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As it stands, the History section of this article provides a better summary of chess history than the article History of chess. Speaking of which, it seems to almost mirror an earlier version of the History section of this article, which tells me that the same text might have been copied-and-pasted into both of those places at some point. In light of that, do you think it will be a good idea to update the History of chess article with another round of copying and pasting? Maxipups Mamsipupsovich ( talk)# — Preceding undated comment added 15:44, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
"Even Persians don't claim to have invented chess, their writing says they got it from India": in this case we are talking of the Persians of the early 7th century and that would be the opinion for modern Persians too? That text from the Persians is not only very old, it is a legend. A legend that also says that Persians invented Nard (=Backgammon more or less) in return, which is proved to be wrong. It cannot be discarded that Hind was mentioned there because of the prestige of Indian civilisation, as in modern world all what is fancy in Europe is said to come from the US, sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not. So this element is not a definitive proof. "I think claims of very ancient chess pieces from Afghanistan are suspect": why? All oldest figurative pieces have been found from the regions of the Silk Road from Xinjiang to Afghanistan. Never from India by the way. I see nothing suspect here. "The earliest uses of "xiangqi" referred to an astronomical or divination game". Yes and no. If you look at the text, which is very short, we can see that it is related to a game and we don't know which game it is. We know no astronomical or divination game in that time. If we knew it would be easier. So this mysterious game can be a xiangqi ancestor or not. In the middle ages in Europe chess was associated with the "Moralities". Imagine we know only that, would we be able to conclude that chess was a societal or philosophical game? We just know there was a game then called xiangqi. Backgammon/Nard has been also often associated with astronomy and it is not an astronomical game. "Only shogi, is more dissimilar and we know that came later from China". Not a all. Shogi has as many links with South-Asian chess than Chinese chess. Its history is complex and most probably the result of a local maturation after several borrowings from diverse Asian regions. "the most different variant being a terminal point of that spread in China. There's a lot of explanation of this" I would be glad to have so many certainties! And glad to examine these explanations one by one. I stop here. You go very fast because you believe you know because you read something here and there. History is often more complex. History needs facts more than opinions. Therefore I believe that it would be better for Wikipedia to adopt a neutral tone. It is what I've tried to propose, apparently not convincing those who knows. Cazaux ( talk) 17:55, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
2.2 History of Chase in Ethiopia
It has been known in Ethiopia for at least 500 years. The table or chess, which was traditionally played among the nobles and around the court, was one of the most prestigious games in Ethiopian history. The word "Amharic" is derived from the Arabic chanting, the Persian chattran, and the ancient Indian chatter. Here is some evidence that this game was important in Ethiopia, especially among the kings and nobles. At the beginning of the 16th century (1508-1540). King Lebna Dengel played chess with the Italian artist Venus Gregory and Italian priest Alessandro Zerzi. In the early 19th century, King Sahle Selassie of Shoa was another great Chess player. () Translated from Arabic to Geez in the 15th century, the law of kings or emperors forbade priests from playing table games. According to Enri Stratez, an Ethiopian missionary leader, in the early years of the 19th century, British chess historians unequivocally acquired Ethiopian tabletops from the Ethiopian Woldesellassie. In 1913, the leader confirmed that the chess toy was available in three museums at the British Museum. According to museum staff, Erin Salt bought the toy in 1820 from Italy in 1853. According to author Marl Cohen, board games were very popular in the Gondar courts at the time, and the benefits, names, and movement of the game were published in 1881 by ANTOINE d. Abadie's Amharic dictionary. Cohen wrote that in 1911 he had never had a chance to see it, but he had heard that it was a common game around the nobles. Lincoln de Castro, for his part, recorded a video of Dejazmach Gebreselassie and Dejazmach Ali Michael. De Castro added that princes and nobles played at the table, even in court. According to the Empress Dowager Taytu, he summoned the nobles to play table games in their assigned room, and he himself was a brilliant player. Our country was established in 1985, 500 years after the advent of table tennis and 21 years after the establishment of the Chess Federation. Ethiopia has become a member of the World Chess Federation. For the first time in 1990. Imam Abera won the Fide Master title with two competitors at the African Championships in Cairo, Egypt. At the 1995 International Chess Olympics in Istanbul, Turkey, she won a silver medal with her brother David. Two years later, our country, Ethiopia, participated in the 35th Chess Olympics, which was won by Slobania / Blade. Ethiopia is participating in the biennial Chess Federation of the World Chess Federation. Mek2022 ( talk) 06:45, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
