For those who have a desire to spend their free time with benefit for their mind and mood, there is such a sport as chess. This is a special sport that does not require physical activity from a person. But in return for this activity, chess requires mental activity from the player. Chess has been played for many centuries both at the professional level and by players in amateur clubs. Let's try to get to know each other better history of chess and with the principles of the game.

What is chess?

As mentioned above, chess is a special sport. This is a board game with 2 players. The game takes place on a special chessboard with black and white markings and 64 squares of the same size. The cell line is marked horizontally with numbers - from 1 to 8, and vertically with letters - from a to h. The next important component of the games is a set of chess pieces. They come in white and black, and each player gets one of them. The set of chess pieces includes:

pawns – 8 pieces;

elephants – 2 pieces;

horses – 2 pcs.;

rooks – 2 pcs;

kings – 2 pcs;

queens – 2 pcs.

In the history of chess there is a special section devoted to the origin of the pieces, and most importantly, their names.

According to the established rules, the game starts with the one who has the white set of pieces. Further, all moves are made in order. The essence of the game is that one player must hit his opponent, putting him in checkmate. Checkmate – when the opponent does not have the opportunity to move, and his king piece is under the opponent’s check. The game may be terminated if the opponent is completely defeated or if there is a draw. There is a certain time limit for all moves. If the game limit is exceeded and there is no winner, a technical win or draw is credited.

Where and when did chess first appear?

The history of chess began approximately 1.5 thousand years ago. According to some scientists, the game originated in India in the 5th-6th centuries AD. It is believed that the ancestor of chess was the Indian game chaturanga. The exact nuances and rules of this game are currently unknown to anyone, but there is some information that fully confirms their relationship with modern chess: a black and white board with markings and squares, as well as 16 pieces, similar to the pawns we are used to. There were 4 players, not 2.

According to historians, at the same time, Indian chaturanga was borrowed by Arab peoples. In modern terms, the Arabs significantly modified the game. The first transformation concerned the name - from chaturanga it turned into shatranj. Later, when the game came to the Tajiks and Persians, they called it “chess,” which translates as “the ruler is defeated.” This dates back to 580-600 AD.

In the years 800-900, when the Arabs conquered European cities with lightning speed, chess penetrated here too. In Europe, this game took pride of place and became part of the cultural life of those people. It was only in the 15th – 16th centuries that the basic rules of the game, familiar to modern man, were firmly established.

Modern chess

With the development of technology, changes have also affected such an ancient game as chess. The rules remain the same, but now computers have a huge influence on the game. Now matches and tournaments under the slogan “man versus machine” have become quite popular. It would seem that the computer will not leave a person any chance to win, but this is not so. IN modern history of chess There are many examples of world tournaments where great grandmasters defeated artificial intelligence.

A real chessboard with pieces today has become more of a souvenir and gift than a playing accessory, and this is of course sad, but chess of the kind to which our consciousness is accustomed is losing its former popularity. Nowadays, amateurs and beginners prefer to compete with a computer engine rather than with a real opponent. But you can also meet on the Internet. There are also advantages: while playing with the machine, you can improve your skills in the shortest possible time.

Players have been arguing about the essence of chess, perhaps, since its inception in India about two thousand years ago. Some people consider chess a gambling intellectual game. Others are for entertainment and leisure time. Someone - art, and on a par with theater or science. And still others cite an analogy with a military battle. But the most popular opinions, especially now, are two. First, chess is a sport, and a professional one at that. Secondly, they are just a hobby.

In different countries this game has its own name: in England - chess, in Spain - el axedres, in Germany - check (Schach), in France - echecs. The Russian name originates from the Persian language: “check” and “checkmate,” which means “the ruler has died.”

The history of chess goes back at least one and a half thousand years. The progenitor game, chaturanga, is believed to have appeared in India no later than the 6th century AD. As the game spread to the Arab East, then to Europe and Africa, the rules changed. In the form that the game currently has, it was formed by the 15th century; the rules were finally standardized in the 19th century, when international tournaments began to be systematically held. So invented in India in 5th - 6th century. Chess spread almost throughout the world and became an integral part of human culture.

There are several ancient legends about the origin of chess.

The great scientist Al-Biruni talks about one of them in his book “India,” which attributes the creation of chess to a certain Brahmin (a social group in India). For his invention, he asked the rajah for an insignificant, at first glance, reward: as many wheat grains as would be on the chessboard if one grain was placed on the first cell, 2 grains on the second cell, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth, 8 on the fifth. – 16, on the sixth – 32. etc. It turned out that there is no such amount of grain on the entire planet (it is equal to 264 - 1 ≈1.845 × 1019 grains, which is enough to fill a storage facility with a volume of 180 km³).

This is how the first legend goes:

When the Hindu Raja Sheram met her, he was delighted with her wit and the variety of positions possible in her. Having learned that it was invented by one of his subjects, the king ordered to call him to personally reward him for his successful invention.
The inventor, his name was Seth, came to the throne of the ruler. He was a modestly dressed scientist who received his livelihood from his students.
“I wish to adequately reward you, Seta, for the wonderful game you came up with,” said the Raja.

The sage bowed.
“I am rich enough to fulfill your wildest wish,” the rajah continued. “Name a reward that will satisfy you, and you will receive it.”
Seta was silent.
“Don’t be timid,” the Raja encouraged him. - Express your wish. I will spare nothing to fulfill it.
“Great is your kindness, lord.” But give me time to think about your answer. Tomorrow, after mature reflection, I will tell you my request.
When Seta again appeared at the steps of the throne the next day, he surprised the Rajah with the unprecedented modesty of his request.
“Lord,” said Seta, “order that you give me one grain of wheat for the first square of the chessboard.”
– A simple grain of wheat? - The Raja was amazed.
- Yes, lord. Order 2 grains for the second cell, 4 for the third, 8 for the fourth, 16 for the fifth, 32 for the sixth...
“That’s enough,” the Raja interrupted him with irritation. “You will receive your grains for all 64 squares of the board, according to your desire: for each one twice as much as the previous one.” But know that your request is not worthy of my generosity. By asking such an insignificant reward, you disrespectfully disregard my mercy. Truly, as a teacher, you could set a better example of respect for the kindness of your sovereign. Go. My servants will bring you your bag of wheat.

Seta smiled, left the hall and began to wait at the palace gates.
During dinner, the Raja remembered the inventor of chess and sent to find out whether the reckless Seta had already taken away his pitiful reward.
“Lord,” was the answer, “your order is being carried out.” Court mathematicians calculate the number of grains to follow.
The Raja frowned. He was not used to his orders being carried out so slowly.
In the evening, going to bed, the Raja once again inquired how long ago Seth and his bag of wheat had left the palace fence.
“Sir,” they answered him, “your mathematicians are working tirelessly and hope to finish the calculation before dawn.”
- Why are they delaying this matter? - the Raja exclaimed angrily. “Tomorrow, before I wake up, every last grain must be given to Sethe.” I don't order twice.
In the morning, the rajah was informed that the chief of the court mathematicians was asking to listen to an important report. The Raja ordered him to be brought in.
“Before you talk about your case,” Sheram announced, “I want to hear whether Sethe has finally been given that insignificant reward that he assigned to himself.”
“For this reason I dared to appear before you at such an early hour,” answered the old man. “We conscientiously calculated the entire amount of grains that Seth wants to receive.” This number is so big...
“No matter how great it is,” interrupted the Rajah arrogantly, my granaries will not become scarce. The reward has been promised and must be given...
“It is not in your power, lord, to fulfill such desires.” In all your barns there is not such a number of grains as Seth demanded. It is not even in the granaries of the entire kingdom. There is not such a number of grains in the entire space of the Earth. And if you definitely want to give the promised reward, then order the earthly kingdoms to be turned into arable fields, order the seas and oceans to be drained, order the ice and snow covering the distant northern deserts to be melted. Let their entire space be completely sown with wheat. And order everything that is born in these fields to be given to Sethe. Then he will receive his reward. The king listened with amazement to the elder’s words.
“Tell me this monstrous number,” he said thoughtfully.
– Eighteen quintillion four hundred forty-six quadrillion seven hundred forty-four trillion seventy-three billion seven hundred nine million five hundred fifty-one thousand six hundred fifteen, O Lord!..

