Email this Book

Chess (video game)

By Gamer, Retro

Book Id: WPLBN0003466825
Format Type: SWF (Interactive Media)
File Size: 88.01 KB.
Reproduction Date: 9/1/1980

Title:	Chess (video game)
Author:	Gamer, Retro
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Video games, Education, Games of strategy
Collections:	Interactive Media, Education
Historic Publication Date:	1980
Publisher:	GameRoom

Member Page:	Retro Gamer
Citation APA MLA Chicago Gamer, R. (1980). Chess (video game). Retrieved from http://www.self.gutenberg.org/

Description
Chess is a board game for two players. It is played on a square board, made of 64 smaller squares, with eight squares on each side. Each player starts with sixteen pieces: eight pawns, two knights, two bishops, two rooks, one queen and one king.[2] The goal of the game is for each player to try and checkmate the king of the opponent. Checkmate is a threat ('check') to the opposing king which no move can stop. It ends the game. During the game the two opponents take turns to move one of their pieces to a different square of the board. One player ('White') has pieces of a light color; the other player ('Black') has pieces of a dark color. There are rules about how pieces move, and about taking the opponent's pieces off the board. The player with white pieces always makes the first move.[4] Because of this, White has a small advantage, and wins more often than Black in tournament games.

Summary
Most historians agree that the game of chess was first played in northern India during the Gupta Empire in the 6th century AD. This early type of chess was known as Chaturanga, a Sanskrit word for the military. The Gupta chess pieces were divided like their military into the infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots. In time, these pieces became the pawn, knight, bishop, and rook. The English words chess and check both come from the Persian word shāh meaning king. The earliest written evidence of chess is found in three romances (epic stories) written in Sassanid Persia around 600AD. The game was known as chatrang or shatranj. When Persia was taken over by Muslims (633–644) the game was spread to all parts of the Muslim world. Muslim traders carried the game to Russia and to Western Europe. By the year 1000 it had spread all over Europe. In the 13th century a Spanish manuscript called Libro de los Juegos describes the games of shatranj (chess), backgammon, and dice. The game changed greatly between about 1470 to 1495. The rules of the older game were changed in the West so that some of the pieces (queen, bishop) had more scope, development of the pieces was faster, and the game more exciting. The new game formed the basis of modern international chess. Historians of chess consider this as the most important change since the game was invented.