Chess

Chess

Chess is a recreational and competitive game played between two players. Sometimes called Western Chess or International Chess to distinguish it from its predecessors and other chess variants, the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in clubs, online, by correspondence, in tournaments and informally.
The game is played on a square chequered chessboard with 64 squares. At the start, each player (one controlling the white pieces, the other controlling the black pieces) controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way to remove it from attack on the next move.
The tradition of organized competitive chess started in the sixteenth century. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Viswanathan Anand is the current World Champion. Theoreticians have developed extensive chess strategies and tactics since the game's inception. Aspects of art are found in chess composition.
One of the goals of early computer scientists was to create a chess-playing machine, and today's chess is deeply influenced by the abilities of current chess programs and by the possibility to play online. In 1997, a match between Garry Kasparov, then World Champion, and a computer proved for the first time that machines are able to beat even the strongest human players.

Rules

Chess is played on a square board of eight rows (called ranks and denoted with numbers 1 to 8) and eight columns (called files and denoted with letters a to h) of squares. The colors of the sixty-four squares alternate and are referred to as "light squares" and "dark squares". The chessboard is placed with the light squares at the players' right, and the pieces are set out as shown in the diagram, with each queen on its own color.
The pieces are divided, by convention, into White and Black sets. Each player, referred to by the color of his pieces, begins the game with sixteen pieces: these comprise one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. White moves first. The colors are chosen either by a friendly agreement, by a game of chance or by a tournament director. The players alternate moving one piece at a time (with the exception of castling, when two pieces are moved simultaneously). Pieces are moved to either an unoccupied square, or one occupied by an opponent's piece, capturing it and removing it from play. With one exception (en passant), all pieces capture opponent's pieces by moving to the square that the opponent's piece occupies.
When a king is under direct attack by the opponent's pieces, the king is said to be in check. When in check, only moves that result in a position in which the king is not in check are permitted. The player must not make any move that would place his king in check. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent; this occurs when the opponent's king is in check, and there is no way to remove the king from attack.
Each chess piece has its own style of moving.
The king can move only one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Once in every game, each king is allowed to make a special move, known as castling. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then placing the rook immediately on the far side of the king. Castling is only permissible if all of the following conditions hold:
The player must never have moved either the king or the rook involved in castling;
There must be no pieces between the king and the rook;
The king may not currently be in check, nor may the king pass through squares that are under attack by enemy pieces. As with any move, castling is illegal if it would place the king in check.
The king and the rook must be on the same rank (to exclude castling with a promoted pawn, described later).
The rook moves any number of vacant squares vertically or horizontally (it is also involved in the king's special move of castling);
The bishop moves any number of vacant squares in any direction diagonally. Note that a bishop never changes square color, therefore players speak about "dark-squared" or "light-squared" bishops, depending on the color of square on which the bishop resides. Alternatively, bishops may be identified as a "queen bishop" or a "king bishop", depending on whether they are next to the queen or the king when on their home square.
The queen can move any number of vacant squares diagonally, horizontally, or vertically;
The knight can jump over occupied squares and moves two spaces horizontally and one space vertically or vice versa, making an "L" shape. A knight in the middle of the board has eight squares to which it can move. Note that every time a knight moves, it changes square color.
Pawns have the most complex rules of movement:
A pawn can move forward one square, if that square is unoccupied. If it has not yet moved, the pawn has the option of moving two squares forward, if both squares in front of the pawn are unoccupied. A pawn cannot move backward.
When such an initial two square advance is made that puts that pawn horizontally adjacent to an opponent's pawn, the opponent's pawn can capture that pawn en passant as if it moved forward only one square rather than two, but only on the immediately subsequent move.
Pawns are the only pieces that capture differently than they move. They can capture an enemy piece on either of the two spaces adjacent to the space in front of them (i.e., the two squares diagonally in front of them), but cannot move to these spaces if they are vacant.
If a pawn advances all the way to its eighth rank, it is then promoted (converted or "queened") to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. In practice, the pawn is almost always promoted to a queen.
With the exception of the knight, pieces cannot jump over each other. One's own pieces ("friendly pieces") cannot be passed if they are in the line of movement, and a friendly piece can never replace another friendly piece. Enemy pieces cannot be passed, but they can be "captured". When a piece is captured (or taken), the attacking piece replaces the enemy piece on its square (en passant being the only exception). The captured piece is thus removed from the game and may not be returned to play for the remainder of the game.[1] The king cannot be captured, only put in check. If a player is unable to get the king out of check, checkmate results, with the loss of the game.
Chess games do not have to end in checkmate — either player may resign if the situation looks hopeless. Games also may end in a draw (tie). A draw can occur in several situations, including draw by agreement, stalemate, threefold repetition of a position, the fifty move rule, or a draw by impossibility of checkmate (usually because of insufficient material to checkmate).
Besides casual games without exact timing, chess is also played with a time control, mostly by club and professional players. If a player's time runs out before the game is completed, he automatically loses. The timing ranges from long games played up to seven hours to shorter rapid chess games lasting usually 30 minutes or one hour per game. Even shorter is blitz chess with a time control of three to fifteen minutes for each player and bullet chess (under three minutes).
The international rules of chess are described in more detail in the FIDE Handbook, section Laws of Chess