Such is the legend. Whether what is told here really happened is unknown, but that the reward that legend speaks of should have been expressed in exactly this number, you can verify this yourself by patient calculation.
Starting with one, you need to add the numbers: 1, 2, 4, 8, etc. Otherwise, this sum can be written like this:
1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + . . . = 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + . . . + 263.
The last term shows how much the inventor was owed for the 64th square of the board.
Let us simplify the resulting sum based on the following considerations. Let's denote
S = 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + . . . + 263,
Then
2S = 2 · (20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + . . . + 263) = 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + . . . + 264
And
S = 2S – S = (21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + . . . + 264) – (20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + . . . + 263) = = 264 – 20 = 264 – 1.
Required number of grains
S = 264 – 1.
This means that the calculation comes down to just multiplying 64 twos! (And then we’ll be able to subtract one).
S = 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 ·· 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 – 1.
To make calculations easier, we divide the 64 factors into 6 groups of 10 twos each and one last group of 4 twos. The product of 10 twos, as is easy to see, is equal to 1,024, and 4 twos is 16. This means that the desired result is equal to
S = 1,024 · 1,024 · 1,024 · 1,024 · 1,024 · 1,024 · 16 – 1.
Because
1024 · 1024 = 1,048,576,
That
S = 1,048,576 1,048,576 1,048,576 16 – 1.
Let's show patience and accuracy in calculations and get: S = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615.
This amount of grain is approximately 1800 times higher than the world wheat harvest per year (in the 2008–2009 agricultural year, the harvest amounted to 686 million tons), that is, it exceeds the entire wheat harvest collected in the entire history of mankind.
In units of mass: if we accept that one grain of wheat has a mass of 0.065 grams, then the total mass of wheat on the chessboard will be about 1.200 trillion tons: 18 446 744 073 709 551 615 · 0.065 gr = 1 199 038 364 791 120 854, 975 gr. = 1,199,038,364,791.120 t.
If the mass of wheat is converted into volume (1 m3 of wheat weighs about 760 kg), the result is approximately 1500 km3, which is equivalent to a barn with dimensions of 10 km x 10 km x 15 km. This is the largest volume of Mount Everest.
The Hindu king was not able to give such a reward. But he could easily, if he were good at mathematics, free himself from such a burdensome debt. To do this, it was only necessary to invite Sethe to count out all the wheat due to him, grain by grain.
In fact: if Seta, having started counting, had kept it continuously day and night, counting one grain per second, he would have counted only 86,400 grains in the first day. To count a million grains, it would take at least 10 days of tireless counting. He would count one cubic meter of wheat in about six months. And it would remain to count another 1,499,999,999,999 m3. You see that even if Seta devoted the rest of his life to counting, he would receive only an insignificant part of the reward he demanded.

A description of another legend was found in the Persian poet Ferdowsi, who wrote the epic about a thousand years ago. In one Indian kingdom lived a queen and her two twin sons Gav and Talkhand. The time had come for them to reign, but the mother could not decide who to make king, because she loved her lonely sons. Then the princes decided to arrange a battle; the winner would become the ruler. The battlefield was chosen on the seashore and surrounded by a ditch filled with water. They created such conditions that there was nowhere to retreat. The condition of the tournament was not to kill each other, but to defeat the enemy army. A battle began, as a result of which Talkhand died. Upon learning of the death of her son, the queen fell into despair. She reproached Gav, who arrived, for killing his brother. However, he replied that he did not cause any bodily harm to his brother; he died from exhaustion. The queen asked to tell in detail how the battle took place. Woof, together with people from his surroundings, decided to recreate the battlefield. To do this, they took a board, marked out the cells and placed figures on it representing the warring parties. The opposing troops were placed on opposite sides and placed in rows: infantry, cavalry and infantry again. In the middle row in the center stood the prince, next to him was his chief assistant, then two figures of elephants, camels, horses and roc birds. Moving different figures, the prince showed his mother how the battle took place. Thus, it is clear that the ancient chessboard had 100 squares and the pieces on it stood in three lines.

The next legend says that once in India, when it was a very strong country, it was ruled by one ruler. And all the power of the army was in specially trained war elephants. With their help, he had already defeated all the armies of his opponents and for many years he did not know what to do. One day he announced that whoever can come up with something he likes will receive whatever he wants. And an insane number of wise men from all countries came to him and brought him everything very beautiful and made only of gold or jewelry. But everything that these sages brought was not to the liking of the ruler. And one day a poor Shah came to him. He came with a small board and figures, but the whole game was made of wood and as soon as the ruler saw this he became terribly angry, “What is this?” All the products that they show me are made of gold or jewelry, and here you came to me with some pieces of wood,” to which the Shah replied, “the interest of the games is not in gold, but in wisdom,” and at that moment the ruler saw that the figures looked like and his army. The ruler became interested and agreed to take a look. And when the Shah showed the ruler how to play the game with the words “Your army is majestic and invincible, but can you win here on a small board with your army and with the enemy with the same army.” When the ruler started playing, he liked this game and was sure that he would win Shah easily, but in the first game Shah defeated the ruler and the ruler tried again, but this time thinking about every move, and in the second game he won. After that, he really liked this game. And every time he attacked the enemy king, he said “check” (hey check), warning that the king was in danger, and when he won, he said “Checkmate”, which meant the king died. But as you remember, the ruler promised everything he wanted to the one who made the product that he liked and the king decided to fulfill his promise and he asked what the Shah wanted and the Shah answered at first glance a small reward “if you put one grain on the first square of the chessboard on the second two to a third four and so on, but it turned out that there was no such quantity in the entire kingdom. After all, this is 92,233,720,000,019 grains. The story is never told how the ruler settled with the Shah. But there is another legend about how this wonderful game appeared.

Once upon a time in India there was a very wise ruler. During his reign, the country prospered and he had two twin sons who differed from each other only in that they liked to wear different clothes. One liked to wear white clothes, and the other in black. Before his death, the wise ruler did not know which son to make king and divided power equally. But soon the brothers wanted there to be one ruler and everyone believed that he should become it. The brothers quarreled and a big war began in which a lot of people died. After some time, the brothers realized that the war was endless, but no one stopped the war, because the one who ends the war will lose and will not become a ruler. But still, each brother wanted to make peace and find a way to become a ruler. And one day an old man came to them and said that if they finished the war in which half of India died, then he would show them how to honestly determine the ruler. The brothers agreed and the old man took out a wooden board and black and white figures, he told the brothers the rules of the game and a multi-day “war” began in which every move was carefully thought out. And in this game the white pieces won, and after this incident the white pieces go first in chess, and a lot of people started playing chess.

The first official mention of chess is a book that describes in detail the process of penetration of chess from India to Persia. The Indians tried to appease the Persian king Khosrow I Anushiravan (who ruled Iran from 531 to 579) with their offerings. The book describes in detail absolutely everything related to chess. Particular attention is paid to terminology, as well as the capabilities of each of the figures. The next written document describing chess is a poem by the famous Persian poet Ferdowsi. In his poem, he described in detail the outlandish thing presented to the Persian king by the grateful Indian people. Such a thing is a “quite entertaining game.” Here is what Ferdowsi himself wrote: “Among the gifts presented to the Persian king, there was a rather interesting thing. It was a game. It reproduced the battle of two armies: black and white.”

Persian chess players

No later than the beginning of the 6th century, the first known game related to chess, chaturanga, appeared in northwestern India. It already had a completely recognizable “chess” appearance (a square game board of 8x8 cells, 16 pieces and 16 pawns, similar pieces), but it was fundamentally different from modern chess in two features: there were four players, not two (they played pairs against pairs) , and moves were made in accordance with the results of throwing dice. Each player had four pieces (chariot (rook), knight, bishop, king) and four pawns. The horse and the king moved in the same way as in chess, the chariot moved within two squares vertically and horizontally, the bishop moved first one square forward or diagonally, later it began to “jump” across one square diagonally, and, like a knight, during the move he could step over his own and enemy pieces. There was no queen at all. To win the game, it was necessary to destroy the entire enemy army.

Arab transformations

In the same 6th or perhaps 7th century, chaturanga was borrowed by the Arabs. In the Arab East, chaturanga was transformed: there were two players, each received control of two sets of chaturanga pieces, one of the kings became a queen (moved diagonally onto one field). They gave up the bones and began to walk one move at a time, strictly one at a time. Victory began to be recorded not by the destruction of all enemy pieces, but by checkmate or stalemate, as well as when the game was completed with a king and at least one piece against one king (the last two options were forced, since checkmate with weak pieces inherited from chaturanga , it was not always possible). The resulting game was called “shatranj” by the Arabs and Persians. The Buryat-Mongolian version was called "" or "hiashatar". Later, when it came to the Tajiks, shatranj received the name “chess” in Tajik (translated as “the ruler is defeated”). The first mention of Shatranj dates back to approximately 550. 600 - the first mention of shatranj in fiction - the Persian manuscript "Karnamuk". In 819, at the court of Caliph Al-Mamun in Khorasan, a tournament was held between the three strongest players of that time: Jabir Al-Kufi, Abyljafar Ansari and Zairab Qatay. In 847, the first chess book was published, written by Al-Adli.

Thanks to abstract figures, the game gradually ceased to be perceived by the people as a symbol of a military battle and was increasingly associated with everyday ups and downs, which was reflected in the epic and treatises dedicated to the game of chess (Omar Khayyam, Saadi, Nizami).

