40 Facts About Chess Most People Don’t Know
Today’s topic is a bit unusual. I will not talk about strategy, tactics, endgames, middle games, psychology and any other chess related things. However I will still talk about chess. Here are some facts about the game of chess which not many non chess players may be aware of. These are little, fundamental ideas behind the game of chess, from the chess history to the longest game possible. This chess information should help you to improve your teory of the game.
So, 40 facts about chess:
1. The number of possible unique chess games is much greater than the number of electrons in the universe. The number of electrons is estimated to be about 10^79, while the number of unique chess games is 10^120.
2. The longest chess game theoretically possible is 5,949 moves.
3. The longest time for a Castling move to take place was the match game between Bobotsor vs. Irkov in 1966: 46. 0-0.
4. As late as 1561, Castling was two moves. You had to play R-KB1 on one move and K-KN1 on the next move.
5. The word “Checkmate” in Chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the King is dead.”
6. Blathy, Otto (1860-1939), credited for creating the longest Chess Problem, mate in 290 moves.
7. The Police raided a Chess Tournament in Cleveland in 1973, arrested the Tournament director and confiscated the Chess sets on charges of allowing gambling (cash prizes to winners) and possession of gambling devices (the Chess sets).
8. The number of possibilities of a Knight’s tour is over 122 million.
9. The longest official chess game lasted 269 moves (I. Nikolic – Arsovic, Belgrade 1989) and ended in a draw.
10. From the starting position, there are eight different ways to Mate in two moves and 355 different ways to Mate in three moves.
11. The new Pawn move, advancing two squares on its first move instead of one, was first introduced in Spain in 1280.
12. Dr. Emanuel Lasker from Germany retained the World Chess Champion title for more time than any other player ever: 26 years and 337 days.
13. In 1985, the Soviet player Garry Kasparov became the youngest World Chess Champion ever at the age of 22 years and 210 days.
14. The first Chessboard with alternating light and dark squares appears in Europe in 1090.
15. During World War II, some of the top Chess players were also code breakers. British masters Harry Golombek, Stuart Milner-Barry and H. O’D. Alexander was on the team which broke the Nazi Enigma code.
Clarification:
The Polish scientists Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, Jerzy Rozyckibroke the pre-war Enigma code machines, in 1932. Then after the war broke out, the Polish sent the information they’d learned to the British ( chess masters Harry Golombek, Stuart Milner-Barry and H. O’D. Alexander) who then deciphered the new German war Enigma machines.
16. During the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match in Rekjavik, the Russians linked Spassky’s erratic play with Fischer’s chair. The Icelandic organization put a 24-hour Police guard around the chair while chemical and x-ray tests were performed on the chair. Nothing unusual was found.
17. The first mechanical Chess Clock was invented by Thomas Wilson in 1883. Prior to that, Sandglasses were used. Sandglasses were first used in London in 1862. The present day push-button Clock was first perfected by Veenhoff in 1900.
18. The folding Chess board was originally invented in 1125 by a Chess-playing priest. Since the Church forbids priests to play Chess, he hid his Chess board by making one that looked simply like two books lying together.
19. The worst performance by a player was Macleod of Canada who lost 31 games in the New York double-round robin of 1889.
20. Frank Marshall (1877-1944) was the first American to defeat a Soviet player in an international tournament in New York, 1924. He reigned as U.S. Champion for 30 years, but only defended his title once when he defeated Ed Lasker (5-4) in 1923. He was the first master to play more than 100 games simultaneously.
21. In 1985, Eric Knoppert played 500 games of 10-minute Chess in 68 hours.
22. Albert Einstein was a good friend of World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker. In an interview with the New York Times in 1936 Albert said, “I do not play any games. There is no time for it. When I get through work I don’t want anything which requires the working of the mind.” He did take up Chess in his later life.
23. There were 72 consecutive Queen moves in the Mason-Mackenzie game at London in 1882.
24. The record of moves without capture is of 100 moves during the Match between Thorton and M. Walker in 1992.
25. Rookies or, players in their first year, are named after the Rook in Chess. Rooks generally are the last pieces to be moved into action, and the same goes for Rookies.
26. A Computer Program named Deep Thoughtbeat an International Grand Master for the first time in November 1988 in Long Beach, California.
27. Blindfold chess is an impressive skill that many stronger chess players possess. It certainly requires a keen ability to see the board clearly, which can get difficult after many moves. The record was set in 1960 in Budapest by Hungarian Janos Flesch, who played 52 opponents simultaneously while blindfolded – he won 31 of those games.
28. There are well over 1,000 different openings, including variations within larger openings/defenses that one can learn.
29. Chess is often cited by psychologists as an effective way to improve memory function. Also allowing the mind to solve complex problems and work through ideas, it is no wonder that chess is recommended in the fight against Alzheimer’s. Some contend that it can increase one’s intelligence, though that is a more complex topic. The effects of chess on young individuals had led to chess being introduced in school districts and various countries. It has been shown to improve children’s grades and other positive effects as well.
30. FIDE stands for Fédération Internationale des Échecs, which literally translates into World Chess Federation.
31. The second book ever printed in the English language was about chess!
32. The first computer program for playing chess was developed in 1951, by Alan Turing. However, no computer was powerful enough to process it, so Turing tested it by doing the calculations himself and playing according to the results, taking several minutes per move.
33. The oldest recorded chess game in history is from the 900s, between a historian from Baghdad and his student.
34. The oldest surviving complete chess sets were found on the Isle of Lewis, in northern Scotland, and dates to the 12th century. They were probably made in Iceland or Norway, and their appearance was used in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the wizard chess pieces.
35. About 600,000,000 (Six hundred million) people know how to play chess worldwide!
36. In many languages, the Pawn is a foot soldier, but in German and Spanish, it’s a peasant or farmer, instead!
37. The reason why traditional chess pieces don’t look like actual soldiers, bishops, and kings is because before the game reached Europe, it passed through the Islamic world. Islam forbids making statues of animals or people, so chess pieces became vague-looking. When the game spread to Christian Europe, the pieces didn’t change much.
38. Chess began in India during the Gupta Empire, spreading to the Persian Sassanid Empire, and then to the Middle East after Muslims conquered Persia. From there, it spread to Europe and Russia.
39. Initially, the Queen could only move one square at a time, diagonally. Later, she could move two squares at a time, diagonally. It wasn’t until Reconquista Spain, with its powerful queen Isabella, that the Queen became the strongest piece on the board.
40. In Shatranj, the predecessor to chess, the Queen was a minister or vizier, and still is in many languages.
41. There are even more chess facts possible than the unique chess games (see #1).
Check out 31 more facts about chess.
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Resources used for this chess awesomeness:
ChessPoster, TopTenz, Alltheworldsagame
I love chess
I got my highest grading forty two years after my first grading. Is this any kind of record?
I love chess this should help me to beat my dad
In Pakistan
King = Badshah
Queen = Vizir
Rook = Toop
Bishop = Filla
Knight = Ghora
Pawn = Piyada
Dear Eric,
Here is a link that offers info. on the book:
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/adams-caxton-game-and-play-of-the-chesse-introduction
40. Heres what the pieces are called in my mother tongue Bengali
King = Raja (king)
Queen = Mantri (minister)
Rook = Nouko (boat)
Bishop = Gawj (elephant)
Knight = Ghora (horse)
Pawn = Boray (foot-soldier)
Just adfing to the multi-cultural database, if it is of any use to anyone.
31. The second book ever printed in the English language was about chess!
do we know the title of the book?
[quote name=”gervan”][quote name=”Administrator”][quote name=”Rike”]2 – why? Can you explain, please?[/quote]
Hello Rike, the statement
[i]The longest chess game theoretically possible is 5,949 moves[/i]
comes from the following:
“The game may be drawn if each player has made at least the last 50 consecutive moves without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.” – from FIDE Official Rules
The formula used for calculation is:
59(49.5 + 0.5) + 59(49 + 0.5) = 59(50) + 59(49.5) = 2,950 + 2,920.5 = 5,870.5
where b and w represent half-moves for white and black respectively.
Hope that clear things for you. ;-)[/quote]
But this is not right. The game is not draw after these 50 moves, the players can just claim for a draw but there is no need to do so. if both players think they have better position the game can take endless.[/quote]
Hello, you are correct,
if none of
[quote name=”Kenneth Thomas”][quote name=”santi fernando III”]Number 10 says, from the starting position, there are eight different ways to Mate in two moves, can anyone identify all the eight? Thanks[/quote]
Yes, the calculation is simple: 2 to the third power, because there are three binary choices: f3 or f4; e6 or e5; and whether to move the g-pawn or the f-pawn first.[/quote]
Hi Mr. Kenneth Thomas, you got it! Thanks for your comment. 🙄
[quote name=”santi fernando III”]Number 10 says, from the starting position, there are eight different ways to Mate in two moves, can anyone identify all the eight? Thanks[/quote]
Yes, the calculation is simple: 2 to the third power, because there are three binary choices: f3 or f4; e6 or e5; and whether to move the g-pawn or the f-pawn first.
Number 10 says, from the starting position, there are eight different ways to Mate in two moves, can anyone identify all the eight? Thanks
[quote name=”Administrator”][quote name=”Rike”]2 – why? Can you explain, please?[/quote]
Hello Rike, the statement
[i]The longest chess game theoretically possible is 5,949 moves[/i]
comes from the following:
“The game may be drawn if each player has made at least the last 50 consecutive moves without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.” – from FIDE Official Rules
The formula used for calculation is:
59(49.5 + 0.5) + 59(49 + 0.5) = 59(50) + 59(49.5) = 2,950 + 2,920.5 = 5,870.5
where b and w represent half-moves for white and black respectively.
Hope that clear things for you. ;-)[/quote]
But this is not right. The game is not draw after these 50 moves, the players can just claim for a draw but there is no need to do so. if both players think they have better position the game can take endless.
