clay and carved stone.^[26]

[edit] East Asia

[edit] China

As a strategy board game played in China, chess is believed to have been derived from the Indian Chaturanga.^[27] Chaturanga was transformed and assimilated into the game xiangqi where the pieces are placed on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.^[11] The object of the Chinese variation is similar to Chaturanga, i.e. to render helpless the opponent's king, sometimes known as general.^[27] Chinese chess also borrows elements from the game of Go, which was played in China since at least the 6th century BC.^[27] Owing to the influence of Go, Chinese chess is played on the intersections of the lines on the board, rather than in the squares.^[27] Chinese chess pieces are usually flat and resemble those used in checkers.^[27]
Joseph Needham posits that "image-chess," a recreational game associated with divination, was developed in China and transmitted to India,^[28] where it evolved into the form of modern military chess.^[29] Needham notes that dice were transmitted to China from India,^[30] and were used in the game of "image-chess."^[28]
Another alternative theory contends that chess arose from Xiangqi or a predecessor thereof, existing in China since the 2nd century BC.^[31]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 204–203 BC.^[31] The German chess historian Peter Banaschak points to the many inconsistencies in Li's theories while noting that the "Xuanguai lu," authored by the Tang Dynasty minister Niu Sengru (779–847), remains the first real source on Chinese chess.^[32]
The inhabitants of Quzhou, a small prefecture city in Zhejiang Province, claim that Chinese chess originated on Lanke Hill, a mountain on the outskirts of the city.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Japan

A prominent variant of chess in East Asia is the game of Shogi, transmitted from India to China and Korea before finally reaching Japan.^[33] The two 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, and 2) Pawns capture as they move, one square straight ahead.^[33]

[edit] Mongolia

Chess is recorded from Mongolian-inhabited areas, where the pieces are now called:

• King: - Noyon - Ноён - lord
• Queen - Bers / Nohoi - Бэрс / Нохой - dog (to guard the livestock)
• Bishop: - Temē - Тэмээ - camel
• Knight- Morĭ - Морь - horse
• Rook - Tereg - Тэрэг - cart
• Pawn - Hū - Хүү - boy (the piece often showed a puppy)

Names recorded from the 1880s by Russian sources, quoted in Murray,^[18] among the Soyot people (who at the time spoke the Soyot Turkic language) include: merzé (dog), täbä (camel), ot (horse), ōl (child) and Mongolian names for the other pieces.
The change with the Queen is likely due to the Arabic word firzān or Persian word farzīn (= "vizier") being confused with Turkic or Mongolian native words (merzé = "mastiff", bar or bars = "tiger", arslan = "lion").^[18]
Chess in Mongolia is now played following the usual international rules.

[edit] East Siberia

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 from Siberia.^[18]

[edit] Islam

Main article: Shatranj

Chess passed from Persia to the Islamic 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^[18] sources found the old moves of Queen and Bishop still current in Ethiopia.

[edit] Europe

[edit] Early history

Knights Templar playing chess, Libro de los juegos, 1283

Shatranj made its way via the expanding Islamic Arabian empire to Europe and the Byzantine empire.^[13] 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.^[14] Chess remained largely unpopular in Northern Europe but started gaining popularity as soon as figure pieces were introduced.^[14]
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.^[34] The popularity of chess in the Western courtly society peaked between the 12th and the 15th centuries.^[35] 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.^[35]Harold James Ruthven Murray divides the works into three distinct parts: the didactic works eg. 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.^[35] Chess terms, like check, were used by authors as a metaphor for various situations.^[36] Chess was soon incorporated into the knightly style of life in Europe.^[37]Peter Alfonsi, in his work Disciplina Clericalis, listed chess among the seven skills that a good knight must acquire.^[37] Chess also became a subject of art during this period, with caskets and pendants decorated in various chess forms.^[38]Queen Margaret of England's green and red chess sets – made of jasper and crystal – symbolized chess's position in royal art treasures.^[36] Kings Henry I, Henry II and Richard I of England were chess patrons.^[11] Other monarchs who gained similar status were Alfonso X of Spain and Ivan IV of Russia.^[11]
Saint Peter Damian denounced the bishop of Florence in 1061 for playing chess even when aware of its evil effects on the society.^[14] The bishop of Florence defended himself by declaring that chess involved skill and was therefore "unlike other games," similar arguments followed in the coming centuries.^[14] 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.^[14] The growing popularity of the game – now associated with revelry and violence – alarmed the Church.^[14]
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.^[34] 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.^[34]
By the mid-12th century, the pieces of the chess set were depicted as kings, queens, bishops, knights and men at arms.^[39] 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.^[40] The initially nondescript pawn had now found association with the pedes, pedinus, or the footman, which symbolized both infantry and loyal domestic service.^[39]
The following table provides a glimpse of the changes in names and character of chess pieces as they transitioned from India through Persia to Europe:^[41][42]

A comparison of the Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Latin, English, Spanish and French terms for chessmen

Sanskrit	Persian	Arabic	Latin	English	Spanish	French
Raja (King)	Shah	Malik	Rex	King	Rey	Roi
Mantri (Minister)	Vazir (Vizir)	Wazir/Firz	Regina	Queen	Reina	Reine
Gajah (war elephant)	Pil	Al-Phil/Fil	Episcopus/Comes/Calvus	Bishop/Count/Councillor	Alfil/Obispo	Fou
Ashva (horse)	Asp	Fars/Hisan	Miles/Eques	Knight	Caballo	Cavalier
Ratha (chariot)	Rokh	Qalaah/Rukh	Rochus/Marchio	Rook/Margrave	Torre/Roque	Tour
Padati (footman/footsoldier)	Piadeh	Baidaq/Jondi	Pedes/Pedinus	Pawn	Peón	Pion

The game, as played during the early Middle Ages, was slow, with many games lasting for days.^[14] Some variations in rules began to change the shape of the game in by 1300 AD.^[43] A notable, but initially unpopular, change was the ability of the pawn to move two places in the first move instead of one.^[43]
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.

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.^[24]
• King jumping once, to make it quicker to put the king safe in a corner. (This eventually led to castling.)
• Queen once moving two squares with jump, diagonally or straight. This right was sometimes extended to a new 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.^[18]

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