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A Short History of Chess
The game of Chess in the form in which it is played to-day is usually
assumed to be of a much older date than can be proved with certainty by
documents in our possession. The earliest reference to the game is contained
in a Persian romance written about 600 A.D., which ascribes the origin
of Chess to India. Many of the European Chess terms used in the Middle
Ages which can be traced back to the Indian language also tend to prove
that India is the mother country of the game.
We are, therefore, fairly safe in assuming that Chess is about 1300 years
old. Of course we could go farther, considering that the Indian Chess
must have been gradually developed from simpler board games. Indeed we
know from a discovery in an Egyptian tomb built about 4000 B.C. that board
games have been played as early as 6000 years ago; but we have no way
of finding out their rules.
The game of Chess spread from India to Persia, Arabia and the other Moslem
countries, and it was brought to Europe at the time of the Moorish invasion
of Spain. It also reached the far East, and games similar to Chess still
exist in Japan, China, Central and Northern Asia, the names and rules
of which prove that they descended from the old Indian Chess.
In Europe Chess spread from Spain northward to France, Germany, England,
Scandinavia and Iceland. It became known with extraordinary rapidity,
although at first it was confined to the upper classes, the courts of
the Kings and the nobility. In the course of time, when the dominance
of the nobility declined and the inhabitants of the cities assumed the
leading role in the life of people, the game of Chess spread to all classes
of society and soon reached a popularity which no other game has ever
equaled.
While in the early Middle Ages the game was played in Europe with the
same rules as in the Orient, some innovations were introduced by the European
players in the later Middle Ages which proved to be so great an improvement
that within a hundred years they were generally adopted in all countries
including the Orient. The reason for the changes was that in the old form
of the game it took too long to get through the opening period. The new
form, which dates from about 1500 A.D. and the characteristic feature
of which is the enlarged power of Queen and Bishop, is our modern Chess,
the rules of which are uniform throughout the civilized world.
In the Seventeenth Century Chess flourished mostly in Italy, which consequently
produced the strongest players. Some of them traveled throughout Europe,
challenging the best players of the other countries and for the most part
emerging victorious. At that time Chess was in high esteem, especially
at the courts of the kings who followed the example of Philip the Second
of Spain in honoring the traveling masters and rewarding them liberally
for their exhibition matches.
Towards the beginning of the Eighteenth Century the game reached a high
stage of development in France, England and Germany. The most famous master
of the time was the Frenchman, Andre Philidor, who for more than forty
years easily maintained his supremacy over all players with whom he came
in contact, and whose fame has since been equaled only by the American
Champion, Paul Morphy, and by the German, Emanuel Lasker.
During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries the number of players
who obtained international fame increased rapidly, and in 1851, due to
the efforts of the English Champion Staunton, an international tournament
was held in London to determine the championship of Europe. It was won
by the German master Anderssen, who maintained his leading place for the
following fifteen years, until he was beaten by the youthful Morphy. The
latter, at twenty years of age, was the first American master to visit
Europe and defeated in brilliant style all European masters whom he met.
Morphy withdrew from the game after his return to America and did not
try to match himself with the Bohemian Steinitz, who in the meantime had
beaten Anderssen, too, and who had come to America. Steinitz assumed the
title of the World's Champion and defended it successfully against all
competitors until 1894, when he was beaten by Emanuel Lasker, who is still
World's Champion, having never lost a match.
The next aspirant for the World's Championship is the young Cuban, Jose
Raoul Capablanca, who has proved to be superior to all masters except
Lasker. He entered the arena of international tournaments at the age of
twenty-two in San Sebastian, Spain, in 1911, and won the first prize in
spite of the competition of nearly all of Europe's masters.
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