Chess in Southeast Asia

Simultaneously with the advancement of the chess game to the west, it also spread to the east. Apparently, either a variant of chaturanga for two players, or one of the early variants of shatranj, came to the countries of Southeast Asia, since their features have been preserved in the chess games of this region - the moves of many pieces are made over short distances, there are none characteristic of European chess castling and capturing en passant. Under the influence of the cultural characteristics of the region and the board games that were popular there, the game noticeably changed in appearance and acquired new features, becoming the basis for the Chinese game Xiangqi. From it, in turn, came the Korean game changi. Both games are original in appearance and mechanism. First of all, this is manifested in a change in the size of the board and in the fact that the pieces are placed not on the squares of the board, but on the intersections of the lines. These games feature limited-area pieces that can only move within a portion of the board, and the traditional "jumping" pieces are now linear (neither the knight nor the bishop can jump over squares occupied by other pieces), but the new "cannon" piece "- can hit enemy pieces only by jumping over another piece when hitting.

The Japanese version that appeared later - shogi - is considered a descendant of xiangqi, but has its own characteristics. The shogi board is simpler and more similar to the European one: pieces are placed on squares rather than on intersections, the board size is 9x9 cells. In shogi, the rules of moves changed and the transformation of pieces appeared, which did not exist in xiangqi. The transformation mechanism is original - a figure (a flat chip with an image printed on it), having reached one of the last three horizontal lines, simply turns over to the other side, where the sign of the transformed figure is depicted. And the most interesting feature of shogi is that the opponent’s pieces taken by the player can, instead of the next move, be placed by him anywhere on the board (with some restrictions) as his own. Because of this, in a shogi set, all the pieces have the same color, and their identity is determined by placement - the player places the piece on the board with its tip facing the opponent.

Classical European chess is not particularly common in this region; Xiangqi and Shogi are much more popular to this day.

The emergence of chess in Rus'

Around 820, chess (more precisely, the Arabic shatranj under the Central Asian name "chess", in Russian turned into "chess") appeared in Rus', coming, it is believed, either directly from Persia through the Caucasus and the Khazar Khaganate, or from the Central Asian peoples, through Khorezm. The Russian name of the game is consonant with the Central Asian “chess”, the Russian names of the pieces most closely correspond to Arabic or Persian (elephant and knight are translations of the corresponding Arabic terms, queen is consonant with the Persian “farzin” or the Arabic “firzan”). The rook, according to one assumption, received this name due to the fact that the corresponding Arabic figure “rukh” depicted a mythical bird, and was similar to a stylized image of the Russian rook. A comparison of Russian chess terminology with the terminology of Transcaucasia, Mongolia and European countries shows that neither the name of the game nor the names of the pieces could be borrowed from these regions, either in meaning or in consonance.

Changes in the rules, later introduced by Europeans, penetrated Rus' with some delay, gradually turning old Russian chess into modern ones. It is believed that the European version of the chess game came to Russia in the 10th - 11th centuries, from Italy, through Poland.

Penetration into Europe

In the 8th - 9th centuries, during the conquest of Spain by the Arabs, shatranj came to Spain, then, within several decades, to Portugal, Italy and France. The game quickly won the sympathy of Europeans; by the 11th century it was already known in all countries of Europe and Scandinavia. European masters continued to transform the rules, eventually transforming shatranj into modern chess. By the 15th century, chess had, in general, acquired a modern appearance, although due to inconsistency of changes, for several more centuries different countries had their own, sometimes quite bizarre, rules. In Italy, for example, until the 19th century, a pawn that reached the last rank could only be promoted to pieces that had already been removed from the board. At the same time, moving a pawn to the last rank in the absence of such pieces was not prohibited; such a pawn remained a pawn and turned into the first piece captured by the opponent at the moment when the opponent captured it. Castling was also allowed there if there was a piece between the rook and the king and if the king passed a broken square.

Chess in art

As chess spread in Europe, both chess itself and works of art telling about this game began to appear. In 1160, the first chess poem appeared, written by Ibn Ezra. In 1283, the first chess book in Europe was published - a treatise by Alfonso X the Wise. This book is of significant historical interest, as it contains a description of both new European chess and the already obsolete shatranj.

Starting from the 16th century, chess books were published more and more often, and chess constantly appeared in works of fiction. In the 18th century, chess had a patron muse. It was invented by the English poet William Jones, a big fan of chess. He published a poem about the origins of chess, in which the god of war Mars fell in love with the forest nymph Caissa; the nymph did not reciprocate the fan's feelings, and in order to achieve his goal, Mars invented chess and taught Caissa to play it. In general, the motif of the chess game of ancient gods was often found in art.

Christian Church against chess

Since the advent of chess, the Christian Church has taken a sharply negative position towards it. Chess was equated with gambling and drunkenness. It is noteworthy that representatives of various directions of Christianity were united in this. In 1061, the Catholic Cardinal Damiani issued a decree banning the game of chess among the clergy. In his letter to Pope Alexander II, he called chess “an invention of the devil,” “an obscene and unacceptable game.” The founder of the Templar Order, Bernard, spoke in 1128 about the need to combat the passion for chess. The French bishop Hades Sully in 1208 forbade priests “to touch chess and have them in their homes.” The head of the reformist wing of the Protestant Church, Jan Hus, was also an opponent of chess. Under the influence of church rejection, the game of chess was prohibited by the Polish King Casimir II, the French Louis IX (the Saint), and the English Edward IV.

In Rus', the Orthodox Church also banned the game of chess under threat of excommunication, which was officially enshrined in the helmsman's book of 1262.

Despite church prohibitions, chess spread both in Europe and in Russia, and among the clergy the passion for the game was no less (if not more) than among other classes. Thus, at the Nerevsky excavation site in Novgorod alone, archaeologists found many chess pieces in the layers of the 13th - 15th centuries, and in the 15th century layer, chess is found in almost every excavated estate. And in 2010, a chess king was found in a layer of the 14th - 15th centuries in the Novgorod Kremlin, next to the residence of the archbishop. In Europe, in 1393, the Council of Regensburg removed chess from the list of prohibited games. In Russia, there is no information about the official lifting of the church ban on chess, but at least since the 17th and 18th centuries, this ban has not actually been in effect. Ivan the Terrible played chess (according to legend, he died at the chessboard). Under Alexei Mikhailovich, chess was common among courtiers, and the ability to play it was common among diplomats. Documents from that time have been preserved in Europe, which, in particular, say that Russian envoys are familiar with chess and play it very well. Princess Sophia was fond of chess. Under Peter I, assemblies could not be held without chess.

Development of chess theory

By the 15th and 16th centuries, the rules of chess were largely established, thanks to which the development of systematic chess theory began. In 1561, Rui Lopez published the first complete chess textbook, which covered the now distinguished stages of the game - opening, middlegame and endgame. He was the first to describe a characteristic type of opening - a “gambit”, in which an advantage in development is achieved by sacrificing material.

Philidor made a great contribution to the development of chess theory in the 18th century. He seriously revised the views of his predecessors, primarily the Italian masters, who believed that the best style of play was a massive attack on the enemy king with all available means and used pawns only as auxiliary material. Philidor developed what is now called a positional style of play. He believed that a player should not rush into reckless attacks, but systematically build a strong, stable position, deliver precisely calculated attacks on the weaknesses of the enemy’s position, and, if necessary, resort to exchanges and simplifications if they lead to a profitable endgame. The correct position, according to Philidor, is, first of all, the correct placement of the pawns. According to Philidor, “Pawns are the soul of chess; Only they create attack and defense; victory or defeat entirely depends on their good or bad position.” Philidor developed tactics for advancing the pawn chain, insisted on the importance of the pawn center, and analyzed the struggle for the center. In many ways, his ideas formed the basis of the chess theory of the next century. Philidor's book "Analysis of the Chess Game" became a classic; it went through 42 editions in the 18th century alone and was reprinted many times later.

Making chess an international sport

Since the 16th century, chess clubs began to appear, where amateurs and semi-professionals gathered, often playing for a monetary stake. Over the next two centuries, the spread of chess led to the emergence of national tournaments in most European countries. Chess publications are published, at first sporadic and irregular, but over time they become increasingly popular. The first chess magazine "Palamed" began to be published in 1836 by the French chess player Louis Charles Labourdonnais. In 1837, a chess magazine appeared in Great Britain, and in 1846 in Germany.

In the 19th century, international matches (since 1821) and tournaments (since 1851) began to be held. At the first such tournament, held in London in 1851, Adolf Andersen won. It was he who became the unofficial “chess king,” that is, the one who was considered the strongest chess player in the world. Subsequently, this title was challenged by Paul Morphy (USA), who won the match in 1858 with a score of +7-2=2, but after Morphy left the chess scene in 1859, Andersen again became the first, and only in 1866 Wilhelm Steinitz won the match against Andersen with a score of +8-6 and became the new “uncrowned king”.

