Chess

Many people who play chess for fun dismiss it as a mere game. Those who devote their lives to it insist that it's a science.

Serious players insist chess is neither a game nor a science. They get underneath it and find at its center art.

"Gaining proficiency in chess generally aids in math skills and there is a clear link between chess skill and music skill," said Dave Larsen, a Longwood chess player. "Chess demonstrates the fact that there is both art and science involved in chess ability."

History

Early chess pieces

Chess probably originated in India, 5 - 7 A.D., but not in the form we recognize today. During the sixth century, it was played using a king, rook (from the Indian word "rukh," meaning a fighting animal and depicted as an elephant or camel), knight (usually a horse), bishop (depicted as a ship) and four pawns (foot soldiers).

"Chaturanga," from the Indian "chatur" (four) and "anga" (part of an army), was played by four players, each with eight colored pieces arranged on a checkerboard of 64 squares. Moves were determined by throwing a die, allowing an element of chance that is authentic to war, but preventing the battle of pure intellect into which the game has evolved.

Many variants of the game were tried. Some were discarded immediately. Some variants had an enthusiastic following and then died out. Others stayed and replaced the game as it was once known.

Today, chess has remarkable differences from the original game. In different parts of the world, different chess games are played. These also are believed to have originated from the same Indian or Arabic concept. The most played variants are Shogi in Japan, and Xiangqi in China. Additionally, these games and the Western European chess have many variants, played by people who want something different for a change.

Chess, as we know it today, was invented around 1498 A.D., according to the South Carolina Chess Association. In an earlier version of the game , the queen moved only one square diagonally, so she could reach 32 squares at a slow pace. The medieval chess bishop could leap over pieces like a knight, and moved exactly two steps. The bishop was a weak piece that could reach only eight squares of the board in a game. It was considered to be roughly equivalent to the pawn in value.

In the late 15th century, the queen was granted a huge increase in power, because she was given its modern far-ranging move. The bishop trebled in power by receiving its modern move, becoming the rough equal of the knight. Both changes occurred at the same time, so that a dynamic Renaissance chess emerged as a rival to the medieval game.

The identity of the inventors of modern chess is a mystery; the development of the game probably happened in Italy, France or Spain around 1475 A.D. to 1485 A.D. Modern chess was a product of the same historical period that produced the printing press and the discovery of America. It was an exciting time in which the medieval dogmas of the centuries were being examined by fresh eyes — a society feeling the power of new discovery and invention.

Culture

FIDE Chess tournament in Lybia.

Chess players are often viewed as an aristocratic group of people who play the game in cigar smoke-filled clubs. The reality is farther from the truth.

The 19th century saw chess move from the aristocratic tables of palaces into the mainstream. It was promoted in P.T. Barnum fashion by exotic masters who, in newly formed chess clubs, would play several games simultaneously -- blindfolded! The game was popularized with international tournaments, the earliest of which were often between France and Spain.

The resurgence of chess began in 1972 during the extraordinary series of 21 games played between Bobby Fischer of the United States and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union in Reykjavík, Iceland. Fischer emerged from the matches as world champion.

Kasparov, the current grand master and unbeaten during the previous decade, led a secession of grand masters from the established Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) to the Professional Chess Association (PCA) four years ago in search of greater publicity and financial rewards. Chess, as does boxing, has two world champions. The FIDE champion, by default, is Anatoly Karpov, who succeeded Fischer as world champion in 1975. Just to give you an idea of the exclusivity of this group, chess associations rank players from novice through several intermediate levels to expert, master, senior master, international master and grand master. The grand master rank is determined by a complex arrangement of scoring based on tournament performances. There are fewer than 200 grand masters in the world.

People from all walks of life enjoy chess. There are many public parks where children, white collar and blue collar workers alike meet to enjoy the game. Anyone taking a walk through Washington Square Park in New York City's Greeenwich Village would attest to that. Hunched over their stone chess tables, players move their plastic chess pieces back and forth. Some players conquer and others lick their wounds.

Central Florida has more than 65 chess clubs, according to DrivelBox.com. The Florida Chess Association has more than 1,150 members.

For chess, all you need is the curiosity to solve a complex puzzle: how do I defeat my opponent?

Computers and chess

FIDE logo.

The Internet brings people together. That is also true of chess players.

FIDE sponsors chess tournaments around the world. Get information on these tournaments at their Web site, www.fide.com. Some chess programs allow you to view FIDE chess tournaments through online services.

Many computer chess games offer an online service to play other owners of that same game online. Some games are distributed online and offer only online game play, such as BlitzIn.

BlitzIn was created and maintained by the Internet Chess Club. It is purely an online chess game, which lets you play other people online, and allows you to see live international chess tournaments. As the tournament players or grand masters make their moves, you see their respective pieces on your screen.

