The history of chess

Where chess began

In northern India, around the sixth century CE, in a game called chaturanga — Sanskrit for four limbs. The four limbs are the four divisions of an army, and all four of them are still sitting on your board.

The king was the rāja. The piece beside him was a mantri, a counsellor — and it was the weakest thing on the board. It would be nine hundred years before anyone turned it into a queen.

The whole story, in fourteen steps

From an Indian army game to a phone in your pocket.

1. c. 6th century CENorthern India

   Chaturanga

   A game called chaturanga — Sanskrit for "four limbs" — is played in Gupta-era India. The four limbs are the four divisions of an army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. Those four became the pawn, the knight, the bishop and the rook, and they are still on the board today. Nobody knows who invented it, and no honest source gives a precise year.

2. c. 600 CESassanid Persia

   Chatrang, and the word checkmate

   The game travels west into Persia and is renamed chatrang. Persian players announce shāh when the king is attacked and shāh māt when he cannot escape. Those two words survive every translation the game passes through and arrive in English, largely unchanged, as check and checkmate.

3. 7th–9th centuryThe Arab world

   Shatranj, and the first theory

   After the Islamic conquest of Persia the game becomes shatranj and spreads across the Arab world. Here it is written down for the first time: opening systems get names, endgames get analysed, and players like al-Adli and as-Suli become the first people in history known by name for being good at chess.

4. By c. 1000Spain and Italy

   Chess reaches Europe

   The game crosses into Europe, mainly through Moorish Spain and the trade routes into Italy. Pieces are renamed for a European court: the vizier becomes a queen, the elephant becomes a bishop, the chariot becomes a castle tower. The moves, however, are still the slow ones.

5. c. 1475Valencia and Italy

   The queen goes mad

   The single biggest change in the history of the game. The queen — until now the weakest piece on the board, shuffling one square diagonally — is given unlimited range in every direction, and the bishop gets its long diagonal. The new version is fast, sharp and lethal, and contemporaries call it scacchi alla rabiosa: madwoman’s chess. This is the moment modern chess begins.

6. 1749London and Paris

   Philidor writes the first strategy

   François-André Danican Philidor — a composer by trade and the strongest player alive — publishes L’analyze des échecs. His argument that "the pawns are the soul of chess" is the first time anyone treats the game as something with underlying principles rather than a bag of tricks.

7. 1851London

   The first international tournament

   Players from across Europe gather for the first true international tournament, won by Adolf Anderssen. In a casual game during the same visit, Anderssen gives up both rooks and his queen and mates with three minor pieces — the game the world would come to call the Immortal.

8. 1886The United States

   The first world champion

   Wilhelm Steinitz beats Johannes Zukertort in the first match both players agreed was for the championship of the world. Steinitz matters for more than the title: he argued that attacks should be earned by small positional advantages rather than launched on instinct, and essentially invented the way strong players think.

9. 1924Paris

   FIDE is founded

   The Fédération Internationale des Échecs is formed to govern international chess. From 1948 it runs the world championship cycle, turning the title from a private arrangement between two players into a system anyone could climb.

10. 1972Reykjavík

    Fischer–Spassky

    Bobby Fischer takes the title from Boris Spassky at the height of the Cold War, ending 24 unbroken years of Soviet champions. It remains the only time a world chess championship was front-page news almost everywhere on earth.

11. 1997New York

    Deep Blue

    IBM’s Deep Blue beats Garry Kasparov in a six-game match — the first time a computer defeated a reigning world champion under tournament conditions. Chess did not die, as many predicted. Engines instead became the way every serious player studies, which is exactly how ChessIt uses one.

12. 2017London

    AlphaZero learns by playing itself

    DeepMind’s AlphaZero is given the rules and nothing else, plays millions of games against itself, and within hours is playing at a level beyond the strongest conventional engines. Its taste for long-term piece activity over raw material changed what human players consider a reasonable sacrifice.

13. 2020Everywhere

    The online boom

    A pandemic, a hit television series and a generation of streamers arrive at the same moment. Online chess platforms record their largest growth in history, and the game becomes something millions of people play on a phone between other things.

14. 2024Singapore

    The youngest champion

    Gukesh Dommaraju beats Ding Liren to become, at 18, the youngest undisputed world champion the game has had. Fifteen hundred years after chaturanga left India, the title returned there.

Every world champion

The undisputed lineage, from the first match both players agreed was for the world title to the current holder. 21 entries, 18 different people — Botvinnik and Alekhine each lost the title and took it back.

1. 1 Wilhelm Steinitz, 1886 — played across New York, St. Louis and New Orleans.
2. 2 Emanuel Lasker, 1894 — played across New York, Philadelphia and Montreal.
3. 3 Max Euwe, 1935 — played across thirteen Dutch cities.
4. 4 Alexander Alekhine, 1937 — regained the title in a rematch.
5. 5 Mikhail Botvinnik, 1948 — a five-player tournament held after Alekhine died as champion.
6. 6 Mikhail Botvinnik, 1958 — regained the title in a rematch.
7. 7 Mikhail Botvinnik, 1961 — regained the title in a rematch.
8. 8 Anatoly Karpov, 1975 — awarded the title when Fischer declined to defend it.
9. 9 Vladimir Kramnik, 2000 — the classical title; FIDE ran a separate championship at this time.
10. 10 Viswanathan Anand, 2007 — the first undisputed champion after the split was healed.
11. 11 Ding Liren, 2023 — Carlsen chose not to defend the title.

Things worth knowing

The parts of the game that make more sense once you know where they came from.