HISTORY
Chess is a brainstorming and a strategic tool that is an ancient and one of the most popular board games. The game first appeared in India around the 7th century though we believe it originated a century earlier. The story behind it is based on the death of the youngest prince from the Gupta Empire who got killed in the battle. In order to define the scenario to his grieving mother his brother invented the set of a board called an 8*8 Ashtapada board. This way a new game emerged with different pieces and with different set of rules to move these pieces. The game was initially known as ‘Chaturanga’ a Sanskrit word for four divisions. With the passage of time, it moved across the world being developed locally with different variants until it reached Europe. Around the 15th century, the game proliferated, and a new queen piece was added. This changed the game pace and finally, treatises were analyzed and this way chess was born. It eventually became a rich source of poetic imagery such as T.S Eliot, one of the 20th-century major poets uses the title ‘ A Game of Chess’ in his famous work “The Waste Land”. It was also used as an allegory where different pieces presented the other classes performing their proper roles. Now this game is regarded as an expression of creativity and geniousity.
TRAITS OF THE GAME
The chessboard consists of 64 squares, eight vertical rows called files and eight horizontal rows called ranks. The squares are of light and dark color. The eight ranks are labeled as numbers from 1 to 8 beginning with the rank close to white.
Whereas the files are labeled a through h beginning with the file at white’s left hand. Each square is named consisting of its letter and number like a1, b1, or f1. Each player controls their sixteen pieces consisting of one King, One Queen, two Rooks, two Bishops, two Knights, and eight Pawns. The player who moves first gets white pieces and the other player gets black. The aim and the object of the game are to checkmate the opponent’s king. Checkmate is the game position in which the king is under attack and there is no possible escape. However, there are ways when a game can end in a draw when the player who has the movie requests a tie. The standard rules of chess now are set by FIDE (Federation Internationale des Echecs), which is an international governing body for chess.
Time Element and its control
With intense competition, chess time was fixed for each player to complete their game. The time forma is displayed in an “X/Y” format. The first number is for minutes and the second refers to the seconds. The world championship time control is of 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and 15 minutes for the rest of the game.
Chess Olympiad and the 44th ceremony
The chess Olympiad is a worldwide event in which the top players from different countries participate. FIDE selects the host nation to organize the tournament. The first unofficial tournament took place in the year 1924 in Paris. Earlier the tournament uses to be irregular but after 1927 FIDE took control of its organization and now it is held every two years.
The 44 th chess Olympiad was held in Chennai, India for the first time that began on July 28 and ending on August 9. Though it was initially supposed to take place in Russia the covid and the Russian-Ukraine conflict made it cancel it there. The event was managed by AIDF (All India Chess Federation). Indian team performed really well as we have remarkable talents. There was a total of 188 teams representing 186 national federations. Three countries China, Russia, and Pakistan were not present at this event.
The main venue for the chess tournament was Four Points of Sheraton, New Delhi while the ending ceremony took place at Jawaharlal stadium. Uzbekistan won the Gold while our Indian players won nine medals including Bronze in the women’s section and the Gaprindashvili cup for the overall performance. Grandmaster Gukesh D and Nihal Sarin won the individual gold medals. There are 2,000 Grand Masters in the world and out of them 75 GMs are Indian. The new generation of young talents is budding in this game section as the teens Praggnanandhaa, Gukesh, Nikhil, and Raunak could be the next Fab Four. These teenagers have sharpened their skills in the pandemic era with a high level of concentration. They could be the next game-changer for India. The Chief Minister expressed his joy over the winning team and announced to honor of the winning team with prize money of RS1 crore.
Though the queen on the chess board remains the powerhouse but the ground report of the women participating differs. The percentage of women participation is less and only two percent of women make up for GMs. The perspective of society to keep a girl around the home and raise them with a stereotype that a boy is meant to be smart pushes girls out of consideration. Koneru Humpy, one of India’s GMs agrees with these arguments she states “not just the case (lack of young women playing chess) in our country. The percentage is very less (the world over). It’s not easy as the boys. They (men) can travel for months and years. It’s not as easy to stay away from home for such a long time as well (for women).” It is high time for society to change its perspective. Vishwanathan Anand one of the GMs recognizes the primary challenge is to get women into the game. We as a part of society need to bring a solution to this problem and could hope that in upcoming years the gap will be lessened.
45th chess Olympiad
The 45th chess Olympiad organized by the FIDE will be organized in Budapest, Hungary from 10 to 23 September 2024. The venue for the event will be the renovated Hungexpo Exhibition and conference center. Like India, it will be the first official chess Olympiad to take place in Hungary after the unofficial hosted ceremony in the year 1926.