The first world chess champion to officially bear this title was the same Wilhelm Steinitz, defeating Johann Zukertort in the first match in history, in the agreement about which the expression “world championship match” appeared. Thus, a system of title succession was established: the new world champion was the one who won the match against the previous one, while the current champion reserved the right to agree to the match or reject the opponent, and also determined the conditions and location of the match. The only mechanism capable of forcing a champion to play with a challenger was public opinion: if an admittedly strong chess player for a long time could not obtain the right to a match with the champion, this was seen as a sign of cowardice of the champion and he, saving face, was forced to accept the challenge. Typically, the match agreement provided for the champion's right to a rematch if he lost; a victory in such a match returned the championship title to the previous owner.

In the second half of the 19th century, time control began to be used in chess tournaments. At first, an ordinary hourglass was used for this (the time per move was limited), which was quite inconvenient, but soon the English amateur chess player Thomas Bright Wilson (T.B. Wilson) invented a special chess clock that made it possible to conveniently implement a time limit for the entire game or for a certain number moves. Time control quickly became part of chess practice and soon began to be used everywhere. By the end of the 19th century, official tournaments and matches without time control were practically no longer held. Simultaneously with the advent of time control, the concept of “time pressure” appeared. Thanks to the introduction of time control, special forms of chess tournaments with a greatly shortened time limit arose: “fast chess” with a limit of about 30 minutes per game for each player and “blitz” - 5 - 10 minutes. However, they became widespread much later.

Chess in the 20th century

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the development of chess in Europe and America was very active, chess organizations became larger, and more and more international tournaments were held. In 1924, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) was created, initially organizing the World Chess Olympiads.

Until 1948, the system of succession of the world champion title that developed in the 19th century was preserved: the challenger challenged the champion to a match, the winner of which became the new champion. Until 1921, Emanuel Lasker remained the champion (the second, after Steinitz, official world champion, who won this title in 1894), from 1921 to 1927 - Jose Raul Capablanca, from 1927 to 1946 - Alexander Alekhine (in 1935 Alekhine lost the championship match peace to Max Euwe, but in 1937 in a rematch he returned the title and held it until his death in 1946).

After the death of Alekhine in 1946, who remained undefeated, FIDE took over the organization of the world championship. The first official World Chess Championship was held in 1948, won by Soviet grandmaster Mikhail Botvinnik. FIDE introduced a system of tournaments to win the champion title: the winners of the qualifying stages advanced to the zonal tournaments, the winners of the zonal competitions advanced to the interzonal tournament, and the holders of the best results in the latter took part in the candidate tournament, where a series of knockout games determined the winner, who had to play a match against the reigning champion. The formula for the title match changed several times. Now the winners of zonal tournaments participate in a single tournament with the best (rated) players in the world; the winner becomes world champion.

The Soviet chess school played a huge role in the history of chess, especially in the second half of the 20th century. The wide popularity of chess, active, targeted teaching of it and the identification of capable players from childhood (a chess section, a children's chess school was in every city of the USSR, there were chess clubs at educational institutions, enterprises and organizations, tournaments were constantly held, a large amount of specialized literature was published) contributed to the high level of play of Soviet chess players. Attention to chess was shown at the highest level. The result was that from the late 1940s until the collapse of the USSR, Soviet chess players virtually reigned supreme in world chess. Of the 21 chess Olympiads held from 1950 to 1990, the USSR team won 18 and became a silver medalist in another; of the 14 chess Olympiads for women during the same period, 11 were won and 2 silvers were taken. Of the 18 draws for the title of world champion among men over 40 years, only once the winner was a non-Soviet chess player (this was the American Robert Fischer), and twice more the contender for the title was not from the USSR (and the contender also represented the Soviet chess school, it was Viktor Korchnoi, fled from the USSR to the West).

In 1993, Garry Kasparov, who was the world champion at that time, and Nigel Short, who became the winner of the qualifying round, refused to play another world championship match under the auspices of FIDE, accusing the federation leadership of unprofessionalism and corruption. Kasparov and Short formed a new organization - the PCA (Professional Chess Association), and played the match under its auspices.

There was a split in the chess movement. FIDE deprived Kasparov of the title, the title of world champion according to FIDE was played between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman, who at that time had the highest chess rating after Kasparov and Short. At the same time, Kasparov continued to consider himself a “real” world champion, since he defended the title in a match with a legitimate contender - Short, and part of the chess community was in solidarity with him. In 1996, the PCA ceased to exist as a result of the loss of a sponsor, after which the PCA champions began to be called “world classical chess champions.” In essence, Kasparov revived the old system of title transfer, when the champion himself accepted the challenge of the challenger and played a match with him. The next “classical” champion was Vladimir Kramnik, who won a match against Kasparov in 2000 and defended the title in a match with Peter Leko in 2004.

Until 1998, FIDE continued to play out the title of champion in the traditional manner (Anatoly Karpov remained the FIDE champion during this period), but from 1999 to 2004 the format of the championship changed dramatically: instead of a match between a challenger and a champion, the title began to be played out in a knockout tournament, in which the current champion must was involved on a general basis. As a result, the title constantly changed hands and five champions changed in six years.

In general, in the 1990s, FIDE made a number of attempts to make chess competitions more dynamic and interesting, and therefore attractive to potential sponsors. First of all, this was expressed in the transition in a number of competitions from the Swiss or round-robin system to the knockout system (in each round there is a match of three knockout games). Since the knockout system requires an unambiguous outcome of the round, additional games of rapid chess and even blitz games have appeared in the tournament regulations: if the main series of games with regular time control ends in a draw, an additional game is played with a shortened time control. Complicated time control schemes began to be used, protecting against severe time pressure, in particular, the “Fischer clock” - time control with addition after each move.

The last decade of the 20th century in chess was marked by another important event - computer chess reached a high enough level to surpass human chess players. In 1996, Garry Kasparov lost a game to a computer for the first time, and in 1997, he lost a match to the Deep Blue computer by one point. The avalanche-like growth in computer productivity and memory capacity, combined with improved algorithms, led to the emergence of publicly available programs by the beginning of the 21st century that could play at the grandmaster level in real time. The ability to connect to them pre-accumulated databases of openings and a table of small-figure endings further increases the strength of the machine’s play. The consequence of this was changes in the format of high-level competitions: tournaments began to use special measures to protect against computer hints, in addition, the practice of postponing games was completely abandoned. The time allotted for a game was also reduced: if in the middle of the 20th century the norm was 2.5 hours for 40 moves, then by the end of the century it decreased to 2 hours (in other cases - even 100 minutes) for 40 moves.

Current state

After the unification match Kramnik - Topalov in 2006, FIDE's monopoly on holding the world championship and awarding the title of world chess champion was restored. The first “unified” world champion was Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), who won this match.

Viswanathan Anand, defeated Vladimir Kramnik in the 2007 World Championship. In 2008, a rematch took place between Anand and Kramnik, Anand retained his title.

Viswanathan Anand defended the champion title in May 2010 in a match with Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov (score 6.5:5.5) and in May 2012 in a match with Israeli challenger Boris Gelfand (6:6 in the main match; 2.5: 1.5 in tiebreaker).
In 2013, Viswanathan Anand lost a match in Chennai and lost the title to Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen. In 2014, Magnus Carlsen defended the title against Viswanathan Anand in Sochi, and in 2016 in New York in a match against Sergey Karjakin. In 2018, in London, Magnus Carlsen defended his title for the third time against Fabiano Caruana.

The formula for the championship title is being adjusted by FIDE. In the last championship, the title was played out in a tournament with the participation of the champion, four winners of the candidate tournament and three personally selected players with the highest rating. However, FIDE has also retained the tradition of holding personal matches between a champion and a challenger: according to existing rules, a grandmaster with a rating of 2700 or higher has the right to challenge the champion to a match (the champion cannot refuse), subject to the provision of funding and compliance with deadlines: the match must be completed no later than six months before the start of the next world championship.

"Live Chess"

When the system of playing chess acquired a complete form, so-called “live chess” came into fashion - theatrical performances held in large open areas marked like a chessboard. The first mention of “live chess” dates back to 1408. It was then that a chess performance that surprised many took place for the first time at the court of Sultan Muhammad, who ruled Grenada.

Today, “live chess” has not lost its popularity. For example, once every 2 years in the Italian commune of Marostica a similar event takes place, in which city residents take part. And in London, based on “live chess,” Spanish designer Jamie Hayon placed huge chess pieces on Trafalgar Square as part of the Design Festival.

Chess in an Iranian souvenir shop

Chess has long been one of the sports. But this does not stop millions of people from playing chess just for fun, finding joy in the game. Chess is the most exciting intellectual game. In the “Persian Shop” you can find exclusive Iranian chess sets with wood, bone and metal inlays and traditional Persian painting. Handmade chess is a great gift for your boss, colleague, friends or loved ones.

Benefits of the game

Experts have found that the benefits of chess for the brain are simply enormous. After all, during a game a person uses two of his hemispheres at once. Chess battles accompany the development of logical thinking, short-term and long-term memory. They teach the ability to predict events and make the right decisions.

