Chess

History:-

As they say, the rumour is true. Chess was born in India , during the Gupta empire in 6th Century A.D. Later it went to Persia, Western Europe, West Asia and North African Countries.

Chess - Chariot, Horses, Elephant, Soldiers + king and Queen.

In modern day terms,

Chariot = Bishop (B), Horses=Knights (N), Elephant=Rook (R), Soldiers =Pawns (P).

14th century A.D saw the birth of modern chess. Power of Queen and bishop were increased."en passant" and "Castling - older form" were introduced. later modern form of castling was introduced. Greco was one of first modern chess player/ author, who analysed and published a book in chess. The book went down for 100+editions. He explored king pawn openings thoroughly.

Note: Chess is the only sport for which most number of books are written.

The most played, interesting and fancy looking line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 was introduced by him aka "guacco piano". Then on due course of time the game saw several legends exploring the opening moves/maneuvers. The birth of modern opening systems happened. In the mean time, modern castling rules were introduced.

London Chess tourney 1851 - First famous Chess tourney to happen, won by adolf anderson. His one of the game is the "immortal game". Coz it paved a chess revolution. Watch it.

Paul Morphy was a US player and extremely talented. He beat every single guy in chess arena. at one point every one feared playing against him. Stauntaoun refused to play against him. he then offered a pawn/a move odd to the opponent and there there was no takers. Hence he retired abruptly. Truly,his game were "magical" , as magical as messi's dribble, and Federer's back hand.

1886 saw the first official chess champ - William steineitz. Though he lost his crown to Lasker in 1894, he gave the introduction to "exploiting the weakness concept" and "Not to create weakness concept". Emanuel Lasker dominated the game for 27 years, longest for any world champ. Then Alekhine became the new champ. Alongside, birth of FIDE happened in 1924 in Paris. Women Chess saw new heights.

Alekhine was defeated by Max Euwe and then the converse happened . alekhine died as a world Champion, the Only person to die as a champ. Then came the Russian dominance. Mikhail Botvinik, Vassily Symislov, Mikail Tal, Borris Spassky. Everyone is a legend and played fine games. Then came a hero from US, who mastered all the Russians single handedly, Robert James Fisher. ( May be a product of cold war  )

Fisher is one of the greatest chess players till now. Introduced Chess 960. The number 960 has a meaning that will be covered in upcoming posts. Fisher refused to comply with FIDE rules and Then Karpov got Title from Fischer by default, Kasparov arrived, The computer chess born, Kramink got the better of Kasparov. Then Anand brought the chess back to India from Russia.

Note: The world Championship should not be confused with world cup. Chess has both. Peter Svidler of Russia is the current world cup winner and Anand is the champ.

Chess is the national game of Russia and has every rights to become national game of our nation.

- International Chess authority is FIDE.

- William Strenitz (US)was the First World Champ and Emanuel Lasker(Germany) was the longest running World champ.

- Current world chess champion is Anand and women's chess champion is Anna Ushenina (Ukraine). Current Rapid chess champion is Sergey Karjakin(Russia), and Blitz chess champion is Magnus Carlsen(Norway). Current women's rapid chess champion is Antoneta Stefanova (Bulgaria), and women's blits champion is Valentina gunina (Russia) .

- Russia has the largest number of GMs, IMs viz. Ukraine is second in the list.

- Computers or engines are unbeatable when they play against humans. rating of strongest computer depends on processor and thinking time etc.

eg. Houdini, Hiarcs, Rybka etc. ( All are owned by Chessbase. The largest chess corporate)

- Chess has various formats. Classical, Rapid, blitz, Blindfolded, Simultaneous exhibitions aka simuls, problem solving and many more.

- Highest rated chess player ever is Magnus Carlsen of Norway ,rated at 2872!. Highest rated female chess player ever is Judit Polgar(Hungary) rated at 2735. ( Unless specified the rating denotes classical time control rating). Highest rated chess engine ever is Houdini 3. 3351.

- Anyone can get a International chess rating regardless of age and qualifications .

