Questions tagged [history]
Use this tag for questions relating to the history of chess and chess organizations, whose origins trace to the ancient Indian game of Chaturanga.
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Which FIDE federations has never sent a women's team to the Chess Olympiads
The 2024 Olympiad teams were announced some time ago, and this year there are 184 registered federations in the Women’s section.
Which FIDE federations have never sent a women’s team to the Chess ...
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Origins of the Elephant trap name
Is it true that the Elephant trap is named after the original diagonal moving piece from Chaturanga? I know that in Russian the bishop is still referred to as the elephant, but does anyone know the ...
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When/why did software only engines overtake custom hardware?
Back in the 1990's the top Chess computers had racks full of custom hardware to generate moves etc. These days the top chess computers all use standard CPU with no custom hardware.
What is the history ...
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Since what year would small-scale cheating have given an advantage in e.g. the World Championship?
This is a purely hypothetical question that could give me some insight into chess history because I am by no means an expert in the latter.
From what year would e.g. the world champion or the ...
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When was the last time a chess rule was modified?
I am talking about legal moves and draws, I mean when does every rule about draw and legal move change, like when does en passant, castling change, when does fivefold repetition threefold repetition ...
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What’s the origin of “!” & “?”
Who first started to annotate chess moves with “!” for good & “?” for bad?!
Two data points:
(1) 1859 "The Book of the First American Chess Congress." The annotated games have no ...
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Of the ~2000 FIDE grandmasters, how many have had a FIDE GM as a parent?
How many FIDE GMs have had a father or mother who has also been a FIDE GM?
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What was the first modern chess piece?
Out of the current chess pieces in modern chess, what was the first one to be created?
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What was the first brilliant move ever recorded?
I was wondering what the first brilliant move ever recorded was. This is based on Chess.com's modern definition of a brilliant move.
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Who is the highest rated player to play in the World Junior
As the title says who is the highest FIDE rated player to play in the World Juniors in any year (rating at the time of playing the tournament). In 2024 it was 2627 but 2700chess shows more than 10 ...
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History of private sponsorship of GM titles
According to this chess.com article "Jeanne Sinquefield Offers Historic $100,000 Awards To New Female Grandmasters In U.S"
In a groundbreaking initiative to support women's chess, Saint ...
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Photo of Marcus Kann?
Does anyone know if this photo is in fact Marcus Kann?
Are there any better photographs that exist of him?
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Is a mechanical, Turk-like, purely mechanical self-moving chess set with decent AI possible?
We all know the Mechanical Turk was a dummy machine controlled by human players. However, given technology has progressed, it theoretically possible to build a purely mechanical (no modern electronics)...
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Why didn't/don't all chess armageddon have auction?
Quote:
Armageddon Chess is a fair tie-break system only if the two players bid for how much time Black should have.
Foolishly most times I see Armageddon specified there is no bidding. Instead the ...
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What are some cases where a drawn match went to the player w/ more black wins?
In some round robins or swiss, there are score tiebreakers based on black wins, like the 2022 Accentus Chess960 tournament. Never mind those. My question is for knockouts. Obviously this doesn't work ...
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"Fish" for a patzer
When I coined the German version "Blindfisch" for a patzer, in my Sturm und Drang youth, I maybe was influenced by "fish" (I read everything chess that I could get my hands on, so ...
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Does anyone know the history of the Moscow variation of the Sicilian defense? It's now referred to as the Canal Attack
The variation starts 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+. It is considered an anti-Sicilian, and though I can find the theory behind it, I'm having a hard time tracking down any history. I checked the Oxford ...
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How did the Omaha Gambit get its name?
I was recently playing the Vienna Gambit as white on chess.com and was surprised to see a variation called the "Omaha gambit."
[Title "Vienna Game: Omaha Gambit"]
[StartPly "5&...
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What do the flags 'i', 'ie', 'in', 'n', 'w', 'wi', 'win', 'wn' mean in old FIDE rating lists?
I'm going through some old rating lists
https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml?period=2001-01-01 to be precise
and came across these flags
'i', 'ie', 'in', 'n', 'w', 'wi', 'win', 'wn'
I know that i = ...
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Regarding the wide repertoires of world champions
I am making a Fischer-esque repertoire, E4 as white and KID and Sicilian against D4 and E4 respectively. But I cannot help but wonder why almost all the world champions except for Fischer had very ...
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At what age did Szymon Winawer learn chess?
Szymon Winaver was one of the best players in the late 19th century and is today remembered by Winaver variation of the French defence. It is well known that he first participated in international ...
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Number of Games in the Upcoming World Classical Chess Championship: Comparison with Previous Championships
I'm curious about the format of the upcoming World Classical Chess Championship. Historically, the number of games in these championships has varied. For instance, the Carlsen-Karjakin championship in ...
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Game Analysis Techniques of Grandmasters in the 1970s for World Chess Championships
I'm interested in the historical aspect of chess, particularly in how grandmasters prepared and analyzed their games during significant events like the World Chess Championships in the 1970s. My ...
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Which Chess Notation is Most Commonly Used in Grandmaster Classic Games?
I'm interested in understanding the preferred method of notation used in classic games played by grandmasters. Specifically, I'd like to know which version of writing the moves of a game is more ...
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What is the source of this famous quote often attributed to Mikhail Tal?
"There are two types of sacrifices in chess, sound ones and my own."
I have often encountered this amusing quotation often attributed to Tal in my reading and in online discourse. I have ...
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Who is the most unfortunate player in chess history? [closed]
I'm interested in candidates for a "most unfortunate chess player award".
A player qualifies, if
he has had exceptionally bad luck (especially chess-related (e.g. coming second, losing due ...