[quote name=”Rike”]2 – why? Can you explain, please?[/quote]
Hello Rike, the statement
[i]The longest chess game theoretically possible is 5,949 moves[/i]
comes from the following:
“The game may be drawn if each player has made at least the last 50 consecutive moves without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.” – from FIDE Official Rules
The formula used for calculation is:
59(49.5 + 0.5) + 59(49 + 0.5) = 59(50) + 59(49.5) = 2,950 + 2,920.5 = 5,870.5
where b and w represent half-moves for white and black respectively.
Hope that clear things for you. 😉
2 – why? Can you explain, please?
No. 4 – the history of castling is a lot more complicated than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling_(chess)
No. 19 – not exactly. MacLeod (the l is capitalized) lost 31 games, but he won 6 and drew 1 at New York 1889, one of the longest tournaments in history. In terms of percentage score the worst you can get is 0% (all losses). The longest tournament in which someone lost EVERY game was Monte Carlo 1903, where Colonel Moreau went 0-26. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Most_games_lost
No. 5 – actually it means “the king is helpless.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#Etymology
No. 3 – the game was between Bobotsov and Ivkov, not Bobotsor and Irkov. http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1310597
The Isle of Lewis chess set was definitely [u]not[/u] the basis for the Wizard Chess set of [i]Harry Potter[/i]. The Wizard Chess pieces are of a finer sculptural style than that of the Lewis pieces. Pity, because it really would have been cool to have seen a giant Isle of Lewis set in the movie.
32.This is a story of a man that won a game of chess as dead:
http://www.chess.com/news/a-deadly-game-3163?page=2
Yes, it is true:
“Chess publishing has a history as long and interesting as the history of publishing itself. In 1474 William Caxton printed Game and Playe of the Chesse, the second book ever printed in English. The first was a collection of Trojan War tales, the third was a Korchnoi game collection. ”
from [url]http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1752[/url]
second book ever printed in the English was about chess! is it true? please clarify
Thank you to all who responded and helped in clarification of #15 😆
The revised #15 is now states the following historic facts:
[quote]The Polish scientists Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, Jerzy Rozycki broke the pre-war Enigma code machines, in 1932. Then after the war broke out, the Polish sent the information they’d learned to the British ( chess masters Harry Golombek, Stuart Milner-Barry and H. O’D. Alexander) who then deciphered the new German war Enigma machines.[/quote]
Yep…15 is not true. Enigma code was broken by polish scientists.
[quote name=”Administrator”]There are some controversial information about this one, some sources claim its Polish some claim its British. :-)[/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Polish_disclosures
Three polish mathematicians broke Enigma, please don’t tamper with history.
[quote name=”Administrator”]There are some controversial information about this one, some sources claim its Polish some claim its British. :-)[/quote]
if fact Polish mathematician broke the Enigma code,only thing is they were working on English soil.the controvertial informations are always produced by English
15. During World War II, some of the top Chess players were also code breakers. British masters Harry Golombek, Stuart Milner-Barry and H. O’D. Alexander was on the team which broke the Nazi Enigma code.
Let’s make it clear. Polish mathematicians broke Enigma before even the war happened. Of course there were some changes to the enigma during the war, but…
LOL English code breakers do not break the enigma!!!!!!!!! The ones that broke the Enigma were Poles
Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, Jerzy Rozycki
The ones that broke the Enigma were Poles
Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, Jerzy Rozycki
[quote name=”Rama Mohan Rao Annam”]Really very interesting. Please send me these facts or news to my mail if you don’t mind.[/quote]
Subscribe to follow up comments or/and newsletter 🙂
Really very interesting. Please send me these facts or news to my mail if you don’t mind.
[quote name=”lovlymd”]i love chess[/quote]
That maybe a fact about chess most people don’t know as well… 😉
i love chess
Hello there, 8 different types of mate in 2 are easy to visualize without much trouble. All these mates should be based on [b]1.f4 e5 2.g4 Qh4[/b]. The other variations could produced be changing the black’s first moves: [b]1.f4 e6 2.g4 Qh4#.[/b]
The all 355 mates in 3 are harder to find, since there are simply more variation to cover. 😉
“10. From the starting position, there are eight different ways to Mate in two moves and 355 different ways to Mate in three moves.”
Is there any website where I could get the details of point 10, i.e. 8 ways to mate in 2 moves and 355 ways to mate in 3 moves?
Can somebody share with me?
Tufail Ali Zubedi (zubeditufail@yahoo.com)
There are some controversial information about this one, some sources claim its Polish some claim its British. 🙂
Even though it may look counter-intuitive it’s a bare statistics and mathematically shown.
“The game-tree complexity of chess was first calculated by Claude Shannon as 10^120, a number known as the Shannon number.”
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number[/url]
15 is not true. Enigma code was broken by polish scientists.
I very much doubt #1. Considering the size of the universe, and the hugely vast number of stars, plents, possible living beings on other planets, the numbger 0f electrons seem necessarily far more than the number of possible chess games, including, of course, the 10 to th 79th power stated above.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting and fun list to read.
[b]Very good statistics.[/b]