There are many computer chess programs on the market, including Chessmaster from Ubisoft, which do a fine job teaching the novice and challenging the expert. The Chessmaster series offers almost every classic and modern chess tournament library, along with commentary and training by Josh Waitzkin, the chess master whose life is the basis of the movie Searching For Bobby Fischer.

What is it good for?

Civil war image

In nearly 30 nations around the world, including Venezuela, Iceland and Russia, chess is integrated into the country's scholastic curriculum. According to the American Foundation for Chess, the game can give improved cognitive and critical thinking skills.

According to Dave Larsen, a Longwood chess player, "Chess is a tremendous stimulation for the mind in the guise of a game. It has been proven time and again that interest in chess, even without great proficiency, stimulates learning in other areas for elementary school children."

Can you become a better problem solver by playing chess?

According to Patrick Cockburn from Counter Punch, a Kabul businessman stated that the Taliban believed chess was a form of gambling and distracted people from saying their prayers.

For five years, Afghanistan had been the only place in the world where playing chess, always popular in the country, had been illegal. Chess players, fearful of denunciation, had to meet in secret.

Perhaps the Taliban believed that the game gave players strategic, military insight that could be used against their regime. That's exactly what some researchers are probing. Teams at the Swedish National Defence College in Stockholm and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation in Australia are studying the game afresh in an attempt to understand better how to gain military success.

On the face of it, the bloodless, low-tech game of chess might seem to bear little resemblance to modern warfare. "But it resembles real war in many respects," maintains Jan Kuylenstierna, one of the Swedish researchers. "Chess involves a struggle of will, and it contains what has been termed the essentials of fighting - to strike, to move and to protect."

algebraic: A type of chess notation that uses a grid with coordinates, employing letters and numbers to describe squares on a chessboard.

bishop: A piece that moves diagonally on one color only. Each player has two bishops at the start of the game.

board: Split into 64 squares, chess is played on this. Can be made of almost any material.

capture: To take an opponent's piece off the board and out of play.

castle: A special move in which a king and a rook move simultaneously. Also, an informal, alternative name for a rook.

clock, chess clock: An object used to time a chess game. The usual penalty for exceeding the time limit is the loss of the game.

correspondence chess: A game in which both sides send their moves through the mail or by e-mail. (Formerly referred to as "postal chess").

descriptive: Also known as English Descriptive Notation. The form of notation in which each square has two names, depending on which side of the board is moving a piece. Most modern players consider this method archaic. See algebraic.

en passant: A special type of pawn move. It is rarely known by non-tournament players.

endgame: The portion of the game when most of the pieces have been taken off the board.

file: Vertical columns. Labeled A to H on the chessboard.

flag: The term used for the plastic piece on a chess clock that indicates a time forfeit.

grand master: The highest level title that can be achieved in chess.

Gruenfeld Gambit: A pawn (or more important piece) sacrifice, played by Black in the Gruenfeld Defense.

handicap: An attempt, usually affecting time or material, to make a stronger player's challenges more equal to that of the weaker player.

illegal position: A position in which both kings are in check or a number of factors are involved which make a position illegal.

king: The most important piece in a chess game.

knight: The only piece that can jump over pieces in a chess game.

Legall's mate: A specific pattern that arises when one side sacrifices the queen to checkmate with one bishop and 2 knights.

middlegame: The part of the game that occurs after the opening and before the endgame.

notation: The method used to record a game. See algebraic.

opening: The beginning phase of a chess game.

passed pawn: A pawn with no opposition on an adjoining file.

Pandolfini: A prolific author of chess books, a national master, and a pivotal character in the book Searching for Bobby Fischer.

pawn: The weakest unit on a chessboard, but the only piece that can be promoted.

perpetual-check: When one side can continually check the other.

Philidor: A famous player, most remembered for the memorable phrase, "The pawns are the soul of chess."

promotion: An event that occurs when a pawn reaches the opponent's first rank.

queen: The most powerful chess piece.

rank: Horizontal rows on the chessboard, numbered from 1 to 8.

rook: A piece that moves along ranks and files only.

Sicilian defence: An asymmetrical answer to White's 1.e4; first played in Palermo in the 1500s.

sixty-four (squares): The number of squares on a chessboard.

tempo: A single move. Very often a chess game becomes a fight for tempo.

threat: The essence of a chess game. Threats can be subtle, mating positional, etc. Threats are what you would do if you could play 12 or more moves without an opponent.

time control: A specific number of moves in a specific amount of time. Time controls can be either traditional or sudden death.

tournament: Unlike a match, more than two players are involved.

trap: A series of moves that leads to a favorable outcome for the person who sets it.

variation: The analysis of a chess game; specifically a line of play or annotation.

zeitnot: The German term for time pressure or having moves to make without a lot of time for thought. Almost always a very stressful situation for any player who finds himself there.

zugzwang: German for "compulsion to move." Instead of automatically recapturing material, one player makes a move that creates a larger threat (such as mate) and gets the material later.