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Where can I find past Titled Tuesday data
I'm hoping to create a dataset with Chess.com Titled Tuesday results.
I have found this link which has the tournaments https://www.chess.com/tournament/live/titled-tuesdays?&page=7 but for some ...
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Are Elo ratings comparable across history?
It is fun to speculate how the great players of today would fare against those of the past.
With the advance in knowledge of the openings, particularly aided by computers, a leading modern player ...
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Do top players get discouraged if they cannot beat the best player in the world?
Magnus Carlsen has been the best player in the world for a decade. The other top players try, but they haven't been able to beat Carlsen, who's consistently 50+ elo above them.
Do the other top ...
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Who is the Hübsch gambit named after?
According to Lichess, the Hübsch gambit starts with 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e4:
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e4
This article ...
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Did Kasparov and Karpov reconcile?
Did Kasparov and Karpov reconcile? In “On My Great Predecessors” Vol. V, Kasparov refers to Karpov very familiarly, as "Anatoly" or even "Tolya." He refers to Korchnoi (a much ...
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Relationship between chess and communist idealogy in USSR -- Central Planning?
I had a conversation with a guy who I think was studying history and was a decent chess player and he said that in the USSR chess and dialectical materialism were considered related.
The usual reason ...
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Why is "The Seventh Seal" called so?
I just found the following game
[Title "Carlos Torre vs Emmanuel Lasker, Moscow 1925"]
[FEN ""]
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bg5 c5 4. e3 cxd4 5. exd4 Be7 6. Nbd2 d6 7. c3 Nbd7 8. Bd3 ...
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Was Julio Kaplan the first to play 8. f4 Qc7 9. g4 idea against 7. ... Be6 in classical Najdorf?
In old mainline of Be2 Najdorf black played 7. ... Be6 instead of, today practically automatic, 7. ... Be7. This is because 7. ... Be6 is today considered dubious due to this idea:
[fen ""]
[...
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Chess players in tv commercials?
There are a lot of tv commercials featuring football players, cricket players, etc. How about chess players? Two commercials come to mind.
Kasparov vs Machine Pepsi Commercial
Korchnoi Milk ...
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Why didn't Laurent Fressinet-Alexandra Kosteniuk (2007) end in a draw?
Game is available here. The last 116 moves of that game was R+B vs. R, which is a theoretical draw that is hard for a human to defend. Fressinet eventually faltered and resigned when he was about to ...
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Who was Bobby Fischer's father?
This interesting YouTube video asks the question: "Why Did the World’s Best Chess Player Go Insane?" without really answering its own question. It also makes the suggestion, again ...
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According to Wikipedia, only three women have EVER been top 100 in chess. How many men have ever been top 100?
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_chess
"Three women, Maia Chiburdanidze, Polgár, and Hou Yifan, have been ranked in the world's top 100 players."
That is, right now, there are not ...
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Detailed History of Touch Move Rule
What were the different versions of the touch-move rule over history?
There are various chess problems, particularly from 19th century, which depend upon it, and they seem to make different ...
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Has simultaneous partial queen pinning, besides mutual queen pins, happened in a master game?
In a 3+0 blitz game, this humorous position arose. Have such mutual partial pins, wherein both players pin the others queen to their king, occurred in master games?
[FEN "r3k2r/1ppb1ppp/p2bqn2/...
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Positions where pawn promotion to queen is worse than to other piece
I'm looking for games from famous grandmasters, in which pawn promotion to a rook, a bishop, or a knight is a better move than queen promotion. I tried to Google some, but I couldn't find anything.
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What is the origin of the Caro-Kann Two Knights Variation?
It starts with 1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Nf3. I checked the 1984 edition of The Oxford Companion to Chess, and all it said was that it was popular in the 1950s. Any information would be valuable to me.
[...
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How rare are double forks in high-level games?
I was playing a blitz game, when I saw my chance to produce an amusing position, to which my opponent unknowingly obliged; I was able to fork their rooks with my queen and rook simultaneously.
[Title &...
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Has checkmate ever been achieved by castling queenside in a high-level game?
This is to complement the kingside variant of that question
Has checkmate ever been achieved by a castling queen side in a high-level game?
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What happened actually in the game Kreschmer - Laue, Aisenach 1951?
[Title "Kretschmar vs. Laue, 1951"]
[fen "7k/3R2pq/pb3N2/1p4Qp/5p2/1PP2P1P/1P4PK/4r3 w - - 0 1"]
In a German book, Spass am Kombinieren (Joy of Combination) by Albin Pötzsch, it ...
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Has checkmate ever been achieved by castling kingside in a high-level game?
Has checkmate ever been achieved by castling kingside in a high-level game?
I asked an AI large language model, but it listed games which certainly didn't achieve checkmate with castling kingside. I ...
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Largest round robin ever?
First, I myself played several large (20+) blitz round robins, this is nothing unusual. Thus: only "long" games.
Second, oversize round robins were quite common in the good old days (maybe ...
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Where does the term 'fianchetto' come from?
I know what a fianchetto is, developing a bishop on the 2nd/7th ranks on the long diagonals. But how did the word 'fianchetto' come into play as a chess term?
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Who was Wright, purportedly the best player in the Australian prison system?
I read a true crime book by Mark "Chopper". It states the best player in the Australian prison system was named Wright. Does anyone have any more information on this person, such as their ...
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What are examples of tournaments/games 60 minutes to below 120 minutes, and how does FIDE classify them?
What are some examples of tournaments or games where their time controls convert to at least 60 minutes but below 120 minutes, and then how does FIDE classify them (eg rapid or classical)?
Supposedly ...
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