History

Chess originated in India,[3] where its early form in the 6th century was chaturanga, which translates as "four divisions of the military", infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots, represented respectively by pawn, knight, bishop and rook. In Persia around 600 the name became shatranj and the rules were developed further. Shatranj was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names. In Spanish "shatranj" was rendered as ajedrez and in Greek as zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king"). The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe.[4] Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos.[5]
Another theory, championed by David H. Li, contends that chess arose from the game xiangqi, or at least a predecessor thereof, existing in China since the 2nd century BC

Origins of the modern game (1450–1850)

Around 1200, rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe, and around 1475, several major changes rendered the game essentially as it is known today.[7] These modern rules for the basic moves had been adopted in Italy[8] and in Spain.[9] Pawns gained the option of advancing two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern abilities. This made the queen the most powerful piece; consequently modern chess was referred to as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess".[10] These new rules quickly spread throughout western Europe, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early nineteenth century.[11]
This was also the time when chess started to develop a corpus of theory. The oldest preserved printed chess book, Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez (Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess) by Spanish churchman Luis Ramirez de Lucena was published in Salamanca in 1497.[12] Lucena and later masters like Portuguese Pedro Damiano, Italians Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona, Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco or Spanish bishop Ruy López de Segura developed elements of openings and started to analyze simple endgames. In the eighteenth century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France. The two most important French masters were François-André Danican Philidor, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais who won a famous series of matches with the British master Alexander McDonnell in 1834.[13] Centers of chess life in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Café de la Régence in Paris[14] and Simpson's Divan in London.[15]
As the nineteenth century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824.[16] Chess problems became a regular part of nineteenth century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz, Josef Kling and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa published his and Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels (Handbook of Chess), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory

Birth of a sport (1850–1945)

The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and was won, surprisingly, by German Adolf Anderssen, relatively unknown at the time. Anderssen was hailed as the leading chess master and his brilliant, energetic—but from today's viewpoint strategically shallow—attacking style became typical for the time.[17] Sparkling games like Anderssen's Immortal game or Morphy's Opera game were regarded as the highest possible summit of the chess art.[18]
Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players. American Paul Morphy, an extraordinary chess prodigy, won against all important competitors, including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863. Morphy's success stemmed from a combination of brilliant attacks and sound strategy; he intuitively knew how to prepare attacks.[19] Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz later described how to avoid weaknesses in one's own position and how to create and exploit such weaknesses in the opponent's position.[20] In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading German master Johannes Zukertort in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship, and Steinitz the first champion. He lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger player, German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions It took a prodigy from Cuba, José Raúl Capablanca (World champion 1921—1927), who loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years until 1924. His successor was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player, who died as the World champion in 1946, having briefly lost the title to Dutch player Max Euwe in 1935, before regaining it two years later.[22]
Between the two world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-called hypermodernists like Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Réti. They advocated controlling the center of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, inviting opponents to occupy the center with pawns which become objects of attack.[23]
Since the end of nineteenth century, the number of annually held master tournaments and matches quickly grew. In 1914, the title of chess grandmaster was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who awarded it to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall. This tradition was later continued by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), founded in 1924 in Paris. In 1927, a World Champion title for women was established; the first to hold it was Czech-English master

Post-war era (1945 and later)

After the death of Alekhine, a new World Champion was sought in a tournament of elite players ruled by FIDE, who have, since then, controlled the title. The winner of the 1948 tournament, Russian Mikhail Botvinnik, started an era of Soviet dominance in the chess world. Until the end of the Soviet Union, there was only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer (champion 1972–1975).[25]
In the previous informal system, the World Champion decided which challenger he would play for the title and the challenger was forced to seek sponsors for the match. FIDE set up a new system of qualifying tournaments and matches. The world's strongest players were seeded into "Interzonal tournaments", where they were joined by players who had qualified from "Zonal tournaments". The leading finishers in these Interzonals would go on the "Candidates" stage, which was initially a tournament, later a series of knock-out matches. The winner of the Candidates would then play the reigning champion for the title. A champion defeated in a match had a right to play a rematch a year later. This system worked on a three-year cycle.
Botvinnik participated in championship matches over a period of fifteen years. He won the world championship tournament in 1948 and retained the title in tied matches in 1951 and 1954. In 1957, he lost to Vasily Smyslov, but regained the title in a rematch in 1958. In 1960, he lost the title to the Latvian prodigy Mikhail Tal, an accomplished tactician and attacking player. Botvinnik again regained the title in a rematch in 1961.
Following the 1961 event, FIDE abolished the automatic right of a deposed champion to a rematch, and the next champion, Armenian Tigran Petrosian, a genius of defense and strong positional player, was able to hold the title for two cycles, 1963–1969. His successor, Boris Spassky from Russia (1969–1972), was a player able to win in both positional and sharp tactical style The next championship, the so-called Match of the Century, saw the first non-Soviet challenger since World War II, American Bobby Fischer, who defeated his Candidates opponents by unheard-of margins and clearly won the world championship match. In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov when FIDE refused to meet his demands, and Karpov obtained the title by default. Karpov defended his title twice against Viktor Korchnoi and dominated the 1970s and early 1980s with a string of tournament successes.[27]
Karpov's reign finally ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player, Garry Kasparov. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world title matches between 1984 and 1990; Karpov never won his title back.[28]
In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke with FIDE to organize their own match for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess Association (PCA). From then until 2006, there were two simultaneous World Champions and World Championships: the PCA or Classical champion extending the Steinitzian tradition in which the current champion plays a challenger in a series of many games; the other following FIDE's new format of many players competing in a tournament to determine the champion. Kasparov lost his Classical title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
The FIDE World Chess Championship 2006 reunified the titles, when Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov and became the undisputed World Chess Champion.[29] In September 2007, Viswanathan Anand became the next champion by winning a championship tournament

