Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid.[1] Chess is played by millions of people worldwide, both amateurs and professionals.
Each player begins the game with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently, with the most powerful being the queen and the least powerful the pawn. The objective is to 'checkmate'[2] the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. To this end, a player's pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent's pieces, while supporting each other. In addition to checkmate, the game can be won by voluntary resignation by the opponent, which typically occurs when too much material is lost, or if checkmate appears unavoidable. A game may also result in a draw in several ways.
Chess is believed to have originated in India, some time before the 7th century, being derived from the Indian game of chaturanga. Chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of the Eastern strategy games xiangqi, janggi and shogi. The pieces took on their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century; the rules were finally 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 controlled by FIDE, the game's international governing body; the current World Champion is the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen. FIDE also organizes the Women's World Championship, the World Junior Championship, the World Senior Championship, the Blitz and Rapid World Championships and the Chess Olympiad, a popular competition among teams from different nations. There is also a Correspondence Chess World Championship and a World Computer Chess Championship. Online chess has opened amateur and professional competition to a wide and varied group of players. There are also many chess variants, with different rules, different pieces, and different boards.
FIDE awards titles to skilled players, the highest of which is grandmaster. Many national chess organizations also have a title system. However, these are not recognised by FIDE. The term "master" may refer to a formal title or may be used more loosely for any skilled player.
Until recently, chess was a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee;[3] some national sporting bodies such as the Spanish Consejo Superior de Deportes also recognize chess as a sport.[4] Chess was included in the 2006 and 2010 Asian Games.
Since the second half of the 20th century, computers have been programmed to play chess with increasing success, to the point where the strongest home computers play chess at a higher level than the best human players. Since the 1990s, computer analysis has contributed significantly to chess theory, particularly in the endgame. The computer IBM Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997. The rise of strong computer programs (known as "engines") that can be run on hand-held devices has led to
increasing concerns about cheating during tournaments
popular chess player
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Robert James "Bobby" Fischer (March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. Many consider him to be the greatest chess player of all time. In 1972, he captured the World Chess Championship from Boris Spassky of the USSR in a match held in Reykjavík, Iceland, publicized as a Cold War confrontation, which attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since. In 1975, Fischer refused to defend his title when an agreement could not be reached with FIDE, the game's international governing body, over one of the conditions for the match. This allowed Soviet GM Anatoly Karpov, who had won the qualifying Candidates' cycle, to become the new world champion by default under FIDE rules.
Fischer showed skill at an early age. At age 13, he won a "brilliancy" that became known as "The Game of the Century". Starting at age 14, Fischer played in eight United States Championships, winning each by at least a one-point margin. At age 15, Fischer became both the youngest grandmaster up to that time and the youngest candidate for the World Championship.
At age 20, Fischer won the 1963–64 U.S. Championship with 11/11, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. His book My 60 Memorable Games (published 1969) is regarded as a classic work of chess literature. Fischer won the 1970 Interzonal Tournament by a record 3½-point margin and won 20 consecutive games, including two unprecedented 6–0 sweeps in the Candidates Matches. In July 1971, he became the first official FIDE number-one-rated player.
After losing his title as World Chess Champion, Fischer became reclusive and sometimes erratic, disappearing from both competitive chess and the public eye. In 1992 he reemerged to win an unofficial rematch against Spassky. It was held in Yugoslavia, which was under a United Nations embargo at the time. His participation led to a conflict with the U.S. government, which sought income tax on Fischer's match winnings, and ultimately issued a warrant for his arrest. After that, he lived his life as an émigré. In 2004 he was arrested in Japan and held for several months for using a passport that had been revoked by the U.S. government. Eventually, he was granted an Icelandic passport and citizenship by a special act of the Icelandic Althing, allowing him to live in Iceland until his death in 2008.
In the 1990s, Fischer patented a modified chess timing system, which added a time increment after each move, now a standard practice in top tournament and match play. He also invented a new variant of chess named Fischerandom (known today as "Chess960"). Fischer made numerous additional contributions to chess.