I think it's pretty self-evident that chess as a game and sport is not in the same era that is being described in the "1945─present" subsection of the "history" section. The hallmarks of the era that are specified are, exhaustively, the following: 1) FIDE introducing a bunch of things, such as titles, changes to tournament structure, etc 2) Soviet/Russian dominance at the highest levels 3) chess theory being revolutionised by Botvinnik. The current era of chess shares none of these hallmarks: 1) the last major introduction by FIDE was the title of Candidate Master in 2002, but that is barely something worth even mentioning in a section that's supposed to summarise all of chess history 2) the last Soviet/Russian world champion was Kramnik, who lost his title almost 15 years ago 3) modern chess theory has been formulated almost entirely through the means of chess engines and game databases such as those provided by Chessbase ─ both features that did not exist 15 years ago. Additionally, chess as a game is completely different to what it was let alone 15 years ago, but even a couple of years ago: the vast majority of chess games is played online (a trend which is likely to continue even when the pandemic is over); in-depth analysis with superhuman engines like Stockfish is now accessible for free to everyone on websites like chess.com and Lichess ─ in combination with other factors like the existence of online tactics trainers and courses, this has made studying chess far easier and more efficient than previously and resulted in the average level of play continuously rising in the past couple of decades; top players engage with the chess community far more closely than they ever have done by streaming on Twitch, releasing videos on YouTube, and producing online courses; more generally, over the pandemic, online chess has grown into an e-sport, with e-sport teams now routinely signing chess players and with "chess" being one of the most-watched categories on Twitch; and, of course, it's hard not to mention (as far as I'm aware) the biggest surge in popularity in history spurred by a combination of the show the Queen's Gambit, online chess growing in popularity due to COVID-19, and online tournaments such as Magnus Invitational and even PogChamps. The past 15 years have probably seen more change in chess than all of the centuries that came before them, yet none of that is even mentioned in the "history" section. Does anybody mind writing up a subsection called something like "2000─present: online chess and computer domination" detailing everything that I described in this post? Maxipups Mamsipupsovich ( talk) 22:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Bruce leverett: @ MaxBrowne2: Just informing you that I've finished writing up the new section that I had initially proposed. Maxipups Mamsipupsovich ( talk) 13:35, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
I haven't seen any reliable sources that refer to "The Boom" with a capital B. I am still not convinced that a TV series based on a novel is a uniquely significant event in the history of the game, or that the recent surge in online games is anything more than a blip caused by the pandemic. There is a clear WP:RECENTISM bias here. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 08:04, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Hopefully most of them are improvements. I'll wait for the dust to settle. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 00:45, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
"In fact, the most important openings have now been analysed over 20 moves deep,[98] sometimes well into the endgame,[99][100] and it is not unusual for leading players to introduce theoretical novelties on move 25 or even later.[101][102][103]"
I don't like this sentence in the "Technology" subsection:
I am inclined to remove this, but because it looks non-trivial, I'll wait a little while for other suggestions. Bruce leverett ( talk) 03:59, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
We mention free online analysis, tactics trainers, examining of opponents' games using databases, and online courses. This section is rather more promotional than encyclopedic, but I acknowledge that we need to mention these things. Then we claim that these tools, and advances in opening theory, have caused "a noticeable increase in the average playing strength both at the amateur and at the professional levels", and we cite as our source Regan and Haworth. But this paper does not support that claim. It does support the claim that the 2700 rating level means the same level of strength that it did 40 years ago, and that there are indeed more players at that high level than there used to be, rather than rating inflation. But Regan & Haworth says nothing about the causes of the increase in the strength of the players. It's not hard to think of alternate explanations, starting with the far higher number of professional players. Also, Regan & Haworth says very little about amateur-level play. We have to either find a source that supports our claim, or remove the claim.
