Chess history

History of Chess

The history of chess started out in India, one and a half thousand years ago. The oldest known predecessor to chess is the Indian game of chaturanga, which was appropriated by the Persian, who edited it superficially and called it shatranj. After the conquest of Persia in the 7th century by the Arabs, shatranj spread around the Caliphate before becoming known in Europe.

Chess took on its modern form towards the end of the 15th century when the game became substantially faster, White obtained the right of the first move and the accompanying theories of openings began to be conceived.

Wilhelm Steinitz

In the middle of the 19th century, an international system of competitions was created. At first, the strongest players from different countries would merely play each other, but after the second half of the century, international tournaments began to take shape.

The first world champion was Wilhelm Steinitz, who defeated Johannes Zukertort in 1886.

In 1924, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) was established. After the death of the fourth world champion Alexandre Alekhine in 1946, all subsequent world champions were decided by a qualification organized by FIDE.

Between 1948 and 1991, chess was dominated by Soviet sportsmen. After the collapse of the USSR, the system of identifying the strongest player was changed several times, but from 2008 onwards, the champion was decided by head-to-head matches.

Magnus Carlsen, 16th reigning world chess champion since 2013

In the second half of the 20th century, computer chess began to develop rapidly. In 1970, the level of programs was fairly low, but in 1997, IBM's Deep Blue computer beat Garry Kasparov 3.5-2.5, and since then, the supremacy of the computer over the human in chess has been widely recognized.

Deep Blue, at the Computer History Museum