Origins of chess

Origins of chess

The game of Chess has been attributed to the Indians both by the Persian people and by the Arabs.[1] The words for chess in Old Persian and Arabic are chatrang and shatranj respectively — terms derived from chaturanga in Sanskrit,[2] which literally means an army of four divisions.[3]
Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began taking shape.[4] This game was introduced to the Near East from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility.[3] Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road traders and others carried it to the Far East where it was transformed and assimilated into a game often played on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.[4] Chaturanga reached Europe through Persia, the Byzantine empire and the expanding Arabian empire.[5] Muslims carried chess to North Africa, Sicily, and Spain by the 10th century.[4]
The game was developed extensively in Europe, and by late 15th century, it had survived a series of prohibitions and Christian Church sanctions to almost take the shape of the modern game.[6] The modern times saw reliable references works,[7] competitive chess tournaments[8] and exciting new variants add to the popularity of the game,[8] further bolstered by reliable time mechanisms, effective rules[8] and charismatic players

India

The earliest precursor of modern chess is a game called Chaturanga, which flourished in India by the 6th century, and is the earliest known game to have two essential features found in all later chess variations — different pieces having different powers (which was not the case with Checkers and Go), and victory depended on the fate of one piece, the king of modern chess.[4] Other game pieces, often known as "chess pieces," uncovered in archaeological findings are considered as coming from other, distantly related, board games, which may even have boards of 100 squares or more.[4]
As early as the late 19th century, an idea originating mainly from the works of Captain Hiram Cox and Duncan Forbes indicated that a four handed game was the original form of chaturanga.[10] Other scholars have concluded that a two handed version probably existed before the four handed one and evolved later into many other versions, including the four handed version of chaturanga.[2]
In Sanskrit, "Chaturanga" literally means "having four limbs (or parts)" and in epic poetry often means army.[3] The name itself comes from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata.[4] Chaturanga was a battle simulation game[3] which faithfully rendered Indian military strategy of the time.[11] Initial gambling and dice aspects of the game — facing condemnation from both the Hindu and Muslim cultures — were removed as the game progressed and branched into newer games.[12]
Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8x8 board — sometimes with special markers — served as the main board for playing Chaturanga.[13] Other Indian boards included the 10X10 Dasapada and the 9X9 Saturankam.[13]
The Arab scholar Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī detailed the use of chess as a tool for military strategy, mathematics, gambling and even its vague association with astronomy in India and elsewhere.[1] Mas'ūdī notes that Ivory in India was chiefly used for the production of chess and backgammon pieces, and asserts that the game was introduced to Persia from India, along with the book Kelileh va Demneh, during the reign of emperor Nushirwan.[1]
A notable evolution of chaturanga was Shatranj (or chatrang), a popular two-player variant which resembled chaturanga and could be won either by either eliminating all of an opponent's pieces (except the king) or by capturing the king itself.[4] The initial positions of the pawns and horses did not change, but there were some regional and temporal alterations for the other pieces

Middle East

The Karnamak-i Ardeshir-i Papakan, a Pahlavi epical treatise about the founder of the Sassanid Persian Empire, mentions the game of chatrang as one of the accomplishments of the legendary hero, Ardashir I, founder of the Empire.[14] The oldest recorded game in chess history is a 10th century game played between a historian from Baghdad and a pupil.[5]
In the 11th century Shahnameh, Ferdowsi describes a Raja visiting from India who re-enacts the past battles on the chessboard.[1] A translation in English, based on the manuscripts in the British Museum, is given below:[14]
One day an ambassador from the king of Hind arrived at the Persian court of Chosroes, and after an oriental exchange of courtesies, the ambassador produced rich presents from his sovereign and amongst them was an elaborate board with curiously carved pieces of ebony and ivory.He then issues a challenge:"Oh great king, fetch your wise men and let them solve the mysteries of this game. If they succeed my master the king of Hind will pay tribute as an overlord, but if they fail it will be proof that the Persians are of lower intellect and we shall demand tribute from Iran."The courtiers were shown the board, and after a day and a night in deep thought one of them, Buzurjmihir, solved the mystery and was richly rewarded by his delighted sovereign.
The appearance of the chess pieces had altered greatly since the times of chaturanga, with ornate pieces and chess pieces depicting animals giving way to abstract shapes.[15] The Islamic sets of later centuries followed a pattern which assigned names and abstract shapes to the chess pieces as Islam forbids depiction of animals and human beings in art.[15] These pieces were usually made of simple clay and carved stone

