The history of chess can be traced back nearly 1,500 years to its earliest known predecessor, called chaturanga, in India; its prehistory is the subject of speculation. From India it spread to Persia, where it was modified in terms of shapes and rules and developed into shatranj. Following the Arab invasion and conquest of Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to Europe via Spain (Al Andalus) and Italy (Emirate of Sicily). The game evolved roughly into its current form by about 1500 CE.
"Romantic chess" was the predominant playing style from the late 18th century to the 1880s. Chess games of this period emphasized quick, tactical maneuvers rather than long-term strategic planning. The Romantic era of play was followed by the Scientific, Hypermodern, and New Dynamism eras. In the second half of the 19th century, modern chess tournament play began, and the first official 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. In 1997, an IBM supercomputer beat Garry Kasparov, the then world chess champion, in the famous Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov match, ushering the game into an era of computer domination. Since then, computer analysis – which originated in the 1970s with the first programmed chess games on the market – has contributed to much of the development in chess theory and has become an important part of preparation in professional human chess. Later developments in the 21st century made the use of computer analysis far surpassing the ability of any human player accessible to the public. Online chess, which first appeared in the mid-1990s, also became popular in the 21st century.
Origin
Precursors to chess originated in India. There, its early form in the 7th century CE was known as (), which translates to "four divisions (of the military)": infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. These forms are 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. Around 600 CE in Sassanid Persia, the name for the game became (), which subsequently evolved to (; ) after the conquest of Persia by the Rashidun Caliphate, due to the lack of native "ch" and "ng" sounds in the Arabic language.Shenk, David. The Immortal Game. Doubleday, 2006. The rules were developed further during this time; players started calling "Shāh!" (Persian for "King!") when attacking the opponent's king, and "Shāh Māt!" (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 traveled to other lands.
The game was taken up by the Muslim world after the early Arab Muslims conquered the Sassanid Empire, with the pieces largely keeping their Persian names. The Moors of North Africa rendered the Persian term "shatranj" as shaṭerej, which gave rise to the Spanish , and ; in Portuguese it became , 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 or in Latin, in Italian, in Catalan, in French (Old French ), in Dutch, in German, in Polish, in Latvian, in Danish, in Norwegian, in Swedish, in Finnish, in South Slavic languages, in Hungarian and in Romanian; there are two theories about why this change happened: From the exclamation "check" or "checkmate" as it was pronounced in various languages. 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 (, literally "checkmates", a plurale tantum).
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.Hooper and Whyld, 144–145 (1st ed.) Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th-century Spanish manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon and dice named the Libro de los juegos, which is the earliest European treatise on chess as well as being the oldest document on European tables games.
Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking shape.Gollon, John. Chess Variations, Ancient, Regional, and Modern. Charles E. Tuttle Co.: Publishers, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan, 1968. Sec. One, Sec. Two 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.Remus, Horst, "The Origin of Chess and the Silk Road" , The Silk Road journal, The Silkroad Foundation, v.1(1), January 15, 2003. 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. 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 many new variants. These factors added to the game's popularity, further bolstered by reliable timing mechanisms (first introduced in 1861), effective rules, and charismatic players.Lasker, Edward. The Adventure of Chess. Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1949, 1950, 1959. pp. 87–117
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.Lasker, Edward. The Adventure of Chess. Dover Publications, Inc., New York, New York, 1949, 1950, 1959. pp. 3–4 A common theory is that India's development of the board, and chess, was likely due to India's mathematical enlightenment involving the creation of the number zero. 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."Chess: Ancient precursors and related games" (Encyclopædia Britannica 2002)
Chess was designed for an ashtāpada (Sanskrit for "having eight feet", i.e. an 8×8 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 into the center). Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8×8 board served as the main board for playing chaturanga.Wilkins 2002: 46 Other Indian boards included the 10×10 Dasapada and the 9×9 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 ashtāpada before chess was invented.
The Cox–Forbes theory, proposed in the late 18th century by Hiram Cox, and later developed by Duncan Forbes, asserted that the four-handed game chaturaji was the original form of chaturanga.Bell (1979) Vol. I, pp. 52–57 The theory is no longer considered tenable.Hooper 1992: 74
In Sanskrit, the word chaturaṅga literally means "having four limbs (or parts)" and in epic poetry often means "army" (the four parts are elephants, chariots, horsemen, foot soldiers).Meri 2005: 148 The name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. The game chaturanga was a battle-simulation game that rendered Indian military strategy of the time.Kulke 2004: 9
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.Wilkins 2002: 48
Scholars in areas to which the game subsequently spread, for example the Arab Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī, detailed the Indian use of chess as a tool for military strategy, mathematics, gambling and even its vague association with astronomy.Wilkinson 1943 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.
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, knight and bishop were renamed by words meaning (in this order) Boat, Horse, and Elephant, or Elephant, Horse, and Camel, but keeping the same moves. In early chess the moves of the pieces were: Original nameModern nameVersionOriginal movekingkingas nowadviserqueenone square diagonally, onlyelephantbishopPersia and westtwo squares diagonally (no more or less), but could jump over a piece betweenan old Indian versiontwo squares sideways or front-and-back (no more or less), but could jump over a piece betweensoutheast and east Asiaone square diagonally, or one square forwards, like four legs and trunk of elephanthorseknightas nowchariotrookas nowfoot-soldierpawnone square forwards (not two squares from initial position), capturing one square diagonally forward; promoted to queen only
Two Arab travelers each recorded a severe Indian chess rule against stalemate:A History of Chess A 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.
Iran (Persia)
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.Bell 1979: 57 The oldest recorded game in chess history is a 10th-century game played between a historian from Baghdad and a pupil.Chess: Introduction to Europe (Encyclopædia Britannica 2007)
A manuscript explaining the rules of the game, called "Matikan-i-chatrang" (the book of chess) in Middle Persian or Pahlavi, still exists.Peshotan Behramjee Sanjana, "Ganjeshāyagān, Andarze ātrepāt mārāspandān, Mādigāne chatrang, and Andarze khusroe kavātān : the original Pehlvi text, the same translated into the Gujarati and English languages, a commentary and a glossary of select words" In the 11th-century Shahnameh, Ferdowsi describes a Raja visiting from India who re-enacts the past battles on the chessboard. A translation in English, based on the manuscripts in the British Museum, is given below: