Chess: From Chaturanga to AlphaZero

500 CE – Dec 201868 items

chessgames
Players at a chessboard, from Alfonso X’s Libro de los juegos, finished in 1283 (folio 22r). Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Players at a chessboard, from Alfonso X’s Libro de los juegos, finished in 1283 (folio 22r). Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Fifteen centuries of one game

Chess began in India around the sixth century as chaturanga, a battle of elephants, chariots, horses and foot soldiers. Persia made it chatrang, the Abbasid court made it shatranj and wrote its first books, and Europe gave the old counsellor the powers of a queen. This timeline follows the game from there through the cafés of Paris and London, the world championship and the Soviet school, to the night a machine beat the world champion and the day a program taught itself to play.

How to read it

  • Bands mark the eras: chaturanga, shatranj, medieval European chess, the new queen’s game, the Romantic era, the classical school, the Soviet era and the computer era. They overlap, as the game’s eras did.

  • Zoom in on 1972 and 1997: Reykjavík and New York are told game by game, and Deep Blue’s six games day by day.

  • Filter by tag to follow one thread: rules, books, court, world championship, ussr or ai.

Dates in their own calendars

The Abbasid masters carry hijri dates, as the Arabic biographers gave them: as-Suli died in 335 AH. European documents from before the Gregorian reform carry Julian dates. The app shows each date in the calendar its source used and places it on the same line as the rest. Legends, such as Charlemagne’s chess set from Harun al-Rashid, are labelled as legends.

Items

  1. Chaturanga

    ≈ 480 years

  2. Chatrang reaches Khosrow’s court, as the Persian story tells it

    Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital

  3. Shatranj

    ≈ 824 years

  4. Bana names chaturanga in the Harshacharita

    Kannauj (Kanyakubja), Harsha’s capital

  5. Ar-Razi defeats al-Adli before the caliph

    Samarra, the Abbasid capital from 836 to 892

  6. As-Suli defeats al-Mawardi before al-Muktafi

    Baghdad, the caliph’s palace on the east bank

  7. As-Suli dies in Basra

    Basra, the medieval city near az-Zubayr

  8. Shatranj crosses into al-Andalus

    Córdoba, capital of Umayyad al-Andalus

  9. The Einsiedeln verses put a queen on the board

    Einsiedeln Abbey

  10. Medieval European chess

    ≈ 475 years

  11. Al-Biruni describes chess for four players

    Ghazni, capital of Mahmud of Ghazni

  12. Peter Damian scolds a chess-playing bishop

  13. The “Charlemagne chessmen” are carved

  14. The Lewis chessmen are carved

    Trondheim, the likeliest workshop

  15. Alfonso X’s Book of Games is finished in Seville

    Seville

  16. Caxton prints The Game and Playe of the Chesse

    Bruges

  17. The new queen’s game

    ≈ 355 years

  18. Scachs d’amor: the first game with the new queen

    Valencia

  19. Vicent prints the first book on the new game

    Valencia

  20. Lucena’s book, the oldest printed chess book to survive

    Salamanca

  21. Ruy López publishes his chess manual

    Alcalá de Henares

  22. Italians beat Spain’s best at Philip II’s court

  23. Philidor: “pawns are the soul of chess”

  24. The Turk plays at Schönbrunn

    Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna

  25. The Romantic era

    ≈ 43 years

  26. The Lewis chessmen are found

    Uig Bay, Isle of Lewis

  27. La Bourdonnais against McDonnell

    ≈ 4 months, 2 days · Westminster Chess Club, London

  28. Staunton beats Saint-Amant at the Café de la Régence

    1 month, 12 hours · Café de la Régence, Palais-Royal, Paris

  29. The Staunton chessmen go on sale

  30. London 1851, the first international tournament

    1 month, 21 days · London

  31. The Immortal Game

    Simpson’s Divan, the Strand, London

  32. The Turk burns in Philadelphia

    Chinese Museum, Ninth and Sansom Streets, Philadelphia

  33. Morphy’s Opera Game

    Salle Ventadour (Théâtre-Italien), Paris

  34. The classical school

    ≈ 52 years

  35. Steinitz–Zukertort, the first official world championship

    2 months, 17 days · New York, St Louis and New Orleans

  36. Lasker takes the title from Steinitz

    Montreal

  37. Capablanca beats Lasker in Havana

    Havana

  38. FIDE is founded in Paris

    Paris

  39. Moscow 1925

    28 days · Moscow

  40. Vera Menchik wins the first women’s world championship

    Central Hall, Westminster, London

  41. Alekhine beats Capablanca in Buenos Aires

    2 months, 14 days · Buenos Aires

  42. Alekhine dies holding the title

    Estoril

  43. The Soviet era

    ≈ 43 years

  44. Botvinnik wins the vacant title

    Hall of Columns, House of the Unions, Moscow

  45. The computer era

    ≈ 68 years, 9 months

  46. Shannon: Programming a Computer for Playing Chess

  47. Turing’s paper machine loses to Alick Glennie

    Manchester

  48. MANIAC I beats a novice at Los Alamos

    Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory

  49. Fischer–Spassky, Reykjavík

    1 month, 22 days · Laugardalshöll, Reykjavík

  50. Game 1: Fischer takes a poisoned pawn

    Laugardalshöll, Reykjavík

  51. Game 2: Fischer forfeits

    Laugardalshöll, Reykjavík

  52. Game 3: Fischer’s first win over Spassky

    Laugardalshöll, Reykjavík

  53. Game 6: Spassky applauds

    Laugardalshöll, Reykjavík

  54. Spassky resigns by telephone

    Laugardalshöll, Reykjavík

  55. David Levy wins his bet

    Toronto

  56. Kasparov becomes champion at 22

    Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Moscow

  57. Deep Thought beats a grandmaster

  58. Kasparov v Deep Blue, Philadelphia

    7 days · Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia

  59. Game 1: a computer beats the world champion

    Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia

  60. Kasparov v Deep Blue, New York

    8 days · Equitable Center, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York

  61. Game 1: Kasparov wins

    Equitable Center, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York

  62. Game 2: Deep Blue wins, and Kasparov cries foul

    Equitable Center, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York

  63. Game 3: draw

    Equitable Center, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York

  64. Game 4: draw

    Equitable Center, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York

  65. Game 5: draw

    Equitable Center, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York

  66. Game 6: Deep Blue wins the match

    Equitable Center, 787 Seventh Avenue, New York

  67. AlphaZero teaches itself chess

    DeepMind, London

  68. AlphaZero’s results appear in Science