It is no doubt that chess is one of the foremost strategic games. Many players have experienced amazing chess movements with remarkable records as well.
Chess is not only the heir to a glorious history but also has amazing and unbelievable facts behind this game. Here it is presented 35 such unbelievable and amazing chess facts you did not know about chess.
- Do you know how many electrons exist in the universe? Numerically it’s 10^79, though it is difficult to believe, the number of possible unique chess games is around 10^120. Compared to the electrons of the universe, the number of possible unique chess games is greater than it.
- Theoretically there are around 1000 different opening techniques in chess. As a human it is really difficult to memorize all those, but the more you remember you will be benefited.
- According to the calculations, a single chess game is possible to have only 5,949 moves. But compared to the allocated time for a game, this amount is not possible.
- The longest chess game had 269 moves and it was held in 1989 between Ivan Nikolic and Goran Arsovic. But the enchanting fact is that the game ended in a draw.
- Russia is the dominator of chess while they have more than 250 grandmasters.
- Every game which ends with a victory has a standard final word; It is “Checkmate“. The term “Checkmate” has derived from the Arabic phrase “Shah mat“, which gives the meaning “The king is no more”/” The king is dead”.
- The rule “en passant” was introduced in 1280 in Spain.
- A strange thing happened in 1973, A chess tournament which was held in Cleveland was called off by the police, and the tournament director was arrested for allowing for gambling. The chess sets related to this unfinished game was also confiscated.
- The person who has long held the title of “World chess champion” is Dr. Emanuel Lasker of Germany. He was able to keep his record for 26 years and 337 days.
- The modern chessboard with dark and light squares was firstly created by Europeans in 1990.
- The world’s youngest chess champion was Garry Kasparov; he became a champion at an extremely young age of 22.
- Before the first mechanical clock was introduced by Thomas Wilson in 1883, players used sandglasses, the push-button clock which is often used in chess was introduced in 1900 by Veenhoff.
- For the first time, sandglasses were used in 1862 at Landon in a match between Adolf Anderssen and Von Kolisch. The time control for this game was 24 moves in two hours.
- An impressive invention was done in 1125. Since the priests are not allowed to play chess due to the church forbids, a folding chessboard was invented by priests who were keen to play chess. Once when it is folded it was thin and it became easy to hide the board between two books.
- Once a computer which was known as “Deep Thought” became able to defeat an international player in chess. This incident happened in 1988 November in Long Beach, California. This computer was invented by Feng-Hsiung Hsu and later on, it was improved by IBM.
- At the very fresh era of chess, the players of the first year were referred to as “rookies” which gives a similar meaning as newly recruited troops, police cops, and sportspersons, etc.
- The second book which was printed in the English language was about chess; namely, “The game of Chess”.
- The first computer program for playing chess was developed by Alan Turing in 1951. But the computational power of the computer was not sufficient for the above purpose. So, he had to calculate the mathematical equations manually and he played according to those results; it made a considerable time gap between two moves.
- In 1970 a strange news was reported. It is about the first chess game between space and earth that was done by the Soyez-9 crew. Anyhow this was ended in a draw.
- Before chess becomes popular it was centralized between Kings and Nobles. Because of this reason, chess was known as the “Game of Kings” for a long-time.
- There’s a rarely used term in chess which is known as “fool’s Mate” that is, Checkmating the opponents in two moves.
- The worst performance of a player was reported in 1889 in New York. A Canadian player Nicholas Mcleod who lost 31 games in the double-round robin in New York, holds the above record.
- Eric Knoppert has set a record by playing 500 chess games in 68 hours. The duration of one of those games was about 10 minutes.
- Queen’s unstoppable movements were reported in 1882, at the tournament of Mason-Mackenzie at Landon. The queen has made 72 consecutive moves!
- In 1992, 100 moves have done without any single capturing. The game was between Thorton and M. Walker.
- The oldest recorded chess game is in the 900s, the game was between a student and a historian of Baghdad.
- Do you know how many people are familiar with chess? It is about six hundred million!
- The official title of “World chess champion” was announced in 1886.
- In some American schools’ chess has been a mandatory subject.
- Chess is an IOC recognized game; therefore, players should be subjected to drug testing.
- If any electronic device or a mobile phone rang while a chess game, the player will be named disqualified.
- Chess was originated 1500 years ago in North India.
- The rule of “Pawn Promotion” was announced in 1852 at the first international tournament.
- In the original chess game they didn’t have a bishop. Instead, there was an “alfil” which represents a “War elephant”.
- The possibility of Knight’s tour is more than 122 million.