Rules of the game

Beginning of the game
At the beginning of the game, the chessboard should be positioned so that each player has a white (or light) colored square in the lower right corner. Chess pieces are placed the same way in each game. Pawns are located on the second and seventh lines. The rooks stand in the corners, the knights next to them, then the bishops, and finally the queen, which always stands on a square of the same color as itself (white queen on white, black queen on black), and the king next to the queen.
The player with white pieces always goes first. Before this, players usually decide who gets which pieces by drawing lots. First the whites go, then the blacks, then the whites again, then the blacks again... And so on until the end of the game.

How the pieces move
All six pieces move differently. Pieces, with the exception of the knight, cannot “jump” over other pieces, and cannot move onto squares occupied by pieces of their own color. Pieces can occupy squares on which the opponent's pieces are located by capturing them. Pieces generally need to be positioned so that they threaten to capture the opponent's pieces, can defend their own pieces, or control important squares.

King
The king is the most important, but also the weakest figure. The king can only move one square in any direction - up, down, sideways, diagonally. The king cannot move to those squares on which he will be in check (that is, he can be captured).

Queen
The queen is the most powerful piece. He can move along any straight line (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) to any possible distance, but without jumping over pieces of his color. And, like all pieces, if the queen captures the opponent's piece, its movement ends.

Rook
The rook can move any distance, but only horizontally and vertically. Rooks are especially strong when they protect each other and work together!

Elephant
The Bishop can move as far as it wants, but only diagonally. Each Bishop starts on a square of its own color, and must always remain on squares of the same color. Bishops work well together, as they cover each other's weaknesses.

Horse
The knight moves differently from all other pieces. First, the knight moves two squares horizontally or vertically, and then one square perpendicular to the original direction (like the Russian letter “G”). Also, the knight is the only piece that can “jump” over other pieces and pawns.

Pawn
Pawns differ from other pieces in that they move and capture differently: they move straight forward, but they capture diagonally. Pawns only move forward one square per move, except on their very first move, when they can move forward two squares. A pawn can move to a square occupied by an opponent's piece (pawn), which is located diagonally on an adjacent file, while simultaneously capturing this piece (pawn). Pawns cannot move (capture) backwards. If there is another piece or pawn right in front of a pawn, it cannot move past or capture that piece or pawn.

Transformation
Pawns have one distinctive feature - they can transform into other pieces. A pawn that reaches the last rank (8th for white, 1st for black) is replaced by any (except the king) piece of the same color at the choice of the player making the move. The transformation is carried out immediately (with the same move) regardless of the presence of pieces of the same name on the board. Usually a pawn is promoted to a queen. Only pawns can be promoted to other pieces.

Taking on the pass
Another rule related to pawns is called “en passant,” French for “on the passant.” An en passant capture is a special move by a pawn in which it captures an enemy pawn that has been moved to two squares at once. But what is under attack is not the square on which the second pawn stopped, but the one that was crossed by it. The first pawn completes the capture precisely on this crossed square, as if the opponent's pawn had moved only one square. A similar situation becomes possible only in cases where the pawn is located on the fifth (for white pawns) or fourth (for black pawns) rank, and the square that the enemy pawn crosses is under attack. Capturing an enemy pawn can only be done immediately after it has been moved two squares. You can only capture on the pass with a counter move, otherwise the right to capture on the pass is lost.

Castling
Another special rule is called castling. This move allows you to do two important things at the same time: secure your king and move the rook out of the corner of the board into a more active position. Castling involves moving the king towards a rook of its own color by 2 squares and then moving the rook to the square adjacent to the king on the other side of the king. Castling is possible subject to the following conditions:
This must be the king's first move in a given game;
This must be the first move of the rook to be moved in a given game;
The squares between the rook and the king are free, there are no other pieces on them;
The king must not be in check and the square it must cross or occupy must not be attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces.
Note that at the beginning of the game in one direction the king is closer to the rook. If you castling in this direction, it is called kingside castling. Castling in the other direction, across the square on which the queen stood at the beginning of the game, is called castling on the queenside. Regardless of which direction the castling is made, the king moves two squares.

Checkmate
As stated above, the goal of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king. This happens when the king falls into check and cannot escape from it. The king can escape from check in three ways: go to a safe square (castling is prohibited!), cover with another piece, or capture a checking piece. If the king cannot avoid checkmate, then the game will end. Usually, when the king is checkmated, the king is not removed from the board, and the game is considered over.

Draw
Sometimes in a chess game there is no winner, but a draw is recorded.

There are 5 rules according to which a chess game ends in a draw:
Stalemate, that is, a situation in which the player who has the right to move cannot use it, since all his pieces and pawns are deprived of the opportunity to make a move according to the rules, and the king is not in check.
Players can simply agree to a draw and stop playing.
There are not enough pieces on the board to checkmate (for example, a king and a bishop against a king).
A player declares a draw if the same board position is repeated three times (not necessarily three times in a row).
Fifty consecutive moves were played without any player making a pawn move or capturing a piece or pawn.

Fischer Chess (960)
Chess960 (also called Fischer Chess) is a variant of chess in which the rules are the same as in regular chess, but where “opening theories” do not play a big role in the game. The starting position of the pieces is formed randomly, using only 2 rules: bishops stand on squares of different colors, and the king must be between the rooks. Black and white figures are arranged symmetrically. There are exactly 960 possible starting positions that follow these rules (hence the prefix “960”). The castling rule is unusual: everything is the same here (the king and rook have not moved before, they are castling not in check or through a square with check) plus all the cells between the king and the rook must be free of pieces.
Many tournaments use identical rules. These rules do not have to apply if you are playing at home or online.

Take it - go!
If a player touches a piece, he must move it. If a player touches an opponent's piece, he must capture it. A player who wants to touch a piece only to correct it on the board must first announce his intention, usually by saying “I’m correcting”...

Time control.
Most tournaments use time control for the entire game rather than for each move. Both players get an equal amount of time for the game, each player can decide how to use this time. After a player makes a move, he presses a button on the clock to start the opponent's clock. If a player runs out of time and the opponent declares it, the player who runs out of time loses. The exception is when the declaring player does not have enough pieces to checkmate - in this case the game ends in a draw.

Basic Strategies
Protect your king
Move the king to the corner of the board, as a rule, he is safer there.. Do not delay castling. As a general rule, you should castle as quickly as possible. Remember, it doesn't matter how close you are to checkmate your opponent if he checkmates you first!
Don't give away pieces aimlessly
Don't lose your pieces thoughtlessly! Each piece has a price, and you can't win the game without the pieces you need to checkmate. There is a simple scale to evaluate the relative value of each piece:
Pawn - basic unit
A knight is worth 3 pawns
A bishop is worth 3 pawns
A rook is worth 5 pawns
The queen is worth 9 pawns
The king is priceless
Why do we need to know the comparative strength of the figures? First, it determines the overall utility of the figure. That is, a rook usually brings more benefits on the board than, say, a bishop. Secondly, the value of the piece must be realized when making exchanges.

Control the center of the board
You must control the center of the board with your pieces and pawns. If you control the center, then you have more opportunities to place your pieces well on the board, and it is harder for your opponent to find good squares for his pieces. In the example above, White makes good moves to control the center, Black makes bad moves.
Use all your pieces.
Your pieces do not bring any benefit, sitting in the rear. Try to develop all your pieces so that you can use them to attack your opponent's king. Using only one or two pieces to attack will not work against a strong opponent.

Getting Better in Chess
Knowing the rules and basic strategy is just the beginning - there is so much to learn from playing chess that it wouldn't take a lifetime to learn it all! To get stronger, you need to do three things:
- Play
Just keep playing! Play as much as possible. You must learn from every game, both lost and won.
- Study
If you really want to improve your skill quickly, then buy a chess book. There are also many resources online to help you learn and improve your game.

Have fun
Don't be discouraged if you don't win all your games!. Everyone loses sometimes - even world champions. If you learn to learn from lost games, you will always be able to enjoy chess!

See on the website:
Evpatoria

Chess is a logic board game for two people with special pieces and a 64-cell field. Chess combines elements of art (in terms of chess composition), science and sports. As a sport, chess has a hierarchy of titles, a developed system of regular tournaments, national and international leagues.

The International Chess Federation (FIDE, French Federation Internationale des Echecs, FIDE) is an international sports organization that promotes chess, as well as organizes international competitions and tournaments. Unites national chess federations.

History of the emergence and development of chess

The history of chess goes back more than one and a half thousand years. Chess was invented in India in the 5th-6th centuries BC. No later than the 6th century, a game appeared in India - chaturanga, which had a recognizable chess look. Unlike chess, it was played by 4 players simultaneously, and moves depended on dice rolls. To win the game, you had to destroy all your opponents' pieces.

Having spread from India to neighboring countries, chaturanga has undergone a number of changes. In the east it began to bear the name - shatranj, in China - xiangqi, in Thailand - makruk. In the 9th-10th centuries, the game came to Europe, where the “classical” rules of the game were compiled. The rules were finally formed in the 19th century.

