Chess is a game
Chess is a game played between two players. Sometimes it is called Western chess or international chess. It is believed that chesss was first played in India. Probably around the end of the 9th century the game was brought to Asia via Persia and Arabia. The rules of the game were made between the 16th and the 17th centuries and have hardly changed since then. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in clubs, online, by correspondence, in tournaments and informally.
The game is played on a square chequered chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight square. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king.
The first chess competitions were organised in the sixteenth century. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886.
One of the goals of early computer scientists was to create a chess-playing machine, and today's chess is deeply influenced by the abilities of current chess programs and by the possibility to play online. In 1996, a match between Garry Kasparov, then a World Champion, and a computer proved for the first time that machines are able to beat even the strongest human players.
The aim of my work is to answer the following questions:
When and where did chess appear?
What chess competitions are organised in the world?
Who are the best chess players in the world?
Are chess popular in Kungur?
As for me, I play chess and want to know more about this interesting and very useful game. While working over my paper I have read a lot of books about chess and met many interesting people who are fond of this game.
II. Russian Indian Game
2.1. The Origin of the Game
Chess originated in India, where its early form in the 6th century was Chaturanga,
which translates as "four divisions of the military"- infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots, represented respectively by pawn, knight, bishop, and rook. In Persia the game was called shatranj and the rules were developed further. Shatranj was taken up by the Muslim world. In Spanish "shatranj" was rendered as ajedrez and in Greek as zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king").
Knights Templar playing chess, 1283.
The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript.
Another theory says that chess arose from the game xiangqi existing in China since the 2nd century BC.
Around 1200, rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe, and around 1475 the game got its main rules that are known today. These modern rules for the basic moves had been adopted in Italy and in Spain. Pawns gained the option of advancing two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern abilities. This made the queen the most powerful piece and it was called "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess".These new rules quickly spread throughout western Europe.
This was also the time when chess started to develop a corpus of theory. The oldest preserved printed chess book was published in Salamanca in 1497.
François-André Danican Philidor, eighteenth century French chess Master
In the eighteenth century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France. The two most important French masters were François-André Danican Philidor, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La
Bourdonnais who won a famous series of matches with the British master Alexander McDonnell in 1834.Centers of chess life in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Paris and in London.
As the nineteenth century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824. Chess news were published regularly in the newspapers.
2.2. Rules of the Game
Chess is played on a square board of eight rows and eight columns of squares. The colors of the sixty-four squares alternate and are referred to as "light squares" and "dark squares".
The pieces are divided, by convention, into White and Black sets. Each player begins the game with sixteen pieces: these comprise one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. White moves first. The colors are chosen either by a friendly agreement, by a game of chance or by a tournament director. The players alternate moving one piece at a time. Pieces are moved to either an unoccupied square, or one occupied by an opponent's piece, capturing it and removing it from play. With one exception , all pieces capture opponent's pieces by moving to the square that the opponent's piece occupies.
When a king is under immediate attack by the opponent's pieces, the king is said to be in check. When in check, only moves that result in a position in which the king is not in check are permitted. The player must not make any move that would place his king in check. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent; this occurs when the opponent's king is in check, and there is no way to remove the king from attack.
Each chess piece has its own style of moving.
The king can move only one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Once in every game, each king is allowed to make a special move, known as castling. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then placing the rook immediately on the far side of the king. Castling is only permissible if all of the following conditions hold:
The rook moves any number of vacant squares vertically or horizontally;
The bishop moves any number of vacant squares in any direction diagonally. Note that a bishop never changes square color, therefore players speak about "dark-squared" or "light-squared" bishops, depending on the color of square on which the bishop resides. The queen can move any number of vacant squares diagonally, horizontally, or vertically;
The knight can jump over occupied squares and moves two spaces horizontally and one space vertically or vice versa, making an "L" shape. A knight in the middle of the board has eight squares to which it can move. Note that every time a knight moves, it changes square color.
Pawns have the most complex rules of movement:
A pawn can move forward one square. A pawn cannot move backward.
Pawns are the only pieces that capture differently than they move. They can capture an enemy piece on either of the two spaces adjacent to the space in front of them (i.e., the two squares diagonally in front of them), but cannot move to these spaces if they are vacant.
If a pawn advances all the way to its eighth rank, it is then promoted to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. In practice, the pawn is almost always promoted to a queen.
