“Checkmate!” is a word we hear or say when we play chess. Chess is a very classic game played worldwide using six types of 32 pieces divided by black and white on an 8×8 check pattern board. The main goal is to capture the opponent’s king (FIDE General Assembly, 2023).
How to play chess
First, after you set the chess board into starting position, the player with a white piece starts first. In your turn, you can mostly move only one piece at a time.
And each of the six types of pieces: the pawn, the bishop, the rook, the knight, the queen, and the king All of them have different rules for moving. Also, chess has some special rules like the pawn’s first move, castling, en passant, and promotions (FIDE General Assembly, 2023).
The history of chess
The origin of chess starts in 6th-century India. In those days, it was called chaturanga. Chaturanga is different when we compare it to chess these days. The starting position was different; the kings were not facing each other. The movement was different; the queen, bishop, and pawn then were different than they are now. The rules were different; there was no stalemate (draw), so there must be a winner and a loser (Soltis, 2023). After that, the game started to change little by little for a long time. Since the 15th century, the rules of chess have been almost stable. The movements of the pawn, the bishop, and the queen changed to today’s form. In the 19th century, the chess world underwent big changes. The chess clock made the players think quickly, giving more thrills and being less boring to the viewers. Before the chess clock, one chess play could take days and days. (Stapczynski, 2023)
Chess in the present
Nowadays, chess has become regulated and formalized by FIDE (the International Chess Federation), making it more fair and standard for everyone. Online chess, where you can play chess anywhere in the world, is getting more popular since COVID has struck the world. Also, because of the growth of computer technology, the computer program that analyzes and makes the move recommendation, called the “chess engine,” has become a double-edged sword. Since it is very useful for self-training and debriefing, it is also used as a cheat in online chess and even offline chess. You might wonder how they even cheat in offline chess. In 2019, chess grandmaster Rausis Igors cheated in the tournament in Strasbourg while in play by using a chess engine on his phone at the toilet. After that, FIDE was stripped of his GM titles and given a 6-year ban. (Stapczynski, 2023) Yolander et al. (2019)
The future of chess
Since chess has become too normalized and almost every movement and opening has been mathematically researched by chess engines and countless amounts of chess archive, chess has become no longer fun for top players and has become a mathematical problem. So in 1996, the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer invented a new variation of chess called chess 960. The chess 960 is the new way to play chess. The difference between normal chess and chess 960 is in the starting position. Chess 960 has a random number of 960 kinds of starting positions, which makes players unprepared for openings. There are some rules that make the starting position available for the other rules to be available (chess.com, n.d.).
II.2.1: The king is placed somewhere between the two rooks
II.2.2 The bishops are placed on opposite-colored squares
II.2.3: The black pieces are placed opposite the white pieces.
(FIDE, 2023)
References
Anon, (2023). 2023 Laws of Chess – FIDE Rules Commission. [online] Available at: https://rcc.fide.com/2023-laws-of-chess/ [Accessed 15 April 2023].
chess.com (n.d.). Chess960 & Fischer Random Chess Variant. [online] Chess.com. Available at: https://www.chess.com/terms/chess960 [Accessed 15 April 2023].
Doggers, P. (2020). Banned For Cheating, Igors Rausis Enters Tournament Under Different Name. [online] Chess.com. Available at: https://www.chess.com/news/view/igors-rausis-name-isa-kasimi [Accessed 15 April. 2023].
ratings.fide.com. (n.d.). Rausis, Igors. [online] Available at: http://ratings.fide.com/profile/11600098 [Accessed 15 April 2023].
Soltis, A.E. (2020). Chess | Game | Britannica. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/chess [Accessed 14 April 2023].
Stapczynski, C. (2023). History of Chess | From Early Stages to Magnus. [online] Chess.com. Available at: https://www.chess.com/article/view/history-of-chess [Accessed 15 April 2023].
Yolander, M., Mr, P., Dongre, R., Rajesh, M. and Joshi, H. (2019). FIDE ETHICS COMMISSION FIDE ETHICS COMMISSION FIDE ETHICS COMMISSION FIDE ETHICS COMMISSION. [online] Available at: https://ethics.fide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Ethics-case-8_2019-Decision.pdf [Accessed 15 April 2023].
