Chess: The 1500 Year Old Game

High School Essay #5

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Yes, I am a nerd! Although my interest in chess has waned since then, some of you might find this interesting. It was written roughly halfway through my senior year of high school. Enjoy!

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Chess wasn’t always called chess, but its development can be concretely traced back for 1500 years. There have been pieces from games similar to those of chess found in several Asian countries from earlier than that, but those have been determined to belong to non-chess games, some using dice or having 100 or more squares. An example of one of these non-chess games is the Japanese shogi. Chess originated in the Indian game chaturanga. It spread through Asia and eventually reached Europe. Eventually all the varying quirks in rules and style in the game were unified into our modern chess, along with gaining speed and heightened mobility. We have two men to thank for it, Nathaniel Cook and Howard Staunton.

Firstly, the Japanese game shogi is not considered to be a precursor to chess, though it has a similar set-up. Shogi is played on nine by nine boards instead of chess’s eight by eight, with a second general -otherwise known as a counselor or the modern queen- on the other side of the king. Captured pieces are used as part of the captor’s forces. The amount of squares on the shogi board grew and shrunk over the centuries, at one point gaining as many as 36 pieces on each side. It’s not thought that those versions were commonly played, however. Shogi is still played today as a completely separate game from chess. Another game similar to chess was played in China on the intersections of lines on the board, rather than on the squares. The pieces were flat and resembled the pieces in the game checkers. The names of the pieces were carved on them for differentiation.

Chess has its roots in the Indian game chaturanga. The word translates to “four divisions of the military,” meaning infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. Those are represented by, or evolved into, respectively, the pawn, knight, bishop, and rook. Chaturanga had a strict rule against stalemate: either the stalemated player automatically won, or the stalemated king was allowed to take one of the pieces preventing him from moving. The forefather to chess was likely played on a 64-square board. What distinguishes chaturanga as the first forefather of chess are the two necessary features found in all later versions of chess. The first was different powers associated with different pieces. The second was the victory depending only on the fate of one piece, the king.

From India’s chaturanga, the game spread to Persia, where it was known by the name shatranj and developed new rules. It also became part of princely and courtly education. There in Persia, about 600 BC, the calls “check,” and “checkmate” originated in the Persian “shah,” meaning king, and “shah mat,” for the king is helpless. These exclamations continued to other countries. After the conquest of Persia by the Arabs, shatranj was adopted by the muslim world. By 1000 BC, shatranj had spread throughout Europe and also to Russia, where it achieved a reputation as quite a popular game. Peter I, or Peter the Great, was said to have special soft leather campaign boards that he carried during military expeditions. Another czar, Ivan IV, or Ivan the Terrible, is said to have died at the age of 53 while playing chess against his advisor Bogdan Belsky. Around this point in history expensive and decorative sets were in fashion, adorned with jewels and precious metals.

Due to the Muslim objection to chess pieces having the shapes of people and animals and being too much like idols, for a time chess pieces had abstract shapes. There is as well a theory that chess used dice at first and was used to gamble. A die was used to decide which piece to move. Those features were removed, similarly to the changed appearance of the pieces, because of Muslim religious objections. In fact, the appearances of the pieces have varied between simple and intricate ever since the game of chaturanga. There was also a drastic change in the abilities of the queen. Before 1475, the queen was called the counselor and was limited to moving one square at a time diagonally. Then the counselor underwent a gender change and gained vast power, becoming the most powerful piece on the board. About the same time, the bishop and pawns also gained more power, and in the bishop’s case, mobility. While in the middle ages chess was a slow, dragging game, with these changes chess became a fast and dynamic game. Checkmate became possible in as few as two moves. The last two additions, castling and en passant, took much longer to gain general acceptance.

The modern pattern was not implemented and standardized until 1835. We have two men to thank for this: Nathaniel Cook, who invented the pattern, and Howard Staunton, official world champion of the day, who endorsed and publicized it. It became known as the Staunton pattern and today only that type of chess set is allowed in international competition. We can also thank Staunton for his promotion of universal chess rules and the organization of the first international tournament, held in London in 1851. The world championship became official in 1886, though the game had gained spectator interest as early as 50 years before that. Speed chess was implemented about 1850.

Chess is a fascinating game with a long history that can be traced back for many centuries. Though there are several ancient games similar to chess, many of those, such as the Japanese shogi, have been determined not to be ancestors to modern chess. In fact, chess actually originated in the Indian game chaturanga, which spread through Asia and eventually into Europe. A few centuries ago, the differences in the game were unified into the modern game chess, along with speeding up the game. There are few other games as popular as chess, and fewer still that can be traced back through centuries to a concrete root.

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Resources

Chess | Game, Setup, Board, & Pieces. (2024, January 5). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/chess/History

Wikipedia contributors. (2023, December 5). History of chess. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess

The Chess Journal. (2023, January 30). Chess History: The Astonishing History of Chess (With Timeline). https://www.chessjournal.com/chess-history/

The Chess Journal. (2022, July 20). Wilhelm Steinitz – Meet the father of Chess. https://www.chessjournal.com/wilhelm-steinitz/

Vargas, M. S. (2023, April 22). Complete timeline of every chess-related deaths. Wegochess.com. https://wegochess.com/complete-timeline-of-every-chess-related-deaths/

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