In 1886, the first world chess championship was held.

Chessmen

Pawn ♙ - moves vertically one square forward. If a move is accompanied by the capture of an opponent's piece, then the pawn has the right to move diagonally one square forward-right or forward-left.

Knight ♘ - moves to a square located at a distance of 2 vertically and 1 horizontally or 1 vertically and 2 horizontally from the current position.

Bishop ♗ — moves to any square diagonally.

Rook ♖ - moves to any square vertically or horizontally.

Queen ♕ - moves to any square vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

King ♔ - moves 1 square vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

Before the start of the game, each player has on the chess field:

• pawn - 8 pcs.;
• rook - 2 pcs.;
• horse - 2 pcs.;
• elephant - 2 pcs.;
• queen - 1 pc.;
• king - 1 pc.

Chess rules

Moves in chess are made alternately, with the first move being made by the player with the white pieces. The right to play with white pieces is determined by lot.

A move is considered made in the following cases:

• the player’s hand lowered the piece after moving it to an unoccupied field;
• when capturing an opponent's piece, after replacing the opponent's piece with one's own;
• when castling;
• when promoting a pawn, in the case when the pawn is removed from the board and the player removes his hand from the new piece placed on the field.

In addition to regular moves, there are 2 special moves in chess:

• Castling is the simultaneous change of position of the king and rook of the same color, provided that they have not moved since the beginning of the game. When castling, the king is moved 2 squares towards the rook, and the rook is placed on the square between the starting and final position of the king. Castling is considered the king's move.
• En passant capture is a special move of a pawn in which it captures an opponent's pawn that has been moved two squares at once. But what is under attack is not the square on which the second pawn stopped, but the one that was crossed by it.

Before adjusting one or more pieces on the field, the player must warn the opponent about this. Otherwise, after touching the piece, you will need to complete the move.

Winning at chess

Check is a situation when the king of one of the players is under attack by an opponent’s piece. In order to reverse a check, you must perform one of the following actions:

• move the king to any square that is not under attack by the opponent’s pieces;
• take a piece that threatens the king;
• put another piece of yours under attack.

Checkmate is a situation where the king is in check but cannot escape it.

The game is considered won if:

• one of the players checkmated the opponent's king;
• one of the players admitted defeat;
• one of the players has run out of time allotted for moves;
• technical victory.

Draw in chess

Stalemate is a situation when a player with the right to move cannot use it, since all his pieces are deprived of the opportunity to make a move. The king should not be in check.

In addition, a draw is recorded in the following cases:

• no sequence of moves leads to checkmate;
• repetition of positions three times (not necessarily for three moves in a row) or repetition of the same position five times for five consecutive moves;
• both players made 50 moves without capturing and without moving a pawn (50-move rule);
• mutual agreement to a draw;
• one of the players ran out of time.

Time control in chess

All official chess games are played with time control using a special chess clock. The player who made the move presses a button on the clock that stops his clock and starts his opponent's clock.

A player's time is considered to have expired if the flag on his clock falls. This is true except for the following situations:

• there is a checkmate on the board;
• there is a situation on the board that leads to a draw;
• both players' flags fell;
• The opponent has no opportunity to checkmate.

Chess competitions

All chess competitions are held according to one of four tournament systems.

According to archaeological excavations, games involving the movement of chips on a board were known back in the 3rd-4th centuries. BC e. The true age of the game known in the Western world as chess, shrouded in mystery.

Al-Biruni in the book "India" tells a legend that attributes the creation of chess to a certain Brahmin mathematician around 1000 BC. When the ruler asked how to reward him for this wonderful game, the mathematician replied: “Let's put one grain on the first square of the chessboard, two on the second, four on the third, and so on. So give me the amount of grain that will turn out, if you fill all 64 cells." The ruler was delighted, believing that we were talking about 2-3 bags, but if you count 2 to the 64th power, it turns out that this number is greater than all the grain in the world.

According to another legend, chess was invented by an eastern sage, whose name was Shishakh, and he lived in Babylon. Under him, the young king of Amolny sat on the throne, who greatly oppressed the lower strata of society, especially the peasants. In the greatest despair, the peasants turned to Shishakh, who was highly respected at the royal court, and asked him for help. Basically, they persuaded him to convince the king that the peasant was also a person who benefited the state. To convince the king of this, Shishakh invented chess and taught the king how to play chess. In this way he proved to him that the peasants, i.e. pawns on the board are still the best protection for the king. The king understood in this way the main idea of ​​the chess game and stopped oppressing the peasants, and generously rewarded his adviser.

Based on another legend, chess was invented by the wife of King Ravana of Ceylon. When everyone in his besieged capital had already lost heart and lost all courage to continue the fight, the desperate King Ravan decided to give the city to the enemy. But the king had a wife, Queen Ranalana, a heroic woman, and she invented the game of chess to prove to her husband that he should not surrender to the enemy until all means of defense were exhausted, until at least one pawn soldier remained on the board, until there is at least a faint hope of victory!

Scientific hypotheses push back the time of the creation of chess even further, to 2-3 millennia BC, based on archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Iraq, and India. However, since there is no mention in the literature of this game before 570 AD, many historians recognize this date as the birth of chess. The first mention of the game of chess was in a Persian poem of 600 AD, and in this poem the invention of chess is attributed to India.

Raja Krishna playing ancient chess chaturanga

The oldest form of chess, the war game chaturanga, appeared in the first centuries AD. e. In India, chaturanga was an army formation that included war chariots (ratha), elephants (hasti), cavalry (ashva) and foot soldiers (padati). The game symbolized a battle involving four branches of troops, led by a leader. They were located at the corners of a 64-point square board (ashtapada), and 4 people participated in the game. The movement of the figures was determined by throwing the dice. Chaturanga existed in India until the beginning of the 20th century. and over time began to be called “chaturraja” - the game of four kings; at the same time, the figures began to be painted in 4 colors - black, red, yellow and green.

In the first centuries of our era, the game was so widespread in Persia that it was considered a shame when an intelligent person did not know how to play it. The game of chess left traces in the language of the time, in symbols and metaphors, as well as in the poetry of that time.

The successor to chaturanga was the game shatrang (chatrang), which arose in Central Asia at the end of the 5th - beginning of the 6th centuries. It had two “camps” of figures and a new figure depicting the king’s advisor - farzin; two opponents played. The goal of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king. So the “game of chance” was replaced by the “game of the mind”.

The penetration of chess from India into ancient Iran (Persia) during the reign of Chosroy I Anushiravan (531-579) is described in a Persian book of 650-750. The same book describes chess terminology and the names and actions of various chess pieces in great detail. Since there are no written references to chess in literature before the 6th century AD prior to this book, many historians recognize this period as the birth of chess.

The game of chess is also mentioned in the poems of Firdusi, a Persian poet who lived in the 10th century AD. The poem describes the gifts presented by the envoys of the Indian Rajah to the court of the Persian sheikh Chosroy I Anushiravan. Among these gifts, according to the poem, was a game depicting the battle of two armies. After the Persian Empire was conquered by the Muslim Arabs, the game of chess began to spread throughout the civilized world.

It has been proven that in Byzantium in the 6th and 7th centuries AD, the game of chess was very popular. The Byzantine Emperor Nikophorus himself, in a letter to Caliph Harun al Rashid, makes a comparison between the queen on the board and his predecessor on the throne, Empress Irene.

In the 8th-9th centuries. Shatrant spread from Central Asia to the East and West, where it became known under the Arabic name Shatranj.

In Shatranj (9th-15th centuries), the terminology and arrangement of Shatrang figures were preserved, but the appearance of the figures changed. Due to Islam's prohibition of depicting living creatures, the Arabs used miniature abstract figures in the form of small cylinders and cones, which simplified their production and contributed to the spread of the game.

The strongest players of shatranj, along with the Arabs - Al-Adli and others - were people from Central Asia - Abu Naim, al-Khadim, al-Razi, al-Supi, al-Lajlaj, Abu-Fath, etc. Among the patrons of the game were famous caliphs Harun-ar-Rashid, al-Amin, ap-Mamun, etc. The game developed slowly, since only the rook, king and knight moved according to modern rules, while the range of action of other pieces was extremely limited. For example, the queen moved only one square diagonally.

Thanks to abstract figures, the game gradually ceased to be perceived by the people as a symbol of a military battle and was increasingly associated with everyday vicissitudes, which was reflected in the epic and treatises dedicated to the game of chess (Omar Khayyam, Saadi, Nizami).

The appearance of the so-called descriptive notation is also associated with the Arab period, thanks to which it became possible to record played games.

Shatranj was brought directly to Western Europe by the Arabs during the early Middle Ages. Here chess became known in the 10th-11th centuries, after the Arabs conquered Spain and Sicily. The game had a pronounced military character, so it was very well received in the knightly countries of medieval Europe.

