ORIGINS
Chess is believed to have originated in Eastern India around the 6th century. The game was known as the chaturaṅga then, a game characterized by four divisions – infantry, calvary, elephants, and chariotry. The earliest evidence of chess is found in the nearby Sassanid Persia around 600, where the game was known as the chatrang. It was then named the shatranj by the Muslim World after Islam conquest of Persia. This game has seen its fair share of traveling. The modern day chess was modified around the 14oos by the Europeans, after Moors introduced it to the Iberian Peninsula. Modern day rules of the Chess game had been adopted by the Europeans, namely Italians and Spanish. The oldest known chess manual was in Arabic and dates to 840–850, written by al-Adli ar-Rumi (800–870), a renowned Arab chess player, titled Kitab ash-shatranj (Book of the chess). Writings about the theory of how to play chess began to appear in the 15th century. The romantic era was characterized by opening gambits (sacrificing pawns or even pieces), daring attacks, and brazen sacrifices. Many elaborate and beautiful but unsound move sequences called ‘combinations’ were played by the masters of the time. The game was played more for art than theory. In the 18th century, the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France. As the 19th 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.
RULES
One player plays with white pieces, and the other player plays with black pieces. Each player has sixteen pieces in the beginning of the game: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns.
Movements
Rook (Castle)
The rook moves in a straight line, horizontally or vertically. The rook may not jump over other pieces, that is: all squares between the square where the rook starts its move and where the rook ends its move must be empty.
Bishop
The bishop moves in a straight diagonal line. The bishop may also not jump over other pieces.
Knight (Horse)
The knight makes a move that consists of first one step in a horizontal or vertical direction, and then one step diagonally in an outward direction. The knight jumps: it is allowed that the first square that the knight passes over is occupied by an arbitrary piece.
King
The king is the most important piece of the game, and moves must be made in such a way that the king is never in check. The king moves one square in any direction, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. There is one special type of move, made by a king and rook simultaneously, called castling.
Queen
The queen has the combined moves of the rook and the bishop.
Pawn
The pawn only moves one direction, forward. When a pawn has not moved at all, i.e., the pawn is still at the second row (from the owning players view), the pawn may make a double step straight forward.
SPORT
Chess was never regarded as a sport until the late 1800s, and the first official chess world championship match was between Johann Zukertort (Europe) and Wilhelm Steinitz (USA). Garry Kasparov is the greatest chess player of al time, he held the world title from 1985 until 2000 when he lost to Vladimir Kramnik. Despite the loss, he continued to rank very highly until his retirement from the sport in 2005. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen, reigning since 2013 to date. So far chess is recognized by over 100 countries as a sport but the debate to have it in the olympics is still going on. In fact, chess is amongst the sports that are yet to be shortlisted for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. We hope for the best…
STRATEGIES
Some of the most popular chess strategies include the following:-
Fool’s Mate
Scholar’s Mate
Smothered Mate
Hippopotamus Mate
Blackburn Shilling Mate
Legall’ Mate
King’s/Queen’s Gambit
Sea Cadet Mate
in fact, the list is endless, you get the idea…
EDUCATIONAL TOOL
Smart kids play chess or chess makes kids smart, that is the question. Some educators strongly believe chess is an essesntial learning tool and have incorporated it into the classroom. Chess has huge benefits for childhood development like life skills, thinking abilities, and self-esteem. Smart kids find the game intriguing as it give them a chance to excercise their strategic and analytical abilities. Educators across the globe swear by it and have mad eit a permanent feature in their school curriculum.
Chess is still the biggest selling board game of all time, whether we can play the game of not, it is one that game that is quite impossible to ignore. Go ahead and get your chess on!
Playground 