Almost every nation has preserved many legends and tales about such an object as chess. The history of occurrence is now impossible to establish in its true version. This is not even a game. This is a philosophy. Not a single scientist has found its origins, although several centuries of thorough research on this issue have been carried out. It is believed that these ancient Indians invented chess. The history of their origin in Russia speaks of Persian roots: check and mat - the death of the ruler, that is how these two words are translated from Persian. Scientists argue not only about this. Even the time of occurrence of the game cannot be more or less accurately determined. The most common opinion is that in the first century AD, chess was born in North India. The story emerges only from legends, because this game is a prototype of wars and battles.
To the roots
Of course, chess is bloodless, but a war entirely consisting of the ability to defeat the enemy with the mind, cunning, foresight. The rulers of the ancient states devoted a lot of time to such a useful pastime as playing chess. The history of its emergence suggests that there were cases when the rulers of two warring clans resolved their disputes behind a chessboard, thus not causing harm to any person from their troops.
Researchers present to the world a brief history of chess, which speaks of an even more ancient game of “chuturanga”, from which “chaturadzha” gradually formed - already with sixty-four squares on the board. The figures, however, were located differently - in the corners, and not along the front. Excavations show that it was in the first century that this game spread, and therefore it is called the time of the birth of chess.
Legends
And what a beautiful legend made of chess! A brief story, but very instructive, about how one smart peasant sold this game to his king, an example of this. Somewhere it is told about the king, somewhere about the rajah, somewhere about the khan, somewhere about wheat, and somewhere about rice, but the essence is always the same. Apparently, the legendary peasant devoted more time to studying chess than farming, because in return he simply asked for wheat grains by the number of cells on the board, but in geometric progression: the first cell - a grain, the second - two, the third - four, and so on.
It seemed to the king that not so much the peasant was asking for such an excellent game. But despite the fact that there were only 64 cells on the chessboard, there were not so many grains in the bins of the king, there would not be enough grain of the whole world. The king was amazed at the mind of the peasant and gave him all his harvest. But now he had a game of chess. The history of the emergence of this intellectual amusement has been lost for centuries, but a huge number of interesting legends have remained about their development.
Infinity
Just as it is impossible to collect grains in the sixty-fourth degree, even if you empty all the barns of the world, it is also impossible to play all possible games on a chessboard, even if you have not left it for a minute since the creation of the world. The history of the creation of chess, this ancient intellectual game, despite its "venerable age", is also constantly updated with new and wonderful information. It was, is and will remain the most widespread and world-famous board game. It has everything - sports, science, and art. And its educational value is enormous: the history of the development of chess contains many examples of personal formation with the help of this game. And also a person achieves success by perseverance, gets the logic of thinking, the ability to concentrate attention, plan actions, predict the course of thought of his opponent.
It’s not without reason that the history of chess is so interesting for children. Scientists psychologists and educators study personality traits through observations of children who prefer fun. Even the capabilities of computers were tested through this game when exhaustive tasks were solved - choosing the best of all possible options. It must be said that in each country its own name for chess has taken root. In Russia - with Persian roots - “chess”, in France they are called “eshek”, in Germany - “check”, in Spain - “achhedress”, in England - “chess”. The history of chess in the world is all the more different. Let's try to look more closely at individual countries where this game appeared earlier than others.
Indians or Arabs?
In the sixth century, the northwestern provinces of India were already playing chaturanga everywhere. And this is still a little game similar to chess, since there were fundamental differences in it. The move was made according to the result of the abandoned dice, not two, but four people played, and in each corner of the board stood: a rook, an elephant, a horse, a king and four pawns. The queen was absent, and even the figures present had much less opportunities in battle than modern rooks, knights, and bishops. To win, it was necessary to completely destroy the enemy forces.
Then, or a century later, the Arabs began to play this game, and immediately innovations appeared in it. The book "History of Chess" (reference book) describes that just then there were only two players, and each of them had two sets of troops. In the same period, one of the kings became a queen, but knew how to walk only diagonally. The bones were also abolished, each player made a move strictly in order. And now for victory there was no need to destroy the enemy at the root. It was enough pata or mat.
