Chess

HISTORY

Chess had evolved in India by the 6th century AD as a game of war: to illustrate and rehearse army movements.

The Persians adopted the game of chess from India, and when the Arabs conquered Iran, they made chess part of their life and carried it wherever they went. That is how, with the spread of Islam, chess also extended as far West as Spain, as far North as Turkistan, as far East as the Malayan Islands, and as far South as Zanzibar.

The word "checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah-Mat," which means the king is dead.

Vikings enjoyed board games such as chess where there are two sets of pieces attackers aiming to capture the King and defenders aiming to get him safely to the edge of the board. Game boards have been found scratched into floors and rocks. Pieces could be stones, shells, carved of wood or ivory, clay figures or anything like that.

In the early days of chess, the Queen could only move diagonally, one step at a time. As real-life  powerful queens — see Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 12th century and Isabella I of Castile in the 15th —  made their mark, so did the piece.

In medieval games of chess, pawns that had been promoted to queen would be given the title of an "advisor," so as to not imply that the king had more than one queen or was unfaithful.

In 1561, a Spanish priest named Ruy López de Segura published his celebrated chess strategy book, Libro de la Invencion liberal y Arte del juego del Axedrez. The tome recommends playing with your back to the sun to blind your opponent. If playing at night by a fire, it advises you to cast a shadow over the board with your hand, so your opponent "will not be able to see where to play his pieces."

Shakespeare’s only reference to chess is in Act 5, scene 1 of The Tempest, where Prospero finds Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess".

Benjamin Franklin and his friend used chess as a means to learn Italian; the winner of each game would assign a task, such as parts of the Italian grammar to be learned by heart, to be performed by the loser before their next meeting.

In 1783 the best chess player of his age, Frenchman François-André Danican played and won three chess games simultaneously while blindfolded. Witnesses signed affidavits since they doubted future generations would believe such a feat was possible.

The Mechanical Turk was a fake chess-playing machine invented by Wolfgang von Kempelen in the late 18th century. It was designed to impress and mystify audiences by playing chess against human opponents and winning. The machine was operated by a hidden human who controlled its moves from inside.

The Mechanical Turk made its public debut in Vienna, where it was exhibited to great acclaim. It then began a tour of Europe on April 17, 1783, challenging and defeating notable figures in the fields of science, politics, and the arts.

Despite the fact that many people suspected that the machine was a hoax, its inventor and operator managed to maintain the illusion of its mechanical capabilities for several decades. It wasn't until the 1820s that the truth behind the Mechanical Turk was finally revealed. 

The first international chess tournament opened in London on May 26, 1851. The tournament was conceived and organised by English player Howard Staunton, and marked the first time that the best chess players in Europe would meet in a single event. German chess master Adolf Anderssen won the sixteen-player tournament, earning him the status of the best player in Europe.

Adolf Anderssen

The International Chess Day is celebrated annually on July 20, the day the International Chess Federation (FIDE) was founded, in 1924. The day has been celebrated by many of the 605 million regular chess players around the world since 1966 after it was established by FIDE.

Before the Internet, Chess players used to play each other all over the world by taking turns mailing a postcard to each other describing the move they had made.

Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti ruled in 2016 that chess is forbidden in Islam, claiming that the game encourages gambling.

FAMOUS CHESS PLAYERS

German chess prodigy Emanuel Lasker dethroned the reigning champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, on May 26, 1894. launching a record-breaking 27-year reign (1894-1921). A brilliant strategist with an unconventional style, Lasker defended his title five times. He transcended chess, excelling in mathematics and philosophy. This well-roundedness, coupled with his chess genius, secured his place as one of the greatest players ever.

The film director Stanley Kubrick financed his early movies by playing illegal chess for money in New York parks.

On October 17, 1956, 13-year-old Bobby Fischer (March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008) played a brilliant chess game against leading American chess master Donald Byrne in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament at the Marshall Chess Club in New York City. Fischer won the game, and it was later dubbed "The Game of the Century" by chess grandmaster Hans Kmoch.

The game is widely considered to be one of the greatest chess games ever played, and it is studied by chess players of all levels. Fischer's play in the game is particularly impressive, as he sacrifices his queen in order to gain a material advantage and eventually win the game.

Bobby Fischer in 1960 

Bobby Fischer won the 1972 World Chess Championship against Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland. The match lasted for 21 games, and Fischer won by a score of 12.5-8.5. The last game of the match was played on August 31-September 1, 1972. Fischer won the game by resignation, and thus became the 11th World Chess Champion.