With the exception of the knight, pieces cannot jump over each other. The captured piece is thus removed from the game and may not be returned to play for the remainder of the game. The king cannot be captured, only put in check. If a player is unable to get the king out of check, checkmate results, with the loss of the game.
Chess games do not have to end in checkmate — either player may resign if the situation looks hopeless. Games also may end in a draw.
Besides casual games without exact timing, chess is also played with a time control, mostly by club and professional players. If a player's time runs out before the game is completed, he automatically loses. The timing ranges from long games played up to seven hours to shorter rapid chess games lasting usually 30 minutes or one hour per game. Even shorter is blitz chess with a time control of three to fifteen minutes for each player and bullet chess (under three minutes).
The international rules of chess are described in more detail in the FIDE Handbook, section Laws of Chess.
2.3 Chess Competitions
At present chess is an organized sport with international and national leagues, tournaments and congresses. Chess's international governing body is FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs). Most countries have a national chess organization (such as the US Chess Federation and English Chess Federation), which in turn is a member of FIDE. FIDE is a member of the International Olympic Committee, but the game of chess has never been part of the Olympic Games; chess has its own Olympiad, held every two years as a team event. About 605 million people worldwide know how to play chess, and 7.5 million are members of national chess federations, which exist in 160 countries worldwide. This makes chess one of the most popular sports worldwide.
The current World Chess Champion is Viswanathan Anand of India. The reigning Women's World Champion is Xu Yuhua from China. However, the world's highest rated female player, Judit Polgar, has never participated in the Women's World Chess Championship.
Other competitions for individuals include the World Junior Chess Championship, the European Individual Chess Championship and the National Chess Championships.
Regular team chess events include the aChess Olympiad and the European Team Championship. The 37th Chess Olympiad was held 2006 in Turin, Italy; Armenia won the gold medal, and the Ukraine took the top medal for the women. The World Chess Solving Championship and World Correspondence Chess Championships are both team and individual events.
Besides these prestigious competitions, there are thousands of other chess tournaments, matches and festivals held around the world every year, which cater to players of all levels, from beginners to experts.
2.4 Outstanding Chess Players
The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and won, surprisingly, by German Adolf Anderssen, who was unknown at that time. Anderssen was hailed as the leading chess master and his brilliant, energetic attacking style became typical for the time.
Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players. American Paul Morphy, an extraordinary chess prodigy, won against all important competitors, including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863. Morphy's success stemmed from a combination of brilliant attacks and sound strategy; he always knew how to prepare attacks.
Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz later described how to avoid weaknesses in one's own position and how to create and exploit such weaknesses in the opponent's position. In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading German master Johannes Zukertort in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions.
Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Chess Champion
It took a prodigy from Cuba, José Raúl Capablanca (World champion 1921–27), who loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years until 1924. His successor was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player, who
died as the World champion in 1946.
Alexender Alekhine was born on 31st October, 1892 in Moscow. His mother and his brothers taught him how to play chess when he was eleven. By the time he was twelve, he was playing chess with people by mail. In 1909 he won the Russian Master title in St Petersburg. This was the beginning of his life as a chess champion. In 1914, he was one of the five players whom Tsar Nicholas II awarded with the title “Grandmaster of Chess”.
Alexander taught himself to play chess blindfold. In 1925 he broke the world blindfold record by playing 28 games blindfold at the same time. On 29th November 1927, Alexander won the world championship match against Jose Capablanca in Buenos Aires and became the 4th official World Champion of chess.
He gave exhibitions in which he would play many games at the same time. In 1932, he played 300 opponents from New York to Paris simultaneously!
Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school introduced by Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Réti. They advocated controlling the center of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, inviting opponents to occupy the center with pawns which become objects of attack.
Since the end of 19th century, the number of annually held master tournaments and matches quickly grew. In 1914, the title of chess grandmaster was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall. This tradition was continued by the World Chess Federation, founded in 1924 in Paris. In 1927, Women's World Chess Championship was established; the first to hold it was Czech-English master Vera Menchik.
World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925
After the death of Alekhine, Russian chess player Mikhail Botvinnik, started an era of Soviet dominance in the chess world. Until the end of the Soviet Union, there was only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer (champion 1972–1975).
In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov when FIDE refused to meet his demands, and Karpov obtained the title by default. Karpov defended his title twice against Viktor Korchnoi and dominated the 1970s and early 1980s with a string of tournament successes.
Karpov's reign finally ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player, Garry Kasparov. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world title matches between 1984 and 1990; Karpov never won his title back.
In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short organised their own match for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess Association (PCA). From then until 2006, there were two simultaneous World Champions and World Championships. Kasparov lost his Classical title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
In 2006 Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) and became the undisputed World Chess Champion. In September 2007, Viswanathan Anand became the next champion by winning a championship tournament.
Current World Champion Viswanathan Anand(India)
III. Kungur Chess Club “The White Rook”
Chess Club for children was founded in Kungur in 1973 and the first club leader was Anatoly Anatolyevich Madalyanov. The game of chess palyed an important part in his life. He was the only first - category chess player in Kungur at that time. He organised the first children chess tournaments and later he organised the competitions among grown-ups. Since 1974 chess tournaments have been held in Kungur annually. In 1974 the team of Kungur chess club became the winners of the reginal chess tournament “The White Rook”. The members of the team were Valera Plesovskikh, Lyuba Semerikova, Sasha Sharavin, Elya Medalyanova and Tamara Semyonova. Anatoly Anatolyevich Madalyanov was a skillful player and talented organiser so he did his best to make chess a very popular game in Kungur. In 1978 first - category chess players bacame Yu. V. Vakin and V. K. Kukis. Anatoly Anatolyevich advised V. K. Kukis and A. B. Kadochnikov to work with children in the club. V. K. Kukis taught strategy and mittelspiel, A.B. Kadochnikov revieled the secrets of the endspiel. Soon schoolchildren from Kungur took part in regional competitions with great success. Anatoly Madalyanov and Valentin Kukis were named the best chess coaches of the region. After the death of A. A. Medalyanov in 1980 his work with children was continued by V. K. Kukis. Since 1987 young chess players, A. N. Letov, A. N. Ostanin and A. B. Posyagin, former members of the club joined Valentin Klemencovich in his work with children.
Among the best chess players in Kungur was Valery Plesovskikh. Anatoly Anatolyevich Medalyanov helped this talented boy to become a real master. Valery Plesovskikh became town champion at the age of 12 in 1975. In 1980 Valery got the title of the Candidate to the Master of Sport. The newspaper “Iskra” regularly published the articles about chess tournaments and about best chess players. The game was extremely popular at that time. About forty participants took part in town tournaments. Sucessful players at that time were Yuri Vakin, A. Sharavin, Sasha Letov, Oleg Pautov, Nikolay Samarin.
A. N. Letov is a Master of Sport in chess. In 1993 he became six-time town champion of Kungur, two-time champion of Perm region the winner of the regional chess festival “Ural Perl” and a prize-winner of chess tournament of the Russian Federation.
Grown-ups as well as children were interested in chess. People of different enterprises took part in tournaments. Workers of Machine-building plant, Shoe factory, oil industry played chess with great enthusiasm. In 1978 reginal chess tournament was held in Kungur. Teams from Beresniki, Solikamsk, Lysva, Perm and Kungur took part in this competitions. The winners were pupils of school #92 from Perm, pupils of school # 10 from Kungur took the second place.
Valentin Klemensovich became the leader of the chess club in 1980 and his team of pupils of schools # 16 and # 10 took the third place in reginal competitions in 1985 and 1989. The best players were Oleg Petrov, Andrey Posyagin, Yuri Bartov, Elya Petukhova, Misha Smetanin, Evgeny Kolesov, Elena Strelkova and others.
Since 1990 the leader of the club “The White Rook” is Andrey Borisovich Posyagin. The best chess players were pupils of school #16 at that time. Among them were Evgeny Izergin, A. Pivovarov, A. Kuznetsov, A. Sokolov, A. Ponomaryeva, Bormotov Evgeny, Tyukin Mikhail. Since 1999 pupils of lyceum Maksim Kasperovich, Ilya Kalmykov, Evgenya Alistratova, Artur Tavafiev, Natasha Shishova, Andrey Shcherbich became well – known players in the town. In 2000 they became the winners of the chess tournament of Perm region. In 2003 two teams of Kungur took the first and the second places in regional competitions. Among the winners were pupils of lyceum: Artur Tavafiev, Lavrenty Skripov, Kostya Porosov and Denis Porosov.
In 2005 the best chess player of Perm region became Olga Chizha from lyceum. She also took part in All-Russia chess competition in Penza and got the first category there. Next year Olga had a new success. She became the champion of Perm Krai and got the title of the candidate to the Master of Sport in Russia. Olga is a very talented player. I am proud that Olga Chizha was my lyceum-mate.
IV. Chess in Perm Krai
Chess became popular in Perm in the XIXth century. There are some interesting facts about the development of the game in this city. On the bank of the Kama once was organised an unusual game of chess. Real people dressed as chess-men took part in the game. At present such performances are called living chess.
It is known that regular games of chess were held in the house of the architect Sviyasev in 1822 – 1823. Coal – mining engineer N. Vorontsov played simultaneuously on the 12 chess boards! At the end of the XIXth century doctor Michail Zubakin came to Perm. He was an experienced chess player of that time. Michail Zubakin began to play chess in St Petersburg and had games with such famous players as Michail Chigorin and young Alexander Alekhine. He organised the games by correspondence in Perm.
In 1918 the first chess club appeared on the faculty of law of the Perm State University. It was called “Mata – Club”. On the 1st of May 1918 M. Zubakin played there on the 13 chess boards simultaneuously and won 11 games! Since 1921 regular city championships had been held. The first city champion was M. Matveev. In 1928 there were 24 chess clubs in Perm, and 600 players joined them. Perm chess players began to be known in Russia, they played by correspondence with the players of Germany. In 1930 V. Barsov became the champion of the Urals and four years later the champion of the Urals became M. Pinsky. During the World War II chess continued its development in Perm. In the village of Yurla lived future world champion M. Tall. Their family was evacuated to Perm region, there Michail Tall finished school and began playing chess. In November 6th, 1941 M. Botvinnik gave a lecture “Chess tournaments of the last years” to Perm amateur players. He also organised the games of simultaneuous play, he visited hospitals, and took part in one of the largest chess tournaments of that time in Sverdlovsk as a representative of Perm team in 1943. M. Botvinnik became the winner of the tournament. At the end of 1943 he left Perm but the memory about him is kept.
After the war the best chess club was in Perm State University. A lot of young players appeared at that time. The best were: Yu. Nyashin, P. Ogibenin, Ya. Leyfer, A. Veksler and N. Pakhomova. In 1960 the team of Perm region won the first place in the All-Russia chess tournament! Yu. Kotkov, V. Selesnev, Yu, Yakovlev, M. Dmitrievsky, V. Zhulanov and N. Pakhomova took part in that competitions. In 1967 All – Russia chess week was held in Perm and new talented players appeared. They were N. Akhlustina and V. Zhuravlev. V. Zuravlev was on of the leaders of the XXXV championship of the USSR and played the final game with M. Tall.
Chess were popular in many towns of Perm region. One of the first chess clubs appeared in Lysva, Beresniky, Chusovoy, Solikamsk and other towns of our region. Perm chess organisation made its contribution in the development of chess not only in Perm and Perm region but in Russia as well.
Nowadays successful chess traditions are continued by young players.
V. Conclusion
While writing my report I have learned a lot of interesting and useful facts about chess history and about famous chess players. Now I know that
chess originated in India and later the game was popular all over the world;
at present chess is an organised sport with international and national leagues, tournaments and congresses, it is an Olympic sport;
current World Champion is Viswanathan Anand from India;
chess became popular in Perm in the XIXth century, Michail Tall and Michail Botvinnik lived and played chess in Perm;
Kungur chess club “The White Rook” was founed in 1973, Anatoly Medalyanov, a talented chess player did much for the development of the game in our town.
It was interesting for me to know what my lyceum - mates think about chess, so I made a questionnaire and asked pupils of the sixth forms about their attitude towards the game.
71 pupils took part in the survey. 72% of students can play chess and only 28% can’t play this game. 55% of girls answered that they can play chess. 50% of all pupils were members of a chess club, as a rule, when they studied in the primary school. 30% of girls joined a chess club in different times.
I wanted to know if relatives of my lyceum mates can play chess. I have got the following answer: father – 74%; grandfather – 25%; mother – 25%; brother – 13%, uncle – 5%.
I also asked them: “What famous chess players do you know?” Unfortunetely very few students named the best chess players. Many of them were from our country.
Kasparov – 20%
Kramnik – 12%
Karpov – 10%
Fisher – 6%
Alekhine, Botvinnik, Steinitz – 2%
At the same time some students named chess players of our town. The most popular answers were V. Kukis, A. Posyagin, L. Skripov.
I have come to the conclusion that most students of the sixth forms of lyceum can play chess but they are very busy at school and have no time to join a chess club. However, many pupils are not interested in chess now and don’t know the names of famous chess players. I think my work will be useful for those who like chess and want to know about this intelligent game. I hope that new talented players will appear in our town and the game of chess will be always popular.
The game is played on a square chequered chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight square. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king.
The first chess competitions were organised in the sixteenth century. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886.
One of the goals of early computer scientists was to create a chess-playing machine, and today's chess is deeply influenced by the abilities of current chess programs and by the possibility to play online. In 1996, a match between Garry Kasparov, then a World Champion, and a computer proved for the first time that machines are able to beat even the strongest human players.
The aim of my work is to answer the following questions:
When and where did chess appear?
What chess competitions are organised in the world?
Who are the best chess players in the world?
Are chess popular in Kungur?
As for me, I play chess and want to know more about this interesting and very useful game. While working over my paper I have read a lot of books about chess and met many interesting people who are fond of this game.
II. Russian Indian Game
2.1. The Origin of the Game
Chess originated in India, where its early form in the 6th century was Chaturanga,
which translates as "four divisions of the military"- infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots, represented respectively by pawn, knight, bishop, and rook. In Persia the game was called shatranj and the rules were developed further. Shatranj was taken up by the Muslim world. In Spanish "shatranj" was rendered as ajedrez and in Greek as zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king").
Knights Templar playing chess, 1283.
The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript.
Another theory says that chess arose from the game xiangqi existing in China since the 2nd century BC.
Around 1200, rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe, and around 1475 the game got its main rules that are known today. These modern rules for the basic moves had been adopted in Italy and in Spain. Pawns gained the option of advancing two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern abilities. This made the queen the most powerful piece and it was called "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess".These new rules quickly spread throughout western Europe.
This was also the time when chess started to develop a corpus of theory. The oldest preserved printed chess book was published in Salamanca in 1497.
François-André Danican Philidor, eighteenth century French chess Master
In the eighteenth century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France. The two most important French masters were François-André Danican Philidor, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La
Bourdonnais who won a famous series of matches with the British master Alexander McDonnell in 1834.Centers of chess life in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Paris and in London.
As the nineteenth century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824. Chess news were published regularly in the newspapers.
2.2. Rules of the Game
Chess is played on a square board of eight rows and eight columns of squares. The colors of the sixty-four squares alternate and are referred to as "light squares" and "dark squares".
The pieces are divided, by convention, into White and Black sets. Each player begins the game with sixteen pieces: these comprise one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. White moves first. The colors are chosen either by a friendly agreement, by a game of chance or by a tournament director. The players alternate moving one piece at a time. Pieces are moved to either an unoccupied square, or one occupied by an opponent's piece, capturing it and removing it from play. With one exception , all pieces capture opponent's pieces by moving to the square that the opponent's piece occupies.
When a king is under immediate attack by the opponent's pieces, the king is said to be in check. When in check, only moves that result in a position in which the king is not in check are permitted. The player must not make any move that would place his king in check. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent; this occurs when the opponent's king is in check, and there is no way to remove the king from attack.
Each chess piece has its own style of moving.
The king can move only one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Once in every game, each king is allowed to make a special move, known as castling. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then placing the rook immediately on the far side of the king. Castling is only permissible if all of the following conditions hold:
The rook moves any number of vacant squares vertically or horizontally;
The bishop moves any number of vacant squares in any direction diagonally. Note that a bishop never changes square color, therefore players speak about "dark-squared" or "light-squared" bishops, depending on the color of square on which the bishop resides. The queen can move any number of vacant squares diagonally, horizontally, or vertically;
The knight can jump over occupied squares and moves two spaces horizontally and one space vertically or vice versa, making an "L" shape. A knight in the middle of the board has eight squares to which it can move. Note that every time a knight moves, it changes square color.
Pawns have the most complex rules of movement:
A pawn can move forward one square. A pawn cannot move backward.
Pawns are the only pieces that capture differently than they move. They can capture an enemy piece on either of the two spaces adjacent to the space in front of them (i.e., the two squares diagonally in front of them), but cannot move to these spaces if they are vacant.
If a pawn advances all the way to its eighth rank, it is then promoted to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. In practice, the pawn is almost always promoted to a queen.
With the exception of the knight, pieces cannot jump over each other. The captured piece is thus removed from the game and may not be returned to play for the remainder of the game. The king cannot be captured, only put in check. If a player is unable to get the king out of check, checkmate results, with the loss of the game.
Chess games do not have to end in checkmate — either player may resign if the situation looks hopeless. Games also may end in a draw.
Besides casual games without exact timing, chess is also played with a time control, mostly by club and professional players. If a player's time runs out before the game is completed, he automatically loses. The timing ranges from long games played up to seven hours to shorter rapid chess games lasting usually 30 minutes or one hour per game. Even shorter is blitz chess with a time control of three to fifteen minutes for each player and bullet chess (under three minutes).
The international rules of chess are described in more detail in the FIDE Handbook, section Laws of Chess.
2.3 Chess Competitions
At present chess is an organized sport with international and national leagues, tournaments and congresses. Chess's international governing body is FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs). Most countries have a national chess organization (such as the US Chess Federation and English Chess Federation), which in turn is a member of FIDE. FIDE is a member of the International Olympic Committee, but the game of chess has never been part of the Olympic Games; chess has its own Olympiad, held every two years as a team event. About 605 million people worldwide know how to play chess, and 7.5 million are members of national chess federations, which exist in 160 countries worldwide. This makes chess one of the most popular sports worldwide.
The current World Chess Champion is Viswanathan Anand of India. The reigning Women's World Champion is Xu Yuhua from China. However, the world's highest rated female player, Judit Polgar, has never participated in the Women's World Chess Championship.
Other competitions for individuals include the World Junior Chess Championship, the European Individual Chess Championship and the National Chess Championships.
Regular team chess events include the aChess Olympiad and the European Team Championship. The 37th Chess Olympiad was held 2006 in Turin, Italy; Armenia won the gold medal, and the Ukraine took the top medal for the women. The World Chess Solving Championship and World Correspondence Chess Championships are both team and individual events.
Besides these prestigious competitions, there are thousands of other chess tournaments, matches and festivals held around the world every year, which cater to players of all levels, from beginners to experts.
2.4 Outstanding Chess Players
The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and won, surprisingly, by German Adolf Anderssen, who was unknown at that time. Anderssen was hailed as the leading chess master and his brilliant, energetic attacking style became typical for the time.
Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players. American Paul Morphy, an extraordinary chess prodigy, won against all important competitors, including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863. Morphy's success stemmed from a combination of brilliant attacks and sound strategy; he always knew how to prepare attacks.
Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz later described how to avoid weaknesses in one's own position and how to create and exploit such weaknesses in the opponent's position. In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading German master Johannes Zukertort in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions.
Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Chess Champion
It took a prodigy from Cuba, José Raúl Capablanca (World champion 1921–27), who loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years until 1924. His successor was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player, who
died as the World champion in 1946.
Alexender Alekhine was born on 31st October, 1892 in Moscow. His mother and his brothers taught him how to play chess when he was eleven. By the time he was twelve, he was playing chess with people by mail. In 1909 he won the Russian Master title in St Petersburg. This was the beginning of his life as a chess champion. In 1914, he was one of the five players whom Tsar Nicholas II awarded with the title “Grandmaster of Chess”.
Alexander taught himself to play chess blindfold. In 1925 he broke the world blindfold record by playing 28 games blindfold at the same time. On 29th November 1927, Alexander won the world championship match against Jose Capablanca in Buenos Aires and became the 4th official World Champion of chess.
He gave exhibitions in which he would play many games at the same time. In 1932, he played 300 opponents from New York to Paris simultaneously!
Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school introduced by Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Réti. They advocated controlling the center of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, inviting opponents to occupy the center with pawns which become objects of attack.
Since the end of 19th century, the number of annually held master tournaments and matches quickly grew. In 1914, the title of chess grandmaster was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall. This tradition was continued by the World Chess Federation, founded in 1924 in Paris. In 1927, Women's World Chess Championship was established; the first to hold it was Czech-English master Vera Menchik.
World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925
After the death of Alekhine, Russian chess player Mikhail Botvinnik, started an era of Soviet dominance in the chess world. Until the end of the Soviet Union, there was only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer (champion 1972–1975).
In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov when FIDE refused to meet his demands, and Karpov obtained the title by default. Karpov defended his title twice against Viktor Korchnoi and dominated the 1970s and early 1980s with a string of tournament successes.
Karpov's reign finally ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player, Garry Kasparov. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world title matches between 1984 and 1990; Karpov never won his title back.
In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short organised their own match for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess Association (PCA). From then until 2006, there were two simultaneous World Champions and World Championships. Kasparov lost his Classical title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
In 2006 Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) and became the undisputed World Chess Champion. In September 2007, Viswanathan Anand became the next champion by winning a championship tournament.
Current World Champion Viswanathan Anand(India)
III. Kungur Chess Club “The White Rook”
Chess Club for children was founded in Kungur in 1973 and the first club leader was Anatoly Anatolyevich Madalyanov. The game of chess palyed an important part in his life. He was the only first - category chess player in Kungur at that time. He organised the first children chess tournaments and later he organised the competitions among grown-ups. Since 1974 chess tournaments have been held in Kungur annually. In 1974 the team of Kungur chess club became the winners of the reginal chess tournament “The White Rook”. The members of the team were Valera Plesovskikh, Lyuba Semerikova, Sasha Sharavin, Elya Medalyanova and Tamara Semyonova. Anatoly Anatolyevich Madalyanov was a skillful player and talented organiser so he did his best to make chess a very popular game in Kungur. In 1978 first - category chess players bacame Yu. V. Vakin and V. K. Kukis. Anatoly Anatolyevich advised V. K. Kukis and A. B. Kadochnikov to work with children in the club. V. K. Kukis taught strategy and mittelspiel, A.B. Kadochnikov revieled the secrets of the endspiel. Soon schoolchildren from Kungur took part in regional competitions with great success. Anatoly Madalyanov and Valentin Kukis were named the best chess coaches of the region. After the death of A. A. Medalyanov in 1980 his work with children was continued by V. K. Kukis. Since 1987 young chess players, A. N. Letov, A. N. Ostanin and A. B. Posyagin, former members of the club joined Valentin Klemencovich in his work with children.
Among the best chess players in Kungur was Valery Plesovskikh. Anatoly Anatolyevich Medalyanov helped this talented boy to become a real master. Valery Plesovskikh became town champion at the age of 12 in 1975. In 1980 Valery got the title of the Candidate to the Master of Sport. The newspaper “Iskra” regularly published the articles about chess tournaments and about best chess players. The game was extremely popular at that time. About forty participants took part in town tournaments. Sucessful players at that time were Yuri Vakin, A. Sharavin, Sasha Letov, Oleg Pautov, Nikolay Samarin.
A. N. Letov is a Master of Sport in chess. In 1993 he became six-time town champion of Kungur, two-time champion of Perm region the winner of the regional chess festival “Ural Perl” and a prize-winner of chess tournament of the Russian Federation.
Grown-ups as well as children were interested in chess. People of different enterprises took part in tournaments. Workers of Machine-building plant, Shoe factory, oil industry played chess with great enthusiasm. In 1978 reginal chess tournament was held in Kungur. Teams from Beresniki, Solikamsk, Lysva, Perm and Kungur took part in this competitions. The winners were pupils of school #92 from Perm, pupils of school # 10 from Kungur took the second place.
Valentin Klemensovich became the leader of the chess club in 1980 and his team of pupils of schools # 16 and # 10 took the third place in reginal competitions in 1985 and 1989. The best players were Oleg Petrov, Andrey Posyagin, Yuri Bartov, Elya Petukhova, Misha Smetanin, Evgeny Kolesov, Elena Strelkova and others.
Since 1990 the leader of the club “The White Rook” is Andrey Borisovich Posyagin. The best chess players were pupils of school #16 at that time. Among them were Evgeny Izergin, A. Pivovarov, A. Kuznetsov, A. Sokolov, A. Ponomaryeva, Bormotov Evgeny, Tyukin Mikhail. Since 1999 pupils of lyceum Maksim Kasperovich, Ilya Kalmykov, Evgenya Alistratova, Artur Tavafiev, Natasha Shishova, Andrey Shcherbich became well – known players in the town. In 2000 they became the winners of the chess tournament of Perm region. In 2003 two teams of Kungur took the first and the second places in regional competitions. Among the winners were pupils of lyceum: Artur Tavafiev, Lavrenty Skripov, Kostya Porosov and Denis Porosov.
In 2005 the best chess player of Perm region became Olga Chizha from lyceum. She also took part in All-Russia chess competition in Penza and got the first category there. Next year Olga had a new success. She became the champion of Perm Krai and got the title of the candidate to the Master of Sport in Russia. Olga is a very talented player. I am proud that Olga Chizha was my lyceum-mate.
