Practically every nation has preserved many legends and fairy tales about such a subject as chess. It is now impossible to establish the history of its origin in its original version. It's not even really a game. This is philosophy. Not a single scientist has found its origins, although careful research on this issue has been carried out for several centuries. It is believed that it was the ancient Indians who invented chess. The history of their appearance in Russia speaks of Persian roots: checkmate and checkmate - the death of the ruler, this is how these two words are translated from Persian. Scientists argue not only about this. Even the time of occurrence of the game more or less precisely cannot be established. The most common opinion is that chess was born in the first century AD in North India. The history of its origins only emerges from legends, since this game is the prototype of wars and battles.
Back to the roots
Of course, chess is bloodless, but a war that consists entirely of the ability to defeat the enemy with intelligence, cunning, foresight. The rulers of ancient states devoted a lot of time to such a useful pastime as playing chess. Its history speaks ofthat there were cases when the rulers of two warring clans settled their disputes at the chessboard, thus not harming a single person from their troops.
Researchers show the world a brief history of chess, which speaks of an even more ancient game "chuturanga", from which "chaturanga" gradually formed - already with sixty-four cells 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 birth of chess.
Legends
And what beautiful legends were made about chess! A short story, but very instructive, about how one smart peasant sold this game to his king, an example of this. Somewhere it is told about a king, somewhere about a raj, somewhere about a khan, somewhere about wheat, and somewhere about rice, but the essence always remains the same. Apparently, the legendary peasant devoted more time to studying chess than to farming, because in return he simply asked for wheat grains according to the number of cells on the board, but in geometric progression: the first cell is a grain, the second is two, the third is four, and so on.
It seemed to the king that the peasant wasn't asking much for such an excellent game. But despite the fact that there are only 64 cells on the chessboard, the king did not have so many grains in the bins, the grain of the whole world would not be enough. The king was amazed at the mind of the peasant and gave him all his harvest. But he now had a game of chess. The history of this intellectual fun was lost incenturies, but a huge number of interesting legends have been preserved about their development.
Infinity
Just as it is impossible to collect grain to the sixty-fourth degree, even if all the barns of the world are empty, it is also impossible to play all possible games on the 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-favorite 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 development with the help of this game. And yet a person achieves success by perseverance, gets the logic of thinking, the ability to concentrate, plan actions, and predict the course of thought of his opponent.
It is not without reason that the history of chess is so interesting for children. Scientists, psychologists and educators study personality traits by observing children who prefer fun. Even the capabilities of the computer were tested by means of this game, when problems of the enumeration type were solved - choosing the best of all possible options. It must be said that each country has taken root its own name for chess. In Russia - with Persian roots - "chess", in France they are called "eshek", in Germany - "shah", in Spain - "ahedress", in England -"chess". All the more different is the history of chess in the world. Let's try to take a closer look at individual countries where this game appeared earlier than others.
Indians or Arabs?
In the sixth century, in the northwestern provinces of India, Chaturanga was already widely played. And this is still quite a little similar to chess game, since there were fundamental differences in it. The move was made according to the result of the thrown dice, not two, but four people played, and in each corner of the board stood: a rook, an elephant, a knight, a king and four pawns. The queen was absent, and the pieces present had much fewer opportunities in battle than the modern rook, knight and bishop. To win, it was necessary to completely destroy the enemy troops.
Then, or a century later, Arabs began to play this game, and innovations immediately appeared in it. The book "History of Chess" (handbook) describes that it was then that there were only two players, and each had two sets of troops. In the same period, one of the kings became a queen, but he could only move diagonally. Bones were also abolished, each player made a move strictly in turn. And now, to win, it was not necessary to destroy the enemy to the root. It was enough stalemate or mat.
The Arabs called this game shatranj, and the Persians - shatrang. It was the Tajiks who gave them their present name. The Persians were the first to mention shatranj in their fiction ("Karnamuk", 600s). In 819, the first chess tournament was held by Caliph Khorasan Al-Mamun. Top three playersthat time they tested their own and enemy forces. And in 847, the first book about this game appeared, the author - 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 Europe
How this game came to us, the history of chess is silent. But it is known when it happened. In the 820s, the Arabic shatranj with the Tajik name "chess" was described in the monuments that have survived to this day. Which way they came, it is now difficult to establish. There were two such roads. Either through the Caucasus Mountains directly from Persia, passing through the Khazar Khaganate, or through Khorezm from Central Asia.
The name quickly turned into "chess", and the "names" of the pieces did not change much, as they remained similar both in meaning and in consonance with Central Asian or Arabic. However, the history of the development of chess grew with modern rules of the game only when Europeans began to play it. The changes came to Russia with great delay, nevertheless, the old Russian chess was also gradually modernized.
In the VIII and IX centuries there were constant wars in Spain, which the Arabs tried to conquer with varying success. In addition to spears and arrows, they also brought their culture here. Thus, shatranj was carried away at the Spanish court, and after a short time the game conquered Portugal, Italy, and France. By the 2nd century, Europeans were playing it everywhere - in all countries, even in the Scandinavian ones. It was in Europe that the rules were especially strongly transformed, as a result, by the fifteenthcentury, turning Arabic shatranj 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 parties. Sometimes the rules were pretty bizarre. For example, in Italy, a pawn that reached the last rank could only be promoted to the piece that had already been removed from the board. Until the appearance of a piece captured by the opponent, it remained an ordinary pawn. But even then in Italy castling existed both in the presence of a piece between the king and the rook, and in the case of a “beaten” square. Books and reference books about chess were published. Even a poem was dedicated to this game (Ezra, 1160). In 1283, a treatise on chess by Alphonse the Tenth the Wise appeared, which describes both the obsolete shatranj and the new European rules.