The match was a major upset, as Spassky was the defending champion and was considered to be the favorite. Fischer's win was a major victory for the United States, as it ended 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Chess Championship. The match was also seen as a Cold War battle, as Fischer was seen as a symbol of American individualism and Spassky was seen as a symbol of Soviet collectivism.

In 1992, the U.S. authorities issued an arrest warrant after Fischer beat Spassky in an unofficial rematch in Yugoslavia, when that country was under UN sanctions. They were seeking income tax on his winnings.

22-year-old Garry Kasparov, of the Soviet Union became the youngest World Chess Champion on November 9, 1985 by beating Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union.

In 1999, Garry Kasparov faced the rest of the world in a game of chess. Moves were decided through a plurality vote involving 50,000 people from over 75 countries. Kasparov won the game.

Kasparov is considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time. From 1986 until his retirement in 2005, Kasparov was ranked world No. 1 for 225 out of 228 months.

Garry Kasparov Owen Williams, The Kasparov Agency. - Wikipedia Commons

In 1996 Garry Kasparov beat IBM supercomputer 'Deep Blue,' to win a six-game match 4-2 in Philadelphia.

Deep Blue won the first game on February 10, 1996. It was the first game to be won by a chess-playing computer against a reigning world champion under normal chess tournament conditions. During the game Deep Blue made a move that puzzled Kasparov so much, it made him believe the machine had superior intelligence. It threw the grandmaster off his game, and ultimately cost him the match. The move was the result of a bug in Deep Blue's code.

Deep Blue was heavily upgraded, and played Kasparov again in May 1997. The computer won the six-game rematch 3½–2½  becoming the first computer system to defeat a reigning world champion in a match under standard chess tournament time controls.

Deep Blue IBM chess computer. By James the photographer

Claude Bloodgood, a man serving life in prison in the USA for the murder of his mother became a successful chess player by obtaining USCF membership for other inmates and playing tournaments against them. By 1997, Bloodgood was the second highest rated player in the nation, behind only Gata Kamsky.

A critic of President Vladimir Putin, Kasparov retired from chess in 2005 to campaign for democracy in Russia and moved to New York in 2013 to avoid arrest.

Judit Polgár (born July 23, 1976)  is widely considered the best female player of all time. She and her two sisters were intentionally raised to be chess masters by their father, László Polgár, to prove his theory that "Geniuses are made, not born."  Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record previously held by Bobby Fischer.

Judit Polgár, 2008 By Stefan64 - Self-photographed

Czech chess Grand Master Vlastimil Hort once played 201 games simultaneously in 30 hours and losy only ten.

Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster and former chess prodigy whose peak rating of 2861 achieved in January 2013, surpassed Garry Kasparov's 2851 rating record (set July 1999).

The late actor Heath Ledger was an avid chess player, winning Western Australia's junior chess championship at the age of 10.

Latvian politician Dana Reizniece-Ozola whose roles include being the country's Minister of Finance is also a chess player. She holds the title of Woman Grandmaster (2001), the second highest-ranking chess title that exists for females.

CHESS RECORDS

The longest tournament chess game ever played was between Ivan Nikolic and Goran Arsovic in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1989. The game took 269 moves, lasted 20 hours and 15 minutes — and ended in a draw.

Jewish people make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of world chess champions.

Iceland has more chess grandmasters per head of population than any other country.

The most expensive chess set in the word is the Jewel Royale Chess Set which costs $9.8 million.

FUN CHESS FACTS

The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.

There are more possible outcomes to a 40-move chess game then there are atoms in the known universe.

Since the official World Chess Championship began in 1886, only one title has ever been won by a checkmate, and it occurred during the 1929 World Chess Championship match between Alexander Alekhine and Efim Bogoljubov.  Alekhine, the defending champion, delivered the checkmate in the 15th game of their match. 

The longest chess game that is theoretically possible has 5,949 moves.

Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen had never played chess in their life until the movie X-Men required them to do so. A chess master was brought in to teach them.

 A 2012 Yougov poll showed that "a surprisingly stable 70% of the adult population has played chess at some point during their lives". This number holds at approximately the same level in countries as diverse as the US, UK, Germany, Russia, and India.

Chess in a mandatory subject in Armenian schools. Children aged 6 and up are taught chess as part of the mandatory curriculum.

Her's a list of songs on Songfacts.com with chess pieces in the title.