East Asia

As a strategy board game played in China, chess is believed to have been derived from the Indian Chaturanga.[16] Chaturanga was transformed and assimilated into a game often placed on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.[4] The object of the Chinese variation is similar to Chaturanga, i.e. to capture the opponent's king, sometimes known as general.[16] Chinese chess also borrows elements from the game of Go, which was played in China since at least the 6th century BC.[16] Owing to the influence of Go, Chinese chess is played on the intersections of the lines on the board, rather than in the squares.[16] Chinese chess pieces are usually flat and resemble those used in checkers.[16]
Joseph Needham posits that "image-chess," a recreational game associated with divination, was developed in China and transmitted to India,[17] where it evolved into the form of modern military chess.[18] Needham notes that dice were transmitted to China from India,[19] and were used in the game of "image-chess."[17]
Another alternative theory contends that chess arose from Xiangqi or a predecessor thereof, existing in China since the 2nd century BC.[20] David H. Li, a retired accountant, professor of accounting and translator of ancient Chinese texts, hypothesizes that general Han Xin drew on the earlier game of Liubo to develop an early form of Chinese chess in the winter of 204 BC–203 BC.[20] The German chess historian Peter Banaschak points to the many inconsistencies in Li's theories while noting that the "Xuanguai lu," authored by the Tang Dynasty minister Niu Sengru (779-847) remains the first real source on Chinese chess.[21]
A prominent variant of chess in East Asia is the game of Shogi, transmitted from India to China and Korea before finally reaching Japan.[22] The two distinguishing features of Shogi are: 1) The captured pieces may be used by the captor and played as a part of the captor's forces, and 2) any pawn can capture in the normal, one square straight ahead move

Early History

A variation of chaturanga made its way to Europe through Persia, the Byzantine empire and the expanding Arabian empire.[5] Chess appeared in Southern Europe during the end of the first millennium, often introduced to new lands by conquering armies, such as the Norman Conquest of England.[6] Chess remained largely unpopular among the North European people — who could not relate to the abstract shapes — but started gaining popularity as soon as figurative pieces were introduced.[6]
The social value attached to the game — seen as a prestigious pastime associated with nobility and high culture — is clear by the expensive and exquisitely made chessboards of the medieval era.[23] The popularity of chess in the Western courtly society peaked between the 12th and the 15th centuries.[24] The game found mention in the vernacular and Latin language literature throughout Europe and many works were written on or about chess between the 12th and the 15th centuries.[24] Harold James Ruthven Murray divides the works into three distinct parts: the didactic works eg. Alexander of Neckham's De scaccis (approx. 1180 CE); works of morality like Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium sive super ludo scacchorum (Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess), written by Jacobus de Cessolis; and the works related to various chess problems, written largely after 1205 CE.[24] Chess terms, like check, were used by authors as a metaphor for various situationsChess was soon incorporated to Knighly style of life in Europe.[26] Peter Alfonsi, in his work Disciplina Clericalis, listed chess among the seven skills that a good knight must acquire.[26] Chess also became a subject of art during this period, with caskets and pendants decorated in various chess forms.[27] Queen Margaret of England's green and red chess sets — made of jasper and crystal — symbolized chess's position in royal art treasures.[25] Kings Henry I, Henry II and Richard I of England were chess patrons.[4] Other monarchs who gained similar status were Alfonso X of Spain and Ivan IV of Russia.[4]
Saint Peter Damian denounced the bishop of Florence in 1061 CE for playing chess even when aware of its evil effects on the society.[6] The bishop of Florence defended himself by declaring that chess involved skill and was therefore "unlike other games," similar arguments followed in the coming centuries.[6] Two separate incidents in 13th century London involving men of Essex resorting to violence resulting in death as an outcome of playing chess further caused sensation and alarm.[6] The growing popularity of the game — now associated with revelry and violence — alarmed the Church.[6]
The practice of playing chess for money became so widespread during the 13th century that Louis IX of France issued an ordinance against gambling in 1254 CE.[23] This ordinance turned out to be unenforceable and was largely neglected by the common public, and even the courtly society, which continued to enjoy the now prohibited chess tournaments uninterrupted.[23]
By the Mid 12th century, the pieces of the chess set were depicted as kings, queens, bishops, knights and men at arms.[28] Chessmen made of Ivory began to appear in North-West Europe, and ornate pieces of traditional knight warriors were used as early as the mid 13th century.[29] The initially nondescript pawn had now found association with the, pedes, pedinus,or the footman, which symbolized both infantry and loyal domestic service.[28]
The following table provides a glimpse of the changes in names and character of chess pieces as they transitioned from India through Persia to EuropeThe game, as played during the early middle ages, was slow with many games lasting for days.[6] Some variations in rules began to change the shape of the game in by 1300 CE.[32] A notable, but initially unpopular, change was the ability of the pawn to move two places in the first move instead of one.[32]
New alterations, made after 1475 CE, led to further evolution of the game: the queen — a powerful new piece — was introduced, leading to additional value being attached to the previously minor tactic of pawn promotion.[32] The war elephant of the chaturanga also evolved into the bishop, giving the piece more range.[32] This rise of "unwarlike" figures and a departure from the pure military symbolism prevalent in India and Persia may have bought these pieces closer to the court and ordinary household.[28] Furthermore, checkmate became easier and games could now be won using a smaller number of moves.[32]
The queen and bishop pieces remained relatively weak until the game reached an evolved form, very close to the modern form of chess, by the late 15th century.[6]
An Italian player, Gioacchino Greco, regarded as the one of the first true professionals of the game, authored an analysis of a number of composed games that illustrated two differing approaches to chess.[7] This influential work went to some extent in popularizing chess and demonstrated the many theories regarding gameplay and tactics
The first full work dealing with the various winning combinations was written by François-André Danican Philidor of France, regarded as the best chess player in the world for nearly 50 years, and published in the 18th century.[7] He wrote and published L'Analyze des échecs (Chess Analyzed), an influential work which appeared in more than 100 editions