Alan Alda (actor) 1400 rating

Humphrey Bogart 1900 rating

Nicholas Cage (actor) 1500 rating

Fidel Castro (dictator) 1900 rating

Charlie Chaplin (actor) 1400 rating

Ray Charles (musician) 1600 rating

Che Guevara (revolutionary) 1950 rating

Ted Danson (actor) 1400 rating

Peter Falk (actor) 1400 rating

Al Jolson (musician) 1600 rating

Henry Kissinger (politician) 1400 rating

Vladimir Lenin (Russian dictator) 1900 rating

David Letterman (talk show) 1100 rating

Jerry Matthers (the Beaver) 1400 rating

George Pataki (NY Governor) 1100 rating

Arnold Schwarzenenegger 1500 rating

Jimmy Stewart (actor) 1300 rating

John Wayne (actor) 1200 rating

- Arch rivals of the past:-

Adolf andersan (Germany)- Paul Morphy(US)

Steinitz(US) - lasker(Germany)

Alexander Alekhine (Russia) -Max Euwe. (Dutch)

Fischer (US) Vs Mikhail Tal and compatriot Russians.( USSR)

Kasparov (USSR)Vs Karpov (USSR)

Nigel Short (England) Vs Judit Polgar(Hungary)

Karpov (USSR) Vs Korchnoi(USSR)

- Arch rivals of the present:-

Kramnik (Russia) vs Topalov (Bulgaria)

Anand (India) vs Aronian (Armenia)

Magnus carlsen(Norway) vs Hikaru Nakamura.(US)

Hikaru Nakamura (US) vs Gata kamsky(US)

Hou Yifan (china) vs Koneru Humpy (India) and many more.

- Veterans of the game.

- Borris Spassky. Former world champ. USSR

- Viktor Korchnoi. Paralyzed at home. . USSR. A world championship contender.

- Yuri Averbakh of USSR. Nicely poised to write couple of books. (91).

- Best trainer in the world- Mark Dvoretsky of USSR., A great author too.

- Famous Chess tourneys.

World championship

World cup

Chess olympiad

London chess classics

Tal memorial (Russia)

Wijk aan zee aka Tata steel chess tour. (Netherlands)

Gibraltar chess festival.(UK)

Linares (discontinued)

Biel Chess festival

Kings tourney.

Candidates tours. and many more.

Most important things one should know about chess: Part -II (An Indian Scenario)

Authority : AICF

- India saw a rise in chess after the efforts of Manuel aaron, India's first international master IM (1961). It took 17 years for India to produce second IM, V.Ravi.

- India's first Grand Master is Vishy Anand. 1988, ( Finished final norm in sivakasi GM open after narrowly missing out in the final round of Manila Chess olympiad 1987).

Note:

First player to secure a GM norm is Praveen Thipsay. GM norm should not be confused with GM title. One should secure three norms to become a GM . He is also the oldest GM in our country.

- India owns 29 GMs, 76 IMs and 219 titled chess players* .

( For understanding GM> IM>FM> CM where FM stands for Fide master and CM stands for Candidates Master.**)

- Top 10 players *

1              Anand, Viswanathan 2780

2              Harikrishna, P. 2705

3              Sasikiran, Krishnan 2677

4              Negi, Parimarjan 2638

5              Ganguly, Surya Shekhar 2626

6              Gupta, Abhijeet 2612

7              Koneru, Humpy 2597

8              Sandipan, Chanda 2590

9              Panchanathan, Magesh Chandran 2579

10           Lalith, Babu M.R. 2559

- Top 10 Women players *

1              Koneru, Humpy 2597

2              Harika, Dronavalli 2514

3              Tania, Sachdev 2397

4              Gomes, Mary Ann 2394

5              Karavade, Eesha 2391

6              Vijayalakshmi, Subbaraman 2365

7              Mohota, Nisha 2327

8              Padmini, Rout 2307

9              Soumya, Swaminathan 2291

10           Meenakshi Subbaraman 2249

- India has seen three players crossing the 2700 rating mark, Anand, Sasikiran, Pentala Harikrishna.

- Anand is currently 6th in rating list and Humpy is third in Women's rating list.*

- TamilNadu has maximium number of GMs and IMs.(13) &(22) *

- Manuel Aaron has won maximum number of national championships. and youngest player to win national championship is G.Aakash from chennai (2012).

- India's youngest GM n IM is Parimarajan Negi from Delhi.

- Surya shekar Ganguly is the only player beat Kramnik after Anand, in classical time control.

- Abhijeet Gupta (Rajastan) and Tania Sachdev (Delhi)won Silver and Bronze medals respectively in 2012 chess olympiad at Turkey.