The Arabs called this game satranj, and the Persians called satrang. It was the Tajiks who gave them their current name. The Persians were the first to mention shatranja in their fiction (Karnamuk, 600s). In 819, the first chess tournament was held at the caliph Khorasan Al-Mamun. The three most powerful players of that time tested their strengths and those of the enemy. And in 847, the first book about this game appeared, the author is Al-Alli. That is why researchers argue about the history of the origin of chess and about the homeland, and about the time of their occurrence.
In Russia and in Europe
How this game appeared with us, the history of the game of chess is silent. But it’s known when this happened. In the 820s, the Arab shatranj with the Tajik name "chess" was described in the surviving monuments. In what way they came, it is now difficult to establish. There were two such roads. Either through the Caucasus mountains directly from Persia, passing the Khazar Khanate, or through Khorezm from Central Asia.
The name quickly turned into "chess," and the "names" of the figures did not undergo major changes, since they remained similar in meaning and in harmony with the Central Asian or Arabic. However, the history of the development of chess grew later with the modern rules of the game, only when Europeans began to play it. The changes arrived in Russia with great delay, nevertheless, the old Russian chess was also gradually modernized.
In the eighth and ninth centuries there were constant wars in Spain, which the Arabs tried to conquer with varying success. In addition to spears and arrows, they carried their culture here. Thus, they were carried away by satranj at the Spanish court, and after a short time the game conquered Portugal, Italy and France. By the 2nd century, Europeans played it everywhere - in all countries, even in the Scandinavian countries. It was in Europe that the rules were especially strongly transformed, as a result, by the fifteenth century, turning the Arab shatrange into a game that is known to everyone today.
For some time, the changes were not coordinated, and therefore for two or three centuries each country played its own games. Sometimes the rules were pretty bizarre. For example, in Italy, a pawn that reached the last horizontal could only turn into a piece that has already been removed from the board. Until the appearance of the piece taken by the enemy, it remained an ordinary pawn. But even then in Italy there was castling, and in the presence of a piece between the king and the rook, and with the “beaten” field. There were books and reference books about chess. Even the poem was dedicated to this game (Ezra, 1160). In 1283, a treatise on the chess of Alphonse the Tenth Wise appeared, which describes both the obsolete shatrange and the new European rules.
Books
A game is very widespread in the modern world, so much that almost every second child declares: "Chess is my friends!" Almost every one knows the history of chess, since there are many wonderful books: fascinating ones for children, serious ones for adults.
All famous chess players have their own library of favorite works about this game. Moreover, everyone has a different list! Much more literary works have been written about chess than about all other sports combined! There are amateurs who have collected more than seven thousand books on the subject of the game in their own library, and this is far from all that has been published.
For example, Yasser Seiravan is a grandmaster, four-time world champion who has written many wonderful books about his favorite game, including textbooks, literally "under his pillow" holds books by Mikhail Tal, Robert Fisher, David Bronstein, Alexander Alyokhin, Paul Keres, Lev Polugaevsky. And each of these numerous works leads him when re-reading in "continuous admiration." And the international master and researcher of the history of chess (for children he also wrote books about this), John Donaldson loves the book of Gregory of Pyatigorsky and Isaac Cazhen. Professor Anthony Sadie is a legend in a chess game; he managed to put together a huge chess library and write several books himself, each of which became a tabletop for all fans of this game of the world. And he reads most often for some reason Russian, but on the same topic: Nabokov ("The Defense of Luzhin") and Alekhine ("My Best Parties").
Chess theory
Systematic theory began to develop in the sixteenth century, when the basic rules were already adopted everywhere. In full, the chess textbook first appeared in 1561 (Rui Lopez), where all the stages that were highlighted and now are considered - the endgame, middlegame, debut. It also described the most interesting species - the gambit (development of advantage due to the sacrifice of the figure). Of great importance for chess theory is the work of Philidor, published in the eighteenth century. In it, the author revised the views of Italian masters, who considered a massive attack on the king to be the best style and for which pawns were an auxiliary material.