Books
The game is very widespread in the modern world, so much so that almost every second child says: "Chess is my friends!". Almost every one of them knows the history of the emergence 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. And everyone has a different list! Much more fiction has been written about chess than about all other sports combined! There are fans 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, YasserSeirawan is a grandmaster, a four-time world champion who has written many excellent books about his favorite game, including textbooks, literally "under his pillow" keeps books by Mikhail Tal, Robert Fischer, David Bronstein, Alexander Alekhin, Paul Keres, Lev Polugaevsky. And each of these numerous works leads him, when re-reading, into "continuous admiration." And the international master and researcher of the history of the emergence of chess (he also wrote books about it for children), John Donaldson loves the book by Grigory Piatigorsky and Isaac Kazhen. Professor Anthony Sadie is a legend of the chess game, he managed to collect a huge chess library and write several books himself, each of which has become a desktop for all fans of this game in the world. And for some reason he reads most often Russians, but on the same topic: Nabokov ("Luzhin's Defense") and Alekhine ("My Best Games").
Chess theory
Systematic theory began to develop in the sixteenth century, when the basic rules were already universally accepted. A full textbook of chess first appeared in 1561 (by Ruy Lopez), where all the stages that are now singled out - endgame, middlegame, opening - were already considered. The most interesting type was also described there - the gambit (the development of an advantage due to the sacrifice of a piece). Philidor's work, published in the eighteenth century, is of great importance for chess theory. In it, the author revised the views of the Italian masters, who considered a massive attack on the king to be the best style and for whompawns were auxiliary material.
After the appearance of this book, the positional style of playing chess really began to develop, when the attack ceases to be reckless, and a strong and stable position is built systematically. Strikes are precisely calculated and directed to the weakest positions. For Philidor, pawns have become the "soul of chess", it is on them that defeat or victory depends. His tactics of promoting the chain of "weak figures" survived the ages. Why, it has become the basis of chess theory. Philidor's book went through forty-two editions. But still, Persians and Arabs wrote about chess much earlier. These are the works of Omar Khayyam, Nizami, Saadi, thanks to which this game has ceased to be 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 "gone" not only to the West. Both Chaturanga and early versions of Shatranja penetrated into Southeast Asia, since two players participated in different provinces of the same China, and other features were visible. For example, the movement of the pieces for a short distance, there is no castling, taking on the aisle too. The game also changed, acquiring new features.
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 had some differences from the Chinese version. Even the figures were placed differently. Not in the middle of the cell, but at the intersection of lines. Neitherone figure could not "jump" - neither a horse nor an elephant. But their troops had "cannons" that could "shoot", killing the piece they were jumping over.
In Japan, the game was called "shogi", it had its own characteristics, although it was clearly derived from "xiangqi". The board was much simpler, closer to the European one, the pieces stood in a cage, and not on a line, but there were more cells - 9x9. The pieces were able to transform, which the Chinese did not allow, and this was done ingeniously: the pawn simply turned over, and the sign of the piece turned out to be on top of it. And more interesting: those "warriors" that were taken from the enemy can be set as their own - arbitrarily, almost anywhere on the board. The Japanese game was not black and white. All figures are of the same color, and the affiliation will be determined by the setting: with a sharp end towards the enemy. In Japan, this game is still much more popular than classical 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. Massively printed books about the game. Then there is also a periodical on this subject. First, single, then regular, but rarely published collections are released. And in the nineteenth century, popularity and demand forced publishers to put this business on a permanent basis. In 1836, the first purely chess magazine, Palamede, appeared in France. It was published by one of the best grandmasters of histhe time of Labourdonnais. In 1837 Great Britain followed the example of France, and in 1846 Germany began publishing its own chess magazine.
Since 1821, international matches have been held in Europe and tournaments since 1851. The first "chess king" - the strongest chess player in the world - appeared in London at the 1851 competition. 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 himself and regained the crown of the first chess player already in 1859. And until 1866 he had no equal. And then Wilhelm Steinitz won, so far unofficially.
Champions
The first official world champion was again Steinitz. He defeated Johann Zuckertort. It was also the first match in the history of chess where the world championship was negotiated. And so the system appeared, which exists now in the continuity of the title. The world champion can be the one who wins the match against the reigning champion. Moreover, the latter may not agree to the game. And if he accepts the challenge, he independently sets the place, time and conditions for the match. Only public opinion could force the champion to play: the winner who refused to play with a strong opponent could be recognized as a weakling and a coward, so most often the challenge was accepted. Usually, the agreement to hold the match provided for the right to a rematch for the loser, and victory in it returned the title to the champion.
From the second half of the nineteenth century, tournaments used controltime. At first it was an hourglass, limiting the player's time per move. It couldn't be called convenient. Therefore, a player from England, Thomas Wilson, invented a special clock - a chess clock. Now it has become easy to control both the whole game and a certain number of moves. Time control entered chess practice quickly and firmly, it was used everywhere. At the end of the 19th century, matches were no longer held without a clock. At the same time, the concept of time trouble reigned. A little later they began to hold matches of "rapid chess" - with a limit of half an hour for each of the players, and a little later, "blitz" appeared - from five to ten minutes.