Rise of the modern game

Competitive chess became visible in 1834, and the 1851 London Chess tournament raised concerns about the time taken by the players to deliberate their moves. [8] On recording time it was found that players often took hours to analyze moves and one player took as many as two hours and 20 minutes to think over a single move at the London tournament.[8] The following years saw the development of speed chess, five-minute chess and the most popular variant, a version allowing a bank of time to each player in which to play a previously agreed number of moves, eg. two hours for 30 moves.[8] In the final variant, the player who made the predetermined number of moves in the agreed time received additional time budget for his next moves.[8] Penalties for exceeding a time limit came in form of fines and forfeiture, since fines were easy to bear for professional players, forfeiture became the only effective penalty
In 1861 the first time limits, using sandglasses, were employed in a tournament match at Bristol, England.[8] The sandglasses were later replaced by pendulums.[8] Modern clocks, consisting of two parallel timers with a small button for a player to press after completing a move, were later employed to aid the players.[8] A tiny latch called a flag further helped settle arguments over players exceeding time limit at the turn of the 19th century.[8]
A Russian composer, Vladimir Korolkov, authored a work entitled "Excelsior" in 1958 in which the White side wins only by making six consecutive captures by a pawn.[9] Position analysis became particularly popular in the 19th century.[9] Many leading players were also accomplished analysts, including Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, and Vasily Smyslov and Jan Timman.[9] Digital clocks appeared in the

Correspondence chess

Correspondence chess

Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon. It is in contrast to over-the-board (OTB) chess, where the players sit at a chessboard at the same time (or perhaps play at the same time remotely).
Correspondence chess allows people or clubs who are geographically distant to play one another without meeting in person. These distant relationships are just one of the many distinct appeals of correspondence chess.[1] The length of a game played by correspondence can vary depending on the method used to transmit the moves: a game played via server or by email might last no more than a few days, weeks, or months, but a game played by post between players in different countries might last several years.

Structure of correspondence chess

Correspondence chess differs from over-the-board play in several respects. While players in OTB chess generally play one at a time (an exception being a simultaneous exhibition), correspondence players often have several games going at once. Tournament games are played concurrently, and some players may have more than one hundred games continuing at the same time.
Time limits in correspondence play are usually between 30 and 60 days for every 10 moves (plus transmission time in postal chess). This time allows for far deeper calculation, meaning that blunders can be less frequent. Certain forms of assistance, including books, chess databases and sometimes chess programs, are often allowed. Books and databases are almost universally acceptable, but organizations vary as to whether chess engine use is permitted. Hobby players new to the distinctive appeal of correspondence chess sometimes shun all assistance

Computer Assistance

The new phenomenon of computer assistance has altered the essence of correspondence chess and in addition to profound chess knowledge and analytical discipline, the ability to interpret and guide computer analysis has become important. Given that even players with poor chess knowledge can use the strongest computer programs to analyse their games, the gap between the beginner and master player has narrowed in recent years. However, the influence of computer assistance remains controversial in both official and casual play, and consensus on the issue of whether to allow computer aid is still lacking.
Also at stake is human supremacy over computer chess programs; some argue that a chess program — if left alone — is no match for a top-level correspondence player. An interesting parallel match between correspondence chess grandmaster Arno Nickel and six computer programs on the now defunct Chessfriend server ended +1=3-2. Nickel also played a two-game match against Hydra, currently the strongest chess machine, winning 2-0. In the rematch, the first game was drawn. The second game has been postponed because of the parties' schedules and server problems. Arno Nickel played in the final of the second CSS/PAL Freestyle (see Advanced Chess) on Playchess, becoming the only player to obtain a winning position against the tournament winner Hydra Syclla, reaffirming his "anti-Hydra" status. He eventually lost the game because of time trouble in the revised shorter time-control

Regulatory bodies of correspondence chess

Correspondence chess tournaments are usually played under the auspices of an official regulatory body, most importantly International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF), which is affiliated with FIDE, the international chess organization. However, the ICCF, which organizes postal and email events, is not the only organization involved in correspondence chess. There are numerous national and regional bodies for postal chess, as well as a number of organisations devoted to organize email play[2]. However it should be noted that groups other than the ICCF are not sanctioned by FIDE.
The ICCF awards the titles International Master, Senior International Master and International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster — these are equivalent to similar titles awarded by FIDE for over-the-board chess. The ICCF also runs the World Correspondence Chess Championships. Because these events can last a long time, they may overlap: for instance, in February 2005 Joop van Oosterom was declared winner of the eighteenth Championship (which began in June 2003), though the winner of the seventeenth Championship (which began in March 2002) had not yet been determined.
Up until 2004, ICCF correspondence chess was played only via email and postal mail. For playing by these two forms of transmission, the ICCF developed their own game notation, known as the ICCF Numeric notation, especially for the purpose of ICCF correspondence chess.
In recent years, the use of increasingly powerful chess programs have brought forth new challenges for organizations like the ICCF and the U.S. Chess Federation, necessitating sometimes controversial decisions on the admissibility of such programs in official correspondence play.[3]
Moreover, the emergence of the Internet has brought new opportunities for correspondence chess, not all of which are organized by official bodies. Casual correspondence chess includes correspondence play initiated through correspondence chess servers and games played between individuals who meet and play on their own. Casual correspondence play does not lead to official ratings, though some chess servers will calculate ratings for the players based on results on that server

Types of correspondence chess

There are three main types of correspondence chess, with server based correspondence chess becoming the most popular form in the world today, with major correspondence servers becoming as large and popular as the online blitz chess servers

Server-based Correspondence Chess

Correspondence chess servers are usually database-driven and carry with them a web-based interface for submitting moves to the database. But they do create the possibility of facilitating any method of transmission, as long as the transmitted moves are audited within the server's database.
Server fees vary. Most casual servers use a yearly charging model, whereby players can play as many tournaments or games as they want all year round. Also more casual servers allow the use of nicknames, and have a real-time rating system which often adjusts a player's rating after each rated game. Casual servers also tend to have a wide range of facilities, such as online games databases, social and chess improvement forums, teams, and player homepages. More traditionally based correspondence chess servers often charge per tournament and still force the use of real names, which is arguably a very controversial thing to do in the modern world of online hackers.
The International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) closely cooperates with the world chess organization FIDE. All ICCF titles, championships and ratings are recognised by FIDE

Email based correspondence chess

There are organisations devoted to organising email play. But email play is gradually declining in popularity due to issues such as email viruses, the possibility of opponents claiming they have not received moves, and similar impediments. Many email players are abandoning it in favor of server based chess

Postal (Snail Mail) correspondence chess

There are organisations who use traditional "snail mail" to facilitate moves between players. This form of correspondence chess was arguably superseded by email-based correspondence chess, which offers much cheaper play per game — each move usually delivered free by email and also instantaneously. But email-based chess itself has arguably been superseded by server based correspondence chess, where usually the interface to a chess server is a web-based interface. Traditional postal correspondence organizations, such as the International Correspondence Chess Association and the United States Chess Federation , have added email and server-based options to their correspondence play.[4]
It should be noted that correspondence chess servers can have any interface to submit moves to it — they are like a virtual "bank", and the method of transmission is less important, as long as the move transactions are audited into the "bank". For example, if carrier pigeons carried moves to a place where their moves were scanned in, those moves could be entered into the correspondence chess server

Over-the-board players who also play correspondence chess

Although nowadays the strongest correspondence players are specialists, a number of notable players in over-the-board (OTB) chess have in the past played postal games during their chess career. Olga Rubtsova won both the world OTB and correspondence championships for women. Former world correspondence champions Yakov Estrin, Alberic O'Kelly de Galway and Viacheslav Ragozin were all OTB Grandmasters, and C.J.S. Purdy and Mikhail Umansky were OTB International Masters. Players who have received the GM title in both fields include Ulf Andersson, Igor Bondarevsky, Aivars Gipslis, Curt Hansen, Jonny Hector, Jānis Klovāns, Olita Rause(WGM), Lothar Schmid and Duncan Suttles. Correspondence GMs Janos Balogh, Olaf Barda, Jean Hebert, Jonathan Penrose and Richard Polaczek are also OTB International Masters, and OTB GM Alexander Tolush was a correspondence IM. Correspondence GM Martin Kreuzer is an FM in OTB. Paul Keres, an Estonian sometimes regarded as the strongest player never to become world champion, played many games of correspondence chess, apparently because he had difficulty finding players in his native country anywhere near strong enough to give him a decent game. OTB world champions Alexander Alekhine and Max Euwe also played. Ulf Andersson also achieved very high ratings in both ICCF and FIDE, remaining in the FIDE Top 100 unto June 2002 and consistently ranked second on ICCF. Andrei Sokolov is another OTB GM who has recently taken up email chess.