After the appearance of this book, the positional style of playing chess began to develop, when the attack ceases to be reckless, and a strong and stable position is built in a planned manner. Hits are accurately calculated and sent to the weakest positions. For Filidor, pawns became the "soul of chess"; it is on them that defeat or victory depends. His tactics of promoting the chain of "weak figures" have survived centuries. But really there, it became the basis of chess theory. Forty-two editions withstood the book of Philidor. But still, the Persians and Arabs wrote about chess much earlier. These are the works of Omar Khayyam, Nizami, Saadi, thanks to which this game is no longer perceived as a war. Many treatises were written, peoples composed epics, where they associated chess games with everyday ups and downs.
Korea and China
Chess has "left" not only to the west. Both chaturanga and the early versions of satranja penetrated into Southeast Asia, since two players participated in different provinces of the same China, and other features were visible. For example, the figures move over a short distance, there is no castling, no capture on the aisle either. The game also changed, acquiring new features.
The national "xiangqi" is very similar to ancient chess in its rules. In neighboring Korea, it was called “changi,” and along with similar features, it also showed some differences from the Chinese version. Even the figures were put in different ways. Not at the middle of the cell, but at the intersection of the lines. Not a single figure could "jump" - neither a horse nor an elephant. But their troops had "guns" that knew how to "shoot", killing the figure over which they jumped.
In Japan, the game was called "shogi", it had its own characteristics, although the basis clearly came from "xiangqi". The board was much simpler, closer to the European one, the pieces stood in the cage, not on the line, but there were more cells - 9x9. The pieces were able to transform, which the Chinese did not allow, and this was done witty: the pawn simply turned over, and the sign of the piece appeared at the top of it. And even more interesting: those "warriors" that were taken from the enemy can be set as their own - arbitrarily, almost anywhere on the board. For the Japanese, the game was not black and white. All figures are of the same color, and the statement will be determined by the statement: with a sharp end to the enemy. In Japan, this game is still much more popular than classic chess.
How did the sport start?
Chess clubs began to appear from the sixteenth century. Not only amateurs came to them, but also almost professionals who played for money. And two centuries later, almost every country had its own national chess tournament. Books about the game are massively printed. Then there appears periodicals on this subject. First, single, then regular, but rarely published collections come out. And in the nineteenth century, popularity and relevance forced publishers to put this business on an ongoing basis. In 1836, the first purely chess magazine Palamed appeared in France. It was published by one of the best grandmasters of his time, Labourdonne. In 1837, Britain followed the example of France, and in 1846, Germany began to publish its own chess journal.
International matches have been held in Europe since 1821 and tournaments since 1851. The first "chess king" - the strongest chess player in the world - appeared in London at the competitions of 1851. It was Adolf Andersen. Then, in 1858, this title was taken from Andersen by Paul Morphy. And the palm was taken to the USA. However, Andersen did not reconcile and regained the crown of the first chess player already in 1859. And until 1866 he had no equal. And then Wilhelm Steinitz won, while unofficially.
Champions
Again, Steinitz became the first official world champion. He defeated Johann Zuckertort. It was also the first match in the history of chess, where the world championship was stipulated. So there was a system that exists and now in the continuity of the title. The world champion can be the one who wins the match against the current champion. Moreover, the latter may not agree to the game. And if he accepts the challenge, he independently sets the place, time and conditions of the match. Only the public opinion could force the champion to the game: the winner who refuses to play with a strong opponent could be recognized as a weakling and a coward, so the challenge was most often accepted. Usually, a match agreement provided for the right to a rematch for the loser, and victory in it returned the title to the champion.
Since the second half of the nineteenth century, time control has been used in tournaments. At first it was an hourglass, limiting the chess player’s time to move. It could not be called convenient. And so the player from England, Thomas Wilson, invented a special clock - chess. Now it has become easy to control the entire game and a certain number of moves. Time management entered the chess practice quickly and firmly, it was used everywhere. At the end of the 19th century, matches without watches were no longer held. Then the concept of time pressure reigned. A little later, they started holding matches of “quick chess” - with a half-hour limit for each of the players, and a little later “blitz” appeared - from five to ten minutes.