History Of Chess : The Ascent 

Chess :

Chess is a two-player board based strategy game that is played on a chess board with 8x8 grid .

Each player has a total of 16 pieces : 1 King that can move 1 square in 8 directions,

1 Queen that can move any square horizontally , vertically and diagonally and is the most powerful piece in the game ,

 2 Bishops that can move diagonally ,

2 Knights that can jump over pieces to move  in an "L" shape which is 2 square horizontally or vertically and then 1 square perpendicular to it ,

2 Rooks that can move horizontally and vertically,

 and 8 Pawns that can move upto 2 square forward in its first move and 1 square in later moves and can capture pieces forward diagonally .

The goal of the game is to check mate the opponent King which means putting it under attack (check) from which it cannot escape

There are some other rules of chess like : 

• En passant a rule if a Pawn moves 2 square at the start to stand beside an opponent Pawn the opponent Pawn can capture it by moving behind that Pawn
  
  
  

• Castling a rule where if the King or Rook has not moved and there is nothing between them and if the King has not been checked before and if the King has no check 2 square to the castling Rook then the King can move 2 square towards a Rook and that Rook jumps over the King to stand by the side of the King
  

Castling possible

Castling not possible

• Stalemate is a rule where the King is not in check but there is no move left to move then the game is a draw by stalemate
  

Black has no legal moves so Stalemate

White has no legal move so Stalemate

• Pawn promotion is when a Pawn reaches the end of the board (the opponents end) it can change to any piece other than the King 

the Pawn moves up (the end of the board) and promotes to Queen (can promote to any piece other than King)

Chess has become popular world-wide and is played by millions of players ranging from Grandmasters(GM) to casual players. Chess competitions take place annually and has gained immense popularity as it is played by streamers, youtubers, and other media content makers.

Origin Of Chess :

Chess has evolved through more than a thousand years to become what it is now be it in terms of  popularity or rules :

6th century: Chaturanga 

The first record of chess existed  in the 6th century in Northern India as Chaturanga .

Chaturanga if translated means Chatur = Four and Anga = parts/division so Four-division /Four-parts.

It was played with four types of pieces along with the King which is called Raja which moved the same way modern chess does other than not having the move of castling .

 

the four pieces are :

1. Ratha also known as Chariot which moved the same as modern rook,
2. Gaja also known as Elephant which could move 2 square diagonally jumping over pieces,
3. Ashva also known as Horse which could move the same as modern Knight,
4. Padāti also known as Infantry as a modern pawn only not being able to promote itself ,

 

There is also another piece added which is called Mantri which means Minister that could move 1 square diagonally. This piece later evolved into Queen  

The rules of the game are mostly the same as the modern chess with the same goal of check-mate the king.

 7th century: Shatranj

After Chaturanga spread to Persia it was called  Shatranj and its rules underwent some changes

The most notable of the changes recorded are :

• In Chaturanga if a stale mate occurred the player who got stalemated is the winner but in Shatranj its a draw if stalemate occur
• In Chaturanga there is no record of pawn promotion but in Shatranj its automatically promoted to ferz (counselor) ,

The game was played with the same number of pieces as Chaturanga and most of the rules were same.

the pieces were called:

• Shāh (King) same as Raja
• Ferz (Counselor) same as Mantri
• Rukh (Rook) same as Ratha 
• Alfil (Elephant) same as Gaja 
• Faras (Horse ) same as Ashva 
• Sarbaz (Pawn) same as Padāti, able to promote to ferz 

It was from Persia that the Arabic world started to spread it rapidly making it famous because of the Persian influence and later the Islamic Golden Age that spread chess amongst scholars spreading it to the whole Islamic world including modern day Spain and Portugal

10th century: Chess

In the 10th to 15th century Shatranj spread to the Byzantine Empire and Europe where it was called Chess. It was here that Chess started to get its modern rules:

• Pieces like bishop and queen got their powerful diagonal movement
• Pawn got their initial two step movement and En passant 
• The rule of Castling was made

Chess became a symbol of chivalry and nobility in Europe. Chess tournament became popular and Chess spread to eastern Europe as a game played by gentlemen.

17th century: Chess society

By the 17th century Chess had become popular enough to have chess clubs and chess societies made in some cities for people to gather and play chess. Analysis of chess openings and endings were carried even books about chess were made. As chess tournaments were carried time became a problem so time constraints were made for both players where a timer is given to both players and timer is on for the duration of the time the player makes 1 move and off for the duration the opponent makes 1 move.

It was from this time that knowledge and tactics of chess started to spread evolving the average playstyle of all players.

18th century: Chess unification

While chess was being played in various regions with mostly the same rules, some regions played chess with slightly different rules and in this century the rules of chess were standardized throughout all regions and all variations of chess rules were corrected to modern chess rules . The chess we see now is the chess that was standardized in this century.

19th century: romantic era of chess

The 19th century also known as the romantic era of chess is a time where chess exploded in such popularity that international chess tournaments were organized and chess started being starred in newspapers.

20th century : Chess World

Due to the popularity of chess many world chess tournament were organized and many famous chess world champion rose in this time. Female chess players started coming out to play in world tournaments. Famous to this day "match of the century" happened in this time frame .Later in the late 20th century chess was available on computer and the internet and chess AI were created . Through the match of AI Deep Blue against world champion Garry Kasparov the world was firsthand shown the immense potential of Chess playing Computers.

21th century : Chess continues

In the 21th century online chess has massively expanded thanks to easy access to platform like chess.com. Stockfish a ChessAI has taken the spot of the top chess playing computer . Magnus Carlsen is the reigning chess world champion earning fame akin to stars . Chess Youtubers like Gothamchess has increased the popularity of chess massively among the netizens . New forms of playing like blitz(5min) and bullet(1min) game has become very popular online as they are very suitable for online play. Players understanding and skill has massively increased thanks to AI analysis and other AI tools made to improve players skills. Chess is now unstoppable growing more popular and players getting more skilled in the future it might be possible for someone or an AI to solve chess but that is a long way ahead and Chess will continue to get popular untill that moment.

Conclusion :

Chess has gone from obscurity to a worldwide sensation and is one of the most popular board games in the world .