From Spain the game reached France, where, for example, Charlemagne was a big fan of it.

Chess in medieval France

Also from Spain and Sicily, chess gradually penetrated into Italy, England, Scandinavian and other European countries, despite the severe persecution of the church, which prohibited chess along with the game of dice and other “demonic obsessions.”

Chess was brought to Spain by the Moors, and the first mention of chess in Christendom is in the Catalan Testament of 1010 AD. Although chess was known in Europe in earlier times. According to some legends, an expensive set of chess pieces was presented as a gift to Carloman (8th-9th century) from the famous Muslim ruler Harun al-Rashid.

There is a poem describing how chess also existed in the court of the legendary King Arthur. Chess came to Germany in the 10th-11th centuries, the earliest mention in literature was made by the monk Frumun von Tegermsee, in 1030-1050. It records that Svetoslav Šurin from Croatia defeated the Venetian Dodge Peter II in a game for the right to rule the Dalmatian cities.

By the 10th-11th centuries, chess was known in Scandinavia and later in the late 11th century it reached Bohemia from Italy.
"Two ladies playing chess"

illustration from the "Book of Games" by King Alfonso X the Wise of Castile, grandson of Frederick Barbarossa

Despite the fierce opposition of the initially Muslim and then Christian churches (which equated chess with gambling with dice and considered it a “demonic obsession”), chess was banned in Europe for some time, since it was often used for gambling and it was argued that that they bear signs of paganism), nothing could stop the growing popularity of the game, which is confirmed by numerous literary evidence. The popularity of chess continues to grow and soon the whole world knows and plays this most popular game of the ancient world.

In the 14th-15th centuries. the traditions of oriental chess were lost in Europe, and in the 15-16 centuries. a departure from them became obvious after a number of changes in the rules for the moves of pawns, bishops and queens. On the territory of Rus'

A unique find has reached our time - a chess piece made by Novgorod craftsmen in the 14th century.

The figurine was discovered near the Vladychny Chamber, the former residence of the Novgorod archbishop. The found figure is a king, it was made of strong wood, most likely juniper (see right).

In ancient Russian folk poems there are references to chess as a popular game. At a later time, European chess came to Russia from Italy, through Poland. There is an incorrect version, allegedly chess was brought to Russia during the Mongol-Tatar invasion, the Mongol-Tatars, in turn, learned about this game from the Persians and Arabs.

When Peter I went on campaigns, he took with him not only chess, but also two permanent partners. Catherine II was also fond of chess. In 1796 Count A.S. Stroganov arranged a game of live chess for Catherine II and the Swedish king Gustav IV, who were visiting his country palace. In the meadow, where a “chessboard” was laid out with green and yellow turf, servants dressed in medieval clothes moved in accordance with the moves of the chess pargay.

Chess was widespread among the Russian intelligentsia. In the library of A. S. Pushkin, a book published in 1824 by A. D. Petrov, who was the strongest chess player in Russia for half a century, has been preserved - “The Chess Game, Put into Systematic Order” with the author’s dedicatory inscription; Pushkin was a subscriber to the first chess magazine "Palamed", which began publishing in Paris in 1836.

Despite the fact that chess was a popular game, until the end of the 19th century, Russia noticeably lagged behind England, France, and Germany in terms of chess development.

The first Russian chess club opened in St. Petersburg only in 1853, and the first Russian chess magazine was published in 1859.

The situation changed at the beginning of the 20th century, when the St. Petersburg Chess Meeting, which emerged from a private circle, was founded, whose activities in popularizing chess turned out to be very fruitful.

The club was opened on January 17, 1904, and in April 1914, the All-Russian Chess Union was established in the meeting premises at 10 Liteiny Prospekt.

Historically, it is established that chess, in its original form, was a game for four people with four sets of pieces. This game was originally called Shatranj (in Sanskrit, Shatr means "four" and anga means "squad"). In the Persian literature of the Sassanid dynasty (242-651 centuries AD), a book was found written in Pahlavi (Middle Persian language), which was called "Chess Textbook". In modern Persian the same word shatranj serves to designate modern chess. A popular historical theory is that shatranj (chess), according to Indian mysticism, represents the universe. The four sides represent the four elements - earth, air, fire and water; as well as the four seasons and four human temperaments. It is also argued that the word chess comes from the Persian "king" (check) and the term chess comes from the Persian "The king is dead." Below is the evolution of European names for chess pieces from their ancient variant names, which are still used in India, Iran, and many other parts of the world.

It should be noted that although the names of chess pieces differ slightly in different parts of the world, their shape and rules of movement are almost identical.

The Muslim Arabs have probably had the greatest influence on the game of chess than any other culture. The word "chess" originally comes from the Persian word Shah (king) and the Arabic word checkmate (died). Early Muslim contributions to the game include: blind play mentioned as early as 700 AD, early tournaments and qualifying tournaments, chess problems described in the first book on chess by Al-Adli. Al-Adli's books contain openings, the first chess problems "mansuba", and differences in Persian and Indian rules of the game are discussed. Unfortunately, this valuable book has now been lost. However, the Yugoslav library contains a valuable Arabic manuscript from the early 9th century, which contains mansubs. This manuscript was discovered in 1958. Some of these mansubs (chess problems) were based on the legend of "Mat Dilarama". According to legend, Dilaram was a chess player who played for money and lost all his property. In the last game he bet his wife, but he played recklessly and almost lost the game. However, his wife pointed out that he could checkmate his opponent if he sacrificed both of his rooks. His wife whispered this in his ear, and he won the game.

The following table lists some of the ancient Arabic names for the figures, and their meanings:

It was played on a round board, but the pieces and their movement were similar to Arab chess from the same time period.

After the penetration of chess into Europe, many books dedicated to this game appeared. Probably one of the most important and valuable of these books was written during the Middle Ages by the Spanish King Alfonso the Wise in 1283. This wonderful book contains 150 color miniatures based on the original Persian drawings. This book also includes a collection of endgames borrowed from Arabic literature. Chess has gone through the history of many cultures and has been influenced by them. The modern official rules of the game of chess are perfectly preserved and differ little from those that were used 1430 years ago.

Chess is a real mirror of culture. Countries changed, the structure of society changed, and the rules changed.

For example, the figure of the queen, the “queen,” appeared only in the Middle Ages, when the noble lady began to play an important role and began to be honored at knightly tournaments. In the game, she took on the role of the king's advisor - the vizier in the eastern version of chess. The current freedom of movement, independence, and “emancipation” of the queen were unthinkable until the end of the 15th century.

Ancient versions of the game are generally less dynamic, like ancient society. In traditional Chinese chess, the “master” is inactive, he maneuvers in a very small space - as if within the walls of an imperial palace. Indian "chaturanga" followed a strict division of figures into castes - priests, rulers, peasants, servants.

But in Japan, the military-aristocratic system since the 12th century allowed a person of noble birth, willing to put in due diligence, to achieve rapid rise. And the chess pieces were given the opportunity to raise their status. And in European chess, a pawn that reaches the opposite edge of the board is promoted to any piece - even a queen.

In modern times, they wanted to bring chess closer to the changing reality. During Nazi times in Germany, they tried to turn the “game of kings” into a “game of Fuhrers”: several leaders entered the battle, one of them had to be defeated. The game didn't catch on. Just like the Fuhrers.

A more diplomatic option was proposed by the famous Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). In the chess game he invented, planes and submarines appeared on the board, but negotiations and alliances were allowed. Moreover, four “powers” ​​played the game at once - one on each side of the board, as in the ancient Indian “four chess”

A 1909 engraving allegedly depicts Hitler and Lenin playing chess. It's even signed by both of them on the back.

Story emergence and development chess dates back many centuries. Archaeological excavations indicate that games in which it was necessary to move chips on a board existed around the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. According to ancient legend, the game of chess was created by a certain Brahmin. In exchange for his invention, he asked the Raja for a seemingly insignificant reward: as many millet grains as would fit on the chessboard if one grain was placed on the first square, two grains on the second, four grains on the third, etc. However, in fact, it turned out that there is no such amount of grain (1.845 × 10^19 grains, which can be stored in a storage facility with a volume of 180 km³) on the entire planet. It is unknown whether everything actually happened this way or otherwise, but, one way or another, India is considered the birthplace of chess. A story this once again emphasizes the fact that in chess the number of combinations is infinite, thanks to which this ancient, most interesting game will never exhaust itself.