My own prejudice in this is that these tools, some of which I have used, make it more enjoyable to study chess, and may well enable one to progress more quickly up the learning curve. (But I suppose that progressing more quickly may not necessarily enable one to progress further. Hard to tell since at my age I am going the wrong direction on the chess learning curve.) But as with other hot topics, we can't rely on our prejudices. Bruce leverett ( talk) 03:19, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
I removed the reference to the World-Wide Web because the first ICS server predated the website by several years. People used to connect to it by telnet, according to Internet Chess Club.
So, strictly speaking, the WWW didn't historically "enable" chess servers. But of course, nowadays, everybody gets to chess servers via the WWW. So maybe I am nit-picking. I will leave it to your judgment how to handle this.
Regarding "allowing users to play other people from different parts of the world in real time", telegraph, telephone, and radio had already been used for playing chess. I realized that identifying what's new and what made the difference is tricky, and we were really getting deeper into the topic of history of technology than I wanted to get, or than I could get without citing sources, so I just decided it was unnecessary. Bruce leverett ( talk) 17:20, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
As it stands, the paragraph structure of the "Technology" subsection is a right mess. First, we talk about the impact of the internet on chess. Then we talk about computer chess. Then we talk about some more ways in which the internet has affected chess ─ in this case, about how it has affected chess as a spectator sport. Then we turn back to talking about computer chess (in particular, about tablebases). We then randomly briefly switch to talking about the impact of the technologies discussed earlier in the section on chess study, before going back to talking about online chess, and then again randomly switching to talking about the impact of the internet on chess as a spectator sport. It seems like the paragraphs were arranged in a randomly generated order, and the entire section is incredibly hard to follow as a result.
I honestly don't see what was wrong with the version before Max Browne's edits. The paragraph structure was very clear: first, we discussed 3 major 90s innovations ─ online chess, superhuman-strength engines, and tablebases. We then explained to the reader that these innovations affected the way that chess is studied and followed, and consequently proceeded to explain, dedicating a paragraph to both the former and the latter, in exactly what way chess study and spectating were affected.
Now, I know that Max seems to hate introductory sentences which don't technically convey any information not conveyed elsewhere in the article, but which make the article much easier to read. I know that Bruce isn't the biggest fan of such sentences, either. However, if the information conveyed by them sums up well-cited paragraphs and simply makes the reader's job far, far easier, would it really be so bad if we just left them in the article? Look, if there are alternatives that preserve clarity but avoid the use of such sentences, I'm all for them. But I just don't see how such alternatives are possible. We've been taught since secondary school to structure our using the PEE format ─ Point, Evidence, Explain (we can skip the "Evidence" bit, obviously, since we have citations for that). How much would it hurt to follow this advice on Wikipedia? Maxipups Mamsipupsovich ( talk) 11:15, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm disappointed that we wasted all this time on a sockpuppet of a banned editor. I would like to revert all their edits to this article per WP:BMB but I suppose it's not feasible at this stage.-- Pawnkingthree ( talk) 18:52, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
The lead was better before, certainly more neutral and less parochial. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 01:19, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
Hey everyone. I just got a message saying that Draft:Introduction to chess could be deleted soon. I won't be on Wikipedia that much for a while, so if anyone wants to work on it feel free. AltoStev Talk 02:18, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
Murray (1913) uses "modern chess" to refer to the game after the introduction of the mad queen, i.e. post-1500. Mark Weeks ( [1]) uses it the same way. Otherwise I do not recall seeing this usage. Is it common in, for instance, India? (Searching for it using Google does not give very helpful results.) It should also be noted that there is an article about Modern Chess, which is a chess variant. It's not much of an article, but there it is.
I do not know how common the usage of "Western chess" and "international chess" are. As with "modern chess", searching for these via Google generates a lot of noise. Bruce leverett ( talk) 17:58, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
This game is not called ‘western Chess’ but rather European chess in all scholarly chess works including ‘A History of Chess’ by H. J. Murray who is the highest authority on this subject. This therefore needs to be changed to ‘European chess’.
Chaturaji (
talk)
02:04, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
This game is not called ‘western Chess’ but rather European chess in all scholarly chess works including ‘A History of Chess’ by H. J. Murray who is the highest authority on this subject. This therefore needs to be changed to ‘European chess’. Chaturaji ( talk) 01:58, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
You often hear about "rating inflation" and "title inflation" and "the grandmaster title doesn't mean what it used to" from casual commentators, but when Haworth and Regan did actual objective research, they found that this isn't actually the case. I don't think we need to give false equivalence to uninformed opinions. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 15:54, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Why is such a basic, non-controversial page semi-protected? I believe it should be removed, as most articles should be free to edit and not require protection. Siccsucc ( talk) 16:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
The word "current" is used in various places in the article, but the Wikipedia Manual of Style states that that word should be avoided.
from MOS:RELTIME
Wherever possible, we should fix the article to conform to this Wikipedia Manual of Style guideline.
- 05:25, 16 February 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:14D:5C59:8693:519D:B173:5F5F:B3E4 ( talk)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Ajedrez and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 6#Ajedrez until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. eviolite (talk) 00:08, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
I made an edit to mention that hundreds of millions, rather than just millions, of people play chess. Later, it was reverted due to being unnecessary, according to the edit summary. However, I believe that “hundreds of millions” more effectively illustrates chess’s popularity. Thoughts? ISaveNewspapers ( talk) 11:06, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
In an official International Olympics Committee (IOC) submission a few years ago, FIDE cited the number of chess players worldwide to be 605 million. Yougov's analysis was only looking at five different countries, and they did not estimate the total number of players worldwide. Looking further, I came across these two blog posts about the figure: [7] [8]. It seems this is something FIDE has been claiming for an extremely long time; they put the number at "over half a billion" in 2000. The source for the 605 number seems to be a quite dubious unpublished estimate of FIDE's (which the author of those blog posts don't really believe). I don't think I really trust this figure anymore, but it does seem to have been repeated by many sources we'd normally consider to be reliable, so there's that. Endwise ( talk) 15:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Chess has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
change : "Harbour workers playing chess in Kotka, Finland in 1958" to "Harbour workers using chess pieces to play checkers in Kotka, Finland in 1958" or remove the picture altoghether. If you look closely, all the pieces are on dark squares, there are possibly three Kings and Queens on the board and the position does - if it were a chess game - would not make any sense. The harbour workers shown in the picture were obviously using chess pieces to play checkers. 2A02:A03F:618E:3100:B471:4439:3802:B6D ( talk) 16:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
Could I suggest that as this paragraph covers the basic points, another point - even more basic, more helpful to beginners - be included? This is that (in the Staunton set at least) the distinctive shape of each main piece clearly indicates the form of the move it makes. 145.224.65.34 ( talk) 13:26, 18 April 2022 (UTC) Caroline Ashley-Cooper
@ Dark Looon and Wretchskull: As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with using the preposition "in" twice in this way, and indeed, it may even make the sentence easier to follow for the reader, who may otherwise suppose that the article "the" applies to both "literature" and "popular culture". Bruce leverett ( talk) 14:52, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
Senterej ,old game in Ethiopia is one of the chess variants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senterej Mek2022 ( talk) 06:12, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
The portion of the Post-WW2 era of Chess where the FIDE controlled the title "except for one interruption" needs a source. Specifically about the interruption. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:243:C700:38E3:1D95:1FBD:EB69:17BF ( talk) 06:56, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Dear all, I understand that the origins of chess are bit murky and that there is some desire among both Iranians and Indians to take the bulk of the credit for innovation of chess.
I am just a layman when it comes to history, but the complete lack of any mention of the persian form of the game Shatranj in the introduction seems a bit politically motivated given the centrality of this form both in the documented history, development and transmission of chess between east and west.
While there is no doubt that the most ancient predecessors of the game originate from India, it seems equally well established that the first complete descriptions of a game resembling modern chess are from persian/arabic sources (please correct me if I am wrong - again I am just a layman!). Also, from my understanding there is no doubt that the persian/arabic form of the game was the form that Europeans were initially exposed to when western chess was developed.
So the current statement "The current form of the game emerged in Spain and the rest of Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from chaturanga, a similar but much older game of Indian origin." seems to be positively misleading as Europans would not have been exposed to chaturanga at this time - rather something along the lines of would probably be more accurate "evolving from shatranj, a persian adaptation of chaturanga, a much older game of Indian origin."
I hope that these issues can be addressed in way that reflects the importance and primacy of both the original Indian form of the game as well as the deep historial influence of the subsequent Persian adaptation.
Again, I am not a historian, and would very much appreciate any corrections to my understanding! 155.91.73.3 ( talk) 10:34, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Chesse and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 November 19#Chesse until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. FAdesdae378 ( talk · contribs) 03:20, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
From The Oxford History of Board Games, Parlett, 1999:
From New Rules for Classic Games, Schmittberger, 1992:
-- IHTS ( talk) 15:10, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Rank and file (chess) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 November 20#Rank and file (chess) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. FAdesdae378 ( talk · contribs) 18:38, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
The redirect Chesss has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 February 27 § Chesss until a consensus is reached. Mast303 ( talk) 23:55, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
An editor has modified the article as if Calvo's theory of the Spanish origin of modern chess was generally accepted. Is this warranted?
Comparable modifications have been made to
History of Chess.
Bruce leverett (
tal)
17:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
-- IHTS ( talk) 01:13, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
IMO, beginner players come along to read the article, first thing they read is "Chess is an abstract strategy game", which equates in their heads to "Chess is an abstract game", totally feeding their previously held misconceptions that chess is only for brainiacs. Result: a turn-off. The unintended consequence is perpetuation of the misconception. -- IHTS ( talk) 20:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each starting with sixteen chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king.
Or:
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king.
-- IHTS ( talk) 08:08, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Done -- IHTS ( talk) 21:55, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
This is the photo that comes up when googling "chess". Why have such cheap-looking plastic pieces? 2A01:CB05:519:700:9980:9E93:F8E2:60EB ( talk) 13:03, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
As controversial as it is a lot has been said regarding chess origin however ,I wanted to add that BLACK from history perspective specialy in Africa should also be part of the history given that there are historical documents and photos showing that games similar to chess exsisted.So i ask anywone with editing access to add or link SENTEREJ so that more african chess historians could study further.Where does the concept Black came from?🙏🇪🇹 Meknoah ( talk) 06:30, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
As it stands, the History section of this article provides a better summary of chess history than the article History of chess. Speaking of which, it seems to almost mirror an earlier version of the History section of this article, which tells me that the same text might have been copied-and-pasted into both of those places at some point. In light of that, do you think it will be a good idea to update the History of chess article with another round of copying and pasting? Maxipups Mamsipupsovich ( talk)# — Preceding undated comment added 15:44, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
"Even Persians don't claim to have invented chess, their writing says they got it from India": in this case we are talking of the Persians of the early 7th century and that would be the opinion for modern Persians too? That text from the Persians is not only very old, it is a legend. A legend that also says that Persians invented Nard (=Backgammon more or less) in return, which is proved to be wrong. It cannot be discarded that Hind was mentioned there because of the prestige of Indian civilisation, as in modern world all what is fancy in Europe is said to come from the US, sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not. So this element is not a definitive proof. "I think claims of very ancient chess pieces from Afghanistan are suspect": why? All oldest figurative pieces have been found from the regions of the Silk Road from Xinjiang to Afghanistan. Never from India by the way. I see nothing suspect here. "The earliest uses of "xiangqi" referred to an astronomical or divination game". Yes and no. If you look at the text, which is very short, we can see that it is related to a game and we don't know which game it is. We know no astronomical or divination game in that time. If we knew it would be easier. So this mysterious game can be a xiangqi ancestor or not. In the middle ages in Europe chess was associated with the "Moralities". Imagine we know only that, would we be able to conclude that chess was a societal or philosophical game? We just know there was a game then called xiangqi. Backgammon/Nard has been also often associated with astronomy and it is not an astronomical game. "Only shogi, is more dissimilar and we know that came later from China". Not a all. Shogi has as many links with South-Asian chess than Chinese chess. Its history is complex and most probably the result of a local maturation after several borrowings from diverse Asian regions. "the most different variant being a terminal point of that spread in China. There's a lot of explanation of this" I would be glad to have so many certainties! And glad to examine these explanations one by one. I stop here. You go very fast because you believe you know because you read something here and there. History is often more complex. History needs facts more than opinions. Therefore I believe that it would be better for Wikipedia to adopt a neutral tone. It is what I've tried to propose, apparently not convincing those who knows. Cazaux ( talk) 17:55, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
2.2 History of Chase in Ethiopia
It has been known in Ethiopia for at least 500 years. The table or chess, which was traditionally played among the nobles and around the court, was one of the most prestigious games in Ethiopian history. The word "Amharic" is derived from the Arabic chanting, the Persian chattran, and the ancient Indian chatter. Here is some evidence that this game was important in Ethiopia, especially among the kings and nobles. At the beginning of the 16th century (1508-1540). King Lebna Dengel played chess with the Italian artist Venus Gregory and Italian priest Alessandro Zerzi. In the early 19th century, King Sahle Selassie of Shoa was another great Chess player. () Translated from Arabic to Geez in the 15th century, the law of kings or emperors forbade priests from playing table games. According to Enri Stratez, an Ethiopian missionary leader, in the early years of the 19th century, British chess historians unequivocally acquired Ethiopian tabletops from the Ethiopian Woldesellassie. In 1913, the leader confirmed that the chess toy was available in three museums at the British Museum. According to museum staff, Erin Salt bought the toy in 1820 from Italy in 1853. According to author Marl Cohen, board games were very popular in the Gondar courts at the time, and the benefits, names, and movement of the game were published in 1881 by ANTOINE d. Abadie's Amharic dictionary. Cohen wrote that in 1911 he had never had a chance to see it, but he had heard that it was a common game around the nobles. Lincoln de Castro, for his part, recorded a video of Dejazmach Gebreselassie and Dejazmach Ali Michael. De Castro added that princes and nobles played at the table, even in court. According to the Empress Dowager Taytu, he summoned the nobles to play table games in their assigned room, and he himself was a brilliant player. Our country was established in 1985, 500 years after the advent of table tennis and 21 years after the establishment of the Chess Federation. Ethiopia has become a member of the World Chess Federation. For the first time in 1990. Imam Abera won the Fide Master title with two competitors at the African Championships in Cairo, Egypt. At the 1995 International Chess Olympics in Istanbul, Turkey, she won a silver medal with her brother David. Two years later, our country, Ethiopia, participated in the 35th Chess Olympics, which was won by Slobania / Blade. Ethiopia is participating in the biennial Chess Federation of the World Chess Federation. Mek2022 ( talk) 06:45, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
I think it's pretty self-evident that chess as a game and sport is not in the same era that is being described in the "1945─present" subsection of the "history" section. The hallmarks of the era that are specified are, exhaustively, the following: 1) FIDE introducing a bunch of things, such as titles, changes to tournament structure, etc 2) Soviet/Russian dominance at the highest levels 3) chess theory being revolutionised by Botvinnik. The current era of chess shares none of these hallmarks: 1) the last major introduction by FIDE was the title of Candidate Master in 2002, but that is barely something worth even mentioning in a section that's supposed to summarise all of chess history 2) the last Soviet/Russian world champion was Kramnik, who lost his title almost 15 years ago 3) modern chess theory has been formulated almost entirely through the means of chess engines and game databases such as those provided by Chessbase ─ both features that did not exist 15 years ago. Additionally, chess as a game is completely different to what it was let alone 15 years ago, but even a couple of years ago: the vast majority of chess games is played online (a trend which is likely to continue even when the pandemic is over); in-depth analysis with superhuman engines like Stockfish is now accessible for free to everyone on websites like chess.com and Lichess ─ in combination with other factors like the existence of online tactics trainers and courses, this has made studying chess far easier and more efficient than previously and resulted in the average level of play continuously rising in the past couple of decades; top players engage with the chess community far more closely than they ever have done by streaming on Twitch, releasing videos on YouTube, and producing online courses; more generally, over the pandemic, online chess has grown into an e-sport, with e-sport teams now routinely signing chess players and with "chess" being one of the most-watched categories on Twitch; and, of course, it's hard not to mention (as far as I'm aware) the biggest surge in popularity in history spurred by a combination of the show the Queen's Gambit, online chess growing in popularity due to COVID-19, and online tournaments such as Magnus Invitational and even PogChamps. The past 15 years