- While India finished 35th in open category , it finished 4th in Women's category in 2012 olympiad.

Famous Chess meets in India:-

-Air Authority of chess championship is the strongest chess tournament in terms of average rating of the players. Orissa GM open, Chennai GM open, Kolkata GM open, Delhi parsvnath GM open are other regular tourneys. Apart from these, India regularly hosts commonwealth chess championship.

Titles:-

- Vishy Anand is the current World Champion and Koneru Humpy is the Women's world champioship contender 2013. Various titles are being held by the juniors as well. While Harika Dronavalli reached Semi finals of World women chess championship.

Notable Chess magazines from India: Chessmate by Manuel Aoron, AICF chronicle.

I think i have included as many details i can. If I have missed anything I will be updating the post. With that I would like to conclude the post.

#4 Time controls / formats :-

Various Time controls:

Classical Time Control

There is a single time control for all major FIDE events: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

(E.g.)

Chess Olympiads

World Team Championships

Continental Team Championships

World Cup

WCC etc.

Rapid :

15 to 60 minutes per player, sometimes with a small time increment per move (e.g. 10 seconds)

(E.g) Amber classics , Aeroflat open, Rapid chess championships etc

Blitz: 15 minutes or less per side. Usually sudden death (no increment), but may also be played with a small increment. More recently due to the influx of digital clocks, 3 minutes with a 2-second add is also preferred.

(e.g.): Tal memorial Blitz, Blitz chess championship, Aeroflat qualifiers, World ming games etc.

Bullet: 1 to 3 minutes per side. The time control for this setting is 2 minutes with a 1-second add or 1 minute with a 2-second add. The term "Lightning" can also be applied to this variant.

Lightning is a term used for either Blitz or Bullet chess, and is a general term for extremely fast chess. It can also refer to games with a fixed time (e.g. ten seconds) for each move. This also can be used for 1-minute games.

(E.g) Tie breaks

Armageddon: A game guaranteed to produce a result, because Black has draw odds (that is, for Black, a draw is equal to a victory). To compensate, White has more time on the clock. Common times are 6 minutes for White and 5 for Black, or 5 minutes for White and 4 for Black. This can also be played with a small increment. This is also known as "time odds" and it is used in various tie breaks for quick tournaments.

(e.g.) Tie-breaks

Other modes of play:-

Blindfold chess:-

Blindfold chessis a form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them. One should maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces. Moves are communicated via a recognized chess notation./ computer.

Today there are Blindfold Chess Tournaments held throughout the year, with the highest profile event being the Melody Amber Tournament, held in Monte Carlo. Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Alexei Shirov and Alexander Morozevich have proven themselves to be particularly strong at blindfold chess, being alternating winners of the Amber Tournaments between 1996 and 2006.

Kriegspiel :-

Here, each player can see their own pieces, but not those of their opponent. For this reason, it is necessary to have a third person (or computer) act as a referee, with full information about the progress of the game. When it is a player's turn he will attempt a move, which the referee will declare to be 'legal' or 'illegal'. If the move is illegal, the player tries again; if it is legal, that move stands.

Correspondence chess/ Postal chess:-

Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include homing pigeon. It is in contrast to over-the-board (OTB) chess, where the players sit at a chessboard at the same time (or perhaps play at the same time remotely). Correspondence chess tournaments are usually played under the auspices of an official regulatory body, most importantly International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF), which is affiliated with FIDE.

Some Quotes Unquoted by players about faster modes of chess:-

- "Playing rapid chess, one can lose the habit of concentrating for several hours in serious chess. That is why, if a player has big aims, he should limit his rapidplay in favour of serious chess." – Vladimir Kramnik

- "Like dogs who sniff each other when meeting, chess players have a ritual at first acquaintance: they sit down to play speed chess." – Anatoly Karpov

- "Yes, I have played a blitz game once. It was on a train, in 1929." – Mikhail Botvinnik

- "He who analyses blitz is stupid." – Rashid Nezhmetdinov

- "Blitz chess kills your ideas." – Bobby Fischer[21]

- "To be honest, I consider [bullet chess] a bit moronic, and therefore I never play it." – Vladimir Kramnik

- "Blitz – it's just a pleasure." – Vladimir Kramnik