List of chess games

This is a list of notable Chess games sorted chronologically.
Bowdler - Conway, London, 1788, Thomas Bowdler offers the first example of the famous double rook sacrifice;
The Immortal game between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky (1851);
The Evergreen game between Adolf Anderssen and Jean Dufresne (1852);
The opera game between Paul Morphy and two allies, the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard (1858);
Lasker - Bauer, Amsterdam, 1889, the first example of the famous double bishop sacrifice;
Levitsky - Marshall, 1912, widely considered one of the greatest queen sacrifices ever played;
Bogoljubov - Alekhine, Hastings 1922 was called the greatest game of chess ever played by Irving Chernev : "Alekhine's subtle strategy involves manoeuvres which encompass the entire chessboard as a battlefield. There are exciting plots and counterplots. There are fascinating combinations and brilliant sacrifices of Queens and Rooks. There are two remarkable promotions of Pawns and a third in the offing, before White decides to capitulate." (The Chess Companion, Chernev, Faber & Faber Ltd, 1970)
The Immortal Zugzwang Game between Fritz Sämisch and Aron Nimzowitsch, Copenhagen 1923;
The Polish Immortal, features Glucksberg vs. Najdorf (circa 1930). Black sacrifices all 4 minor pieces for victory;
The Peruvian Immortal (1934), sees Peruvian master Esteban Canal demolish his amateur opponent with the sacrifice of 2 rooks and queen;
The Pearl of Zandvoort. Savielly Tartakower gave this name to the decisive game of the Max Euwe v. Alexander Alekhine 1935 World Championship Match.
The Game of the Century between Bobby Fischer and Donald Byrne (1956);
The Immortal losing game occurred in 1957 between Bogdan Sliwa and David Bronstein. Black has a lost game but sets some elegant traps in attempting to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat;
The Octopus Knight, game 16 of the 1985 World Chess Championship match. Garry Kasparov as black gets a dominating knight (called an "Octopus knight" by Raymond Keene) on d3 against Anatoly Karpov.
Deep Blue - Kasparov, 1996, Game 1, the first game in which a chess-playing computer defeated a reigning world champion using normal time controls (1996);
Deep Blue - Kasparov, 1997, Game 6, the last game of the 1997 rematch, which Deep Blue won, making it the first computer to defeat a world champion in a match over several games;
Kasparov versus The World, in which the reigning world champion played, via the Internet, against the entire rest of the world in consultation (1999);
Kasparov - Topalov, Wijk aan Zee, 1999, rook sacrifice with a 15+ moves forced sacrificial combination. One of the most commented chess games ever, with extensive press coverage.

Seirawan Chess: The Advantages

The idea of adding pieces to chess is hardly new. "Chancellor chess", which introduced a rook-knight on a 9x9 board, was proposed in 1889 by Ben Foster, an American. The rook-knight (as the "Centaur") apparently dates back to 1617. The bishop-knight has a long pedigree as well, and in the 1920s Cuban World Champion Jose Raoul Capablanca proposed "Capablanca chess", adding both pieces (the "Chancellor" and the "Archbishop") on a 10x10 board.The motivation behind all the proposed reforms of chess have been the same - rather than becoming a test of skill, imagination and creativity, chess had become a matter of knowledge and technique. Capablanca's pessimistic view that chess was "played out" some 80 years ago was shown by the subsequent development of chess to be premature and unjustified, although in retrospect Capablanca was prescient and his views were hardly deserving of the ridicule they received. The feeling that chess was played too much by rote has been shared by many players for many years. For example, Capablanca was quoted in the Charleston Gazette on February 12, 1928: "In chess today everything is known to great players. There are no new moves, no new tactics to consider. If the game is to grow it will have to be modified."With the advances and elaboration of opening theory and the advent of the internet, databases and chess-playing computer engines, Capablanca's intuition has been vindicated, just as it has been in so many of his games. At the highest level, new moves are seen only after 20, 25 or more theoretical moves are played, if they are seen at all. A player who knows the theory of an opening will beat a player who doesn't. Preparation and memorization count for more than skill and ability. Players no longer have to work things out, even before the game - computers will do that and the player's job is to memorize the results.Many players, especially younger players, quit chess not because they no longer enjoy playing, but because there is so much emphasis on studying and memorization that they can't afford the time to keep up with those few players who do study intensely. For kids, chess becomes too much like school, and for adults chess becomes too much like work. From being a interesting, challenging and social game, it becomes a burden.Prohibiting adjournments (so that computer analysis can't be used for ongoing games), faster time controls in tournaments (to pressure players into making mistakes) and other stopgap measures can't fully revive chess. What is needed is something new, to put players on their own resources again and allow them to experience the joy of discovering new aspects to an ancient game.Capablanca almost had it right, but the variations of chess proposed to date have had the significant drawback of requiring an expanded board. This creates several problems. From the theoretical point of view, the size of the board affects the relative value of the pieces, the most obvious example being that a larger board decreases the power of the short-range knight and king relative to the other pieces. Pawns also can't come to grips with the opposing forces as readily, and the pawn structures familiar to experienced players disappear. Conceptually, an expanded board throws out the baby with the bathwater.From the practical point of view, an expanded board means that existing boards become obsolete and have to be replaced. In addition, more pawns are needed. This makes upgrading existing sets much more cumbersome and expensive, and creates an unnecessary barrier to the acceptance of the improvement."Seirawan chess" does not require a new set or board - only four additional pieces. The game starts as a normal chess game. The players will not be disoriented. But the placement of the pieces on squares vacated by the existing pieces changes the game and creates innumerable possibilities which render all existing opening theory open to reexamination and opens up many new possibilities as well. Players who understand the principles of opening play will do well, while players who rely primarily on memorizing variations will find themselves in trouble. For the foreseeable future, computers won't be part of the game and human thought will once again be essential to understanding the game. We won't know all the answers, whether in the opening, middle game or endgame.