The oldest form of chess, the war game chaturanga, appeared in the first centuries AD. e. In India, chaturanga was a type of army that included war chariots (ratha) - rooks, elephants (hasti), cavalry (ashva) and foot soldiers (padati). The game symbolized a battle involving four branches of troops controlled by a leader. The pieces were located at the corners of a square board (ashtapada) of 64 cells; 4 people took part in the game. The movement of the figures was determined by throwing the dice. To win the game it was necessary to destroy all enemy troops. Chaturanga existed in India until the beginning of the 20th century, and its name changed over time to “chaturraja” - the game of four kings; the figures began to be painted in 4 colors - green, yellow, red and black. The successor to chaturanga was the game shatrang (chatrang), which arose in Central Asia at the end of the 5th - beginning of the 6th centuries. In this variation, the game had two “camps” of pieces and a new piece representing the king’s advisor, the farzin; Only 2 opponents began to take part in the game. The goal of the game was to checkmate the opponent's king. Thus, the “game of chance” was replaced by the “game of the mind.” In the VIII-IX centuries. Shatrang penetrated from Central Asia to the East and West, becoming known under the Arabic name Shatranj. In Shatranj (IX-XV centuries), the terminology and arrangement of Shatrang figures were preserved, but the appearance of the figures underwent changes. The fact is that religion was against the use of living creatures to represent chess pieces, so the Arabs began to use abstract figures in the form of small cylinders and cones for these purposes. This greatly simplified their creation, which, in turn, contributed to the further spread of the game among the masses. The development of the game was rather slow, since only the rook, king and knight moved according to modern rules, while the range of action of other pieces was extremely limited. For example, the queen moved only one square diagonally.

So, the use of abstract images to create chess pieces contributed to a change in the perception of chess - they were no longer perceived as a symbol of war, battle, but began to be associated with everyday ups and downs, which was reflected in the epic and treatises dedicated to the game of chess (Omar Khayyam, Saadi, Nizami), opening new page in history of chess.

Development of chess.

During the early Middle Ages (VIII-IX centuries), the Arabs, as a result of the conquest of Spain, moved shatranj to Spain. After which this game began to spread in Western Europe, where further transformation of the rules continued, which ultimately turned Shatranj into modern chess.

Chess acquired its modern appearance only by the 15th century, although due to inconsistency of changes, for several more centuries different countries had their own, sometimes quite bizarre, rules. For example, in Italy, until the 19th century, a pawn that reached the last rank could only be promoted to those pieces that had already been removed from the board, and moving the pawn to the last rank in the absence of such pieces was not prohibited. In this case, the pawn remained a pawn and turned into the first piece captured by the opponent at the moment when the opponent captured it. Castling was also allowed if there was a piece between the rook and the king and if the king passed a broken square.

History of chess is quite rich, and as they spread in Europe, chess and artistic works began to appear telling about this game. The first poem about chess, written by Ezra, appeared in 1160. In 1283, the first chess book in Europe was published - a treatise by Alphonse X the Wise. This book is of great interest when studying history of chess, as it contains a description of both new European chess and the already obsolete shatranj. Around 820, the Arabic shatranj under the Central Asian name “chess” appeared in Rus', in the Russian language acquiring the name “chess” already known to all of us, coming, it is believed, either directly from Persia through the Caucasus and the Khazar Kaganate, or from the Central Asian peoples, through Khorezm. In any case, the Russian name of the game was inherited from the Tajiks or Uzbeks; the names of the figures in Russia are also consonant or similar in meaning to Arabic or Central Asian ones. Changes in the rules, later introduced by Europeans, penetrated Rus' with some delay and gradually turned old Russian chess into modern ones. The emergence of the so-called descriptive notation is also associated with the Arab period, thanks to which it became possible to record played games.

However, the Christian Church throughout history of chess took a sharply negative position, equating them with gambling and drunkenness. But, despite church prohibitions, chess spread both in Europe and in Russia, and among the clergy the passion for the game was no less (if not more) than among other classes. And already in 1393 in Europe, the Council of Regenburg removed chess from the list of prohibited games. Note that in Russia there is no information about the official lifting of the church ban on chess, but at least since the 17th-18th centuries this ban has not actually been in effect. Ivan the Terrible played chess. Under Alexei Mikhailovich, chess was common among courtiers, and the ability to play it was common among diplomats. Documents from that time have been preserved in Europe, which say that Russian envoys were familiar with chess and played it very well. Princess Sophia was fond of chess. Under Peter I, assemblies were held with the obligatory chess games.

In the XIV-XV centuries. the traditions of oriental chess were lost in Europe, and in the 15th-16th centuries. a departure from them became obvious after a number of changes in the rules for the moves of pawns, bishops and queens. But by the 15th-16th centuries, chess rules were basically established, thanks to which the development of systematic chess theory began. In 1561, the priest Ruy Lopez - the author of the popular opening "Spanish game" - published the first complete chess textbook, which examined the now distinguished stages of the game - opening, middlegame and endgame. He was the first to describe a characteristic type of opening - a “gambit”, in which an advantage in development is achieved by sacrificing material.

A great contribution to the development of chess theory in the 18th century was made by the famous French musician Francois-André Danican Philidor, who had a huge influence on the development of history of chess. He seriously revised the views of his predecessors, primarily the Italian masters, who believed that the best style of play was an aggressive attack on the enemy king with all available means and used pawns only as auxiliary material. Philidor developed the so-called positional style of play. He believed that a player should not rush into reckless attacks, but systematically build a strong, stable position, deliver precisely calculated attacks on the weaknesses of the enemy’s position, and, if necessary, resort to exchanges and simplifications if they lead to a profitable endgame. The correct position, according to Philidor, is, first of all, the correct placement of the pawns. According to Philidor, “Pawns are the soul of chess; Only they create attack and defense; victory or defeat entirely depends on their good or bad position.” Philidor developed tactics for advancing the pawn chain, insisted on the importance of the pawn center and analyzed the struggle for the center, and was the author of the well-known “Philidor Defense”. In many ways, his ideas formed the basis of the chess theory of the next century. Philidor's book “Analysis of the Chess Game” became a classic; it went through 42 editions in the 18th century alone and was reprinted many times later.

Modern chess.

In 1886, the first official world championship match took place in the United States. history of chess. The struggle unfolded between Steinitz and Zukertort. By winning this match, Steinitz became the first world champion. He was not only the strongest chess player, but also the creator of the school of positional play. Steinitz, as it were, decomposed the position into its component elements, highlighting the most significant of them, making it possible to objectively evaluate it and outline the most appropriate, most effective plan of action. In fact, he proposed a fundamentally new approach to the game. The basics of his strategy were the gradual accumulation of small advantages, maneuvering in order to strengthen his position and weaken the enemy.

The importance of the positional school for the development and spread of chess cannot be overestimated. Instead of a game based only on a specific calculation, a purely scientific method was proposed, based on an objective assessment of the pros and cons of a position.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new movement appeared in painting, sculpture and music - modernism. And then such a trend as “hypermodernism” or “neo-romanticism” arose in chess. Hypermodernists criticized a number of positions of the positional school. They, for example, believed that the positional school overestimated the role of the pawn center and developed the concept of a piece-pawn center, when control over the central squares is exercised not only by pawns, but also by pieces. This led to the emergence of a number of new openings: the Reti Opening for White, the Nimzowitsch Defense, the Grunfeld Defense, the New Indian and King's Indian Defenses, and the Alekhine Defense for Black.

In addition, the hypermodernists abandoned the play by black preached by supporters of the positional school to gradually extinguish white's initiative and equalize the game. They sought counter active actions, to seize the initiative, to counterplay.

The representative of the hypermodernist chess school, Nimzowitsch, also deserves credit for the development and practical application of various maneuvering techniques in the middle of the game - maneuvering, prevention, limitation of mobility, blockade, etc.

The main achievement of the hypermodernists, which had the greatest influence on further history of chess– they made chess interesting again, brought back a tactical game full of sacrifices and combinations. Emphasizing the leading role of strategy, the positional school unwittingly downplayed the role of tactics. Meanwhile, Nimzowitsch repeatedly emphasized that the combination should logically follow from the strategy itself. It is also significant that in their games the hypermodernists showed the beauty of strategy, demonstrated in practice that it, like tactics, is fertilized by inspiration, fantasy and intuition. Thus, they further expanded the idea of ​​chess as an art.

However, the chess Olympus was still dominated by representatives of the positional school, and in 1921 Cuban Jose Raul Capablanca (1888-1942) became the third world champion. For his understanding of position and technique of positional play, he was called a “chess machine” and was considered invincible. In 1927, having won the match against Capablanca, Russian Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946) became the fourth world champion. In 1935, Alekhine lost to the Dutchman Max Euwe, who became the fifth world champion, in a match held in various cities of Holland, but in 1937 he regained the title of champion, winning in a rematch.

After the end of World War II, the USSR joined the chess federation - FIDE, and Soviet chess players began to dominate the world chess arena. Of the eight chess players who were crowned world chess champions in the post-war years, seven grandmasters represented the USSR: Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosyan, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov. Soviet chess players Lyudmila Rudenko, Elizaveta Bykova, Olga Rubtsova, Nona Gaprindashvili, Maya Chiburdanidze became world champions among women.

General computerization and the Internet of the late 20th - early 21st centuries. greatly influenced the development of chess. In 1997, the computer (Deep Blue) already wins the match against the world champion. Thus, we have entered the 21st century - the century of computer chess programs.