IV. Chess in Perm Krai
Chess became popular in Perm in the XIXth century. There are some interesting facts about the development of the game in this city. On the bank of the Kama once was organised an unusual game of chess. Real people dressed as chess-men took part in the game. At present such performances are called living chess.
It is known that regular games of chess were held in the house of the architect Sviyasev in 1822 – 1823. Coal – mining engineer N. Vorontsov played simultaneuously on the 12 chess boards! At the end of the XIXth century doctor Michail Zubakin came to Perm. He was an experienced chess player of that time. Michail Zubakin began to play chess in St Petersburg and had games with such famous players as Michail Chigorin and young Alexander Alekhine. He organised the games by correspondence in Perm.
In 1918 the first chess club appeared on the faculty of law of the Perm State University. It was called “Mata – Club”. On the 1st of May 1918 M. Zubakin played there on the 13 chess boards simultaneuously and won 11 games! Since 1921 regular city championships had been held. The first city champion was M. Matveev. In 1928 there were 24 chess clubs in Perm, and 600 players joined them. Perm chess players began to be known in Russia, they played by correspondence with the players of Germany. In 1930 V. Barsov became the champion of the Urals and four years later the champion of the Urals became M. Pinsky. During the World War II chess continued its development in Perm. In the village of Yurla lived future world champion M. Tall. Their family was evacuated to Perm region, there Michail Tall finished school and began playing chess. In November 6th, 1941 M. Botvinnik gave a lecture “Chess tournaments of the last years” to Perm amateur players. He also organised the games of simultaneuous play, he visited hospitals, and took part in one of the largest chess tournaments of that time in Sverdlovsk as a representative of Perm team in 1943. M. Botvinnik became the winner of the tournament. At the end of 1943 he left Perm but the memory about him is kept.
After the war the best chess club was in Perm State University. A lot of young players appeared at that time. The best were: Yu. Nyashin, P. Ogibenin, Ya. Leyfer, A. Veksler and N. Pakhomova. In 1960 the team of Perm region won the first place in the All-Russia chess tournament! Yu. Kotkov, V. Selesnev, Yu, Yakovlev, M. Dmitrievsky, V. Zhulanov and N. Pakhomova took part in that competitions. In 1967 All – Russia chess week was held in Perm and new talented players appeared. They were N. Akhlustina and V. Zhuravlev. V. Zuravlev was on of the leaders of the XXXV championship of the USSR and played the final game with M. Tall.
Chess were popular in many towns of Perm region. One of the first chess clubs appeared in Lysva, Beresniky, Chusovoy, Solikamsk and other towns of our region. Perm chess organisation made its contribution in the development of chess not only in Perm and Perm region but in Russia as well.
Nowadays successful chess traditions are continued by young players.
V. Conclusion
While writing my report I have learned a lot of interesting and useful facts about chess history and about famous chess players. Now I know that
chess originated in India and later the game was popular all over the world;
at present chess is an organised sport with international and national leagues, tournaments and congresses, it is an Olympic sport;
current World Champion is Viswanathan Anand from India;
chess became popular in Perm in the XIXth century, Michail Tall and Michail Botvinnik lived and played chess in Perm;
Kungur chess club “The White Rook” was founed in 1973, Anatoly Medalyanov, a talented chess player did much for the development of the game in our town.
It was interesting for me to know what my lyceum - mates think about chess, so I made a questionnaire and asked pupils of the sixth forms about their attitude towards the game.
71 pupils took part in the survey. 72% of students can play chess and only 28% can’t play this game. 55% of girls answered that they can play chess. 50% of all pupils were members of a chess club, as a rule, when they studied in the primary school. 30% of girls joined a chess club in different times.
I wanted to know if relatives of my lyceum mates can play chess. I have got the following answer: father – 74%; grandfather – 25%; mother – 25%; brother – 13%, uncle – 5%.
I also asked them: “What famous chess players do you know?” Unfortunetely very few students named the best chess players. Many of them were from our country.
Kasparov – 20%
Kramnik – 12%
Karpov – 10%
Fisher – 6%
Alekhine, Botvinnik, Steinitz – 2%
At the same time some students named chess players of our town. The most popular answers were V. Kukis, A. Posyagin, L. Skripov.
I have come to the conclusion that most students of the sixth forms of lyceum can play chess but they are very busy at school and have no time to join a chess club. However, many pupils are not interested in chess now and don’t know the names of famous chess players. I think my work will be useful for those who like chess and want to know about this intelligent game. I hope that new talented players will appear in our town and the game of chess will be always popular.
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