THE CHESS PORTAL

The starting point for this link collection has been that it should be easy to navigate. Therefore I have created different categories and subcategories and sorted the sites in them, which sometimes is difficult. It is not always very easy to categorize a site.
I have commented on every link. You should not have to click through all links in order to see if there is something useful. The extent of the comment is sometimes directly related to the degree of my interest of the site in question. In some cases my comments might be noncommital. Furthermore I have sometimes arranged that a site with different functions to be sorted in several categories, so that the visitor will not miss it.
I have not had the ambition to compete with the most extensive link collections on the net, as for example Clink´s link collection and that of Chessopolis, in spite of the fact that this link collection starts with about 700 links* (of which some intentionally are duplicates). There are other things in life than chess. The intention with this link collection is simply to function as a portal, a gateway, that it shall work as a guide to the best and the most interesting in chess on the Internet.
I have also visited all the websites, which are registered in this link collection. The degree of penetration varies of course. I am grateful for all comments on The Chess Portal and I will appreciate all suggestions on new, interesting links. I plan to update The Chess Portal every fortnight.

What is Coffee Chinese Chess

Coffee Chinese Chess is a Java applet (written in the Java programming language) for multi-purposes of Chinese Chess: a real game program for playing (you can play against a computer or human) or practicing opening books and endgames; a game viewer for studying / reviewing any previous games; a board picture viewer of Chinese Chess (with much reduced download). It also provides many functions as a normal program.
Additionally, you could customize its appearances and abilities into a totally new one for your home pages.

1.No installation, ready to run anywhere and any computer
The Cafe Chinese Chess software is an applet. So it could be run without having to first download and install, as well as worrying about your computer platform. The only thing you need is a normal web browser. Just open a home page which embeds this software and it will be ready for you.

2. Now, you can play Chinese chess on the WWW
Unlike many pictures of Chinese chess games, this software can be interactive. It is easy for your readers to follow a game from beginning till end by clicking a button and the happening can be seen directly. Additionally, more than a viewer of games, it is a real Chinese chess program. You can play against a computer (some levels are not easy to defeat).
With increasing CPU speeds, the Java applets are becoming more competitive with platform specific applications.

3. Very small, but full features
The software is very tiny (around 27 kilobyte). It is only two times as large as a gif picture of game board (and much smaller than any family's photo). As a result, the time to download via Internet will be considerably short.
Even though very small, the software provides many of the functions you are probably already familiar with, such as setting to play against a computer or human, undo, redo, reset, choice of strong (level) of computer, move list, and so on. The software also has a large build-in opening book (145 openings).

4. Economic and effective
After the first download (very quickly), any other appearances of this program need not to be downloaded again (it means free). If you want to introduce more than two board pictures, it is more effective to use this program for some reason: reducing the download times; easily setting up without any graphic skill or tools. Furthermore, your work in next update is very easy - upload a small text file for new game.

5. Flexible
The software allows easy customization. It could display in totally different ways (one program, many appearances). You can also set up sound, choose difficulty levels, change the kinds of notation, decide the game input methods (by setting parameters or by reading from text files). You can see there are some ways for doing the same work - all for your convenience. There are many parameters which help you to choose the fittest display / program abilities / comfortable for your needs.

The chess problem of the day

Welcome on Bruno's Chess Problem of The Day. As its name indicates it, you will find here, every day, a new chess problem. You will find also a big chess problems archive, chess news, chess articles, ChessMasters games in PGN and of course The chess directory.
To help you to direct you on Bruno's Chess Problem, all the sections are described below. Have a good visit! Do you spend your day looking for logic puzzles, free chess strategies or tactics? Come on, visit my site and find lot of free chess games. Visit this site daily before or after work and try to solve free online chess games.

The chess problem of the day

Today a checkmate in 2 [ I.Kisis, 3rd Pr., Magyar Sakkelet, 1974 ]. Try to solve this problem of the day. If you do not find the solution, return tomorrow and choose Yesterday in the menu.
For each problem, a group of * indicates his difficulty. Only one means a very simple problem. Our most difficult chess problems have six *. Today, the checkmate is rated: **. Whatever you play chess online or offline, chess strategy is needed, but don't forget tactics.
Do you like my chess problems? You cannot connect you every day to solve my free checkmates problems? You will find here our 10 days archive for your pleasure and to help you improve your chess tactic. Improve this skill with my free online chess games puzzles.

The chess problems archive

Do you want more? All the 1172 checkmates, from mate in one to mate in six, I had published from 2000 to 2003 on Bruno's Chess Problem of the day are available online. Don't miss this big chess problem database. You could browse it by date I published it here or you could use the advanced search feature.
You are bored with the black and white chessboard! You should select one of my enhanced chess sets: many sizes, colors, or the java applet to move pieces... If you want a new chess set drop me a note with the contact form, I will study it.

All chess news

You should read it every day to know what happens in the chess world. I compile for you several chess news providers. So do not hesitate! With only one page you will know all the latest chess news.

Chess Articles

This chess article section will help you to improve your chess strategies and your chess knowledge. I write some of its myself and find others on internet and published its here with the author agreement.

Download PGN games

These thousands games of chess masters will help you to progress. Discover the strategies of the Chess Masters. Find your way in the dark world of the chess openings.
All the games are in PGN format, and sort by famous chess players and eco code.

The chess directory

You can find much things on Bruno Chess Problem but of course not all. Also, I offer you a directory of other sites, classified by categories: chess shops, play on line, chess improve... You will find also other non chess sites.

Play with chess openings

Do you want something else, try Easy MEMO - THE Concentration Game. You will find a lot of advanced features with this powerful memory game and all its free add-ons. There is a chess dedicated add-on. Download it and play with famous chess openings.