“Chess is like body building. If you train every day, you stay in top shape. It is the same with your brain. Chess is a matter of daily training.”
These are the words of Vladimir Kramnik, Russian Chess Grandmaster who describes the passion essential for winning. Brain stimulator and intriguing as well this game displays closest resemblance to life. The player has to make a move no matter what, he has to struggle throughout the three phases of this game like the opening, the middlegame and the endgame with new strategies to win the game in the end. Similarly in life we have to keep on struggling and making suitable decisions to be successful in the end. But, both the game and life would be much easier to deal with if it contains some excitement and fun. Chess is undoubtedly the most fascinating game played worldwide for many centuries entertaining children as well as elderly simultaneously.
So, let’s see what fun facts this chess game has in store for us…
- The chess game by the name of ‘Chaturanga’ meaning four limbed or four parts in Sanskrit which meant four divisions of a battle formation was played as a war game around the 7th century in the northeastern part of India during Mahabharata times.
- 319 billion is the shocking number of possibilities that the first four moves can be played by both the players in chess.
- The number of people playing chess all over the world is approximately 6 hundred million.
- A Chess game for as long as 4 months was won by Garry Kasparov in the 62nd turn in1999. People from 75 countries around the world played against him in which moves were decided by a majority of approximately 50,000 people who took part.
- Chess Master Miguel Najdorf of Argentina, who reached fame for winning 39 out of 45 of the blindfolded Chess matches he played at the same time in 1947. Blindfolded chess is a fascinating game wherein in the olden days the players used to sit facing away from the board and called out their moves.
- The Indian Chess Master Vishwanathan Anand has won all three formats like knockout, tournament and match in the World Chess Championship.
- In Persia the word ‘shahamat’ was used to mean ‘checkmate’ where ‘shah’ means king and ‘mat’ means to defeat or to be dead in Persia.
- There is a Singularity chess where the chess board deformed in the center is used to play. So, surprisingly, squares can be attacked many times and u turns can be taken by se pieces.
- Magnus Carlson won 7 out of 10 games he played simultaneously with his back turned.
- In 1973, under the suspicion of carrying out gambling practices, the director of the Tournament was arrested in Cleveland and the Chess set and prize money were seized.
- X- ray move is when a piece on a chess board can see through its own piece to attack the opponent’s or save it’s own piece through the opponent’s piece.
- During the 15 th century chess was recognised as a ‘Royal game’.
- 5,949 theoretically possible moves is the maximum length of a Chess game can go as per the 50 move rule which states that if not a single pawn is moved and no capture is made in the last 50 moves a draw can be claimed.
- It was in 1125, a folding chess board was born when due to the restriction of the churches on playing chess a young priest invented a chess board that looked like two books resting on one another.
- 26 years and 337 days was the longest time a World Chess Champion title was held by any player and it was the German Dr. Emanuel Lasker who was a great friend of Albert Einstein.
- Garry Kasparov became the youngest player to hold the title of World Chess Champion at the age of 22 years and 210 days in 1985.
- The first printed chess book ‘ Art of Chess ‘ was published in 1496 that was written by Luis de Lucena.
- Quantum chess, based on the principles of quantum physics, was invented by Selim Akl. To reduce the supremacy of computers over a chess game against humans an element of unpredictability is introduced by not addressing the pieces by their names but deciding it at the time of making moves.
- The first chess magazine was published in 1836.
- In 1997, world chess champion Gary Kasparov was defeated by IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue in a 6 game match. It was the first win of an artificial intelligence over a human in a chess match.
- In the popular TV show of Star Trek, Spoke and Kirk played 3 chess games all of which were won by Kirk.
- In 1900, today’s push button clock in chess games was invented while in 1883, the first mechanical clock was introduced by Thomas Wilson whereas before that from 1862 sandglasses were used in the place of clocks.
- The first of its kind space to earth chess game ended in a draw that was played between cosmonauts from Soyuz 9 flight crew played with cosmonauts in Moscow in the year 1970 and on completion of 50 years a similar game was played this year.
- The World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer of the USA won 47 out of 50 matches played simultaneously in 1964.
- Around 1100, the chessboard with alternating white and black squares was invented in Europe.
- After 600 CE, a game similar to chess named ‘Shatranj’ was played in northern India, southern part of central Asia where the game was won when all pieces of the opponent except the King were defeated or on the capture of the opponent’s King.
- The International Grandmaster Trois a Brazilian, took 2 hours and 20 minutes in the 7 th move, recording the longest time taken to make a move.
As you see, chess asks for better thinking skills, practice and lots of effort to find a way to achieve your goal in chess. In this journey let us at Victorious Chess Academy assist you with a team of experienced and talented people ready to train your mind for the fight. So, don’t you think it’s better to visit us at Victorious Chess Academy and begin a new learning experience?
References:
