Chess History

Chess History
Chess is believed to be derived from the Indian game chaturanga sometime before the 7th century.
Chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of the Eastern strategy games xiangqi (Chinese
chess), janggi (Korean chess), and shogi (Japanese chess). Chess reached Europe by the
9th century, due to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The pieces assumed their current powers in
Spain in the late 15th century; the modern rules were standardized in the 19th century.
The first generally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886.
Since 1948, the World Championship has been regulated by the Fédération Internationale des
Échecs (FIDE), the game's international governing body
Correspondence Chess World Championship
World Computer Chess Championship
The IBM computer Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion
in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997.
Fischer Random Chess

The first modern chess tournament was organized by Howard Staunton, a leading English chess
player, and was held in London in 1851. It was won by the German Adolf Anderssen, who was
hailed as the leading chess master. His brilliant, energetic attacking style was typical for the
time.[30][31] Sparkling games like Anderssen's Immortal Game and Evergreen
Game or Morphy's "Opera Game" were regarded as the highest possible summit of the chess art
Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz beginning in 1873 described how to avoid weaknesses in one's own
position and how to create and exploit such weaknesses in the opponent's position.[34] The scientific
approach and positional understanding of Steinitz revolutionized the game. Steinitz was the first to
break a position down into its components.[35] Before Steinitz, players brought their queen out early,
did not completely develop their other pieces, and mounted a quick attack on the opposing king,
which either succeeded or failed. The level of defense was poor and players did not form any deep
plan.[36] 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. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger player, the
German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of
any world champion.[
1914 the title of chess Grandmaster was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to
Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall, but this is a disputed claim.
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. He
briefly lost the title to Dutch player Max Euwe in 1935 and regained it two years later
After the death of Alekhine, a new World Champion was sought. FIDE, which has controlled the title
since then (except for one interruption), ran a tournament of elite players. 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).[41] Botvinnik revolutionized opening theory. Previously Black strove
for equality, to neutralize White's first-move advantage. As Black, Botvinnik strove for the initiative
from the beginning.[42] In the previous informal system of World Championships, the current
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, and later a series of knockout
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 operated 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 23-year-old 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 player renowned for his defensive and
positional skills, held the title for two cycles, 1963–1969. His successor, Boris Spassky from Russia
(champion 1969–1972), won games in both positional and sharp tactical style.[43] 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 did not meet his demands, and Karpov obtained the title
by default.[44] Fischer modernized many aspects of chess, especially by extensively preparing
openings.[45]
Karpov defended his title twice against Viktor Korchnoi and dominated the 1970s and early 1980s
with a string of tournament successes.[46] Karpov's reign finally ended in 1985 at the hands of Garry
Kasparov, another Soviet player from Baku, Azerbaijan. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world
title matches between 1984 and 1990; Karpov never won his title back.[47] 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, and 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.[48] The World Chess Championship 2006, in which Kramnik beat the FIDE World
Champion Veselin Topalov, reunified the titles and made Kramnik the undisputed World Chess
Champion.[49] In September 2007, he lost the title to Viswanathan Anand of India, who won
the championship tournament in Mexico City. Anand defended his title in the revenge match of
2008,[50] 2010 and 2012. In 2013, Magnus Carlsen beat Anand in the 2013 World Chess
Championship.[51] He defended his title the following year, again against Anand. Carlsen confirmed
his title in 2016 against the Russian Sergey Karjakin[52] and in 2018 against the American Fabiano
Caruana,[53] in both occasions by a rapid tiebreaker match after equality in 12 games of classical time
control, and is the reigning world champion.
Boden’s mate
The current World Chess Champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway.[94] The reigning Women's World
Champion is Hou Yifan from China.[95] The world's highest rated female player, Judit Polgár, has
never participated in the Women's World Chess Championship, instead preferring to compete with
the leading men and maintaining a ranking among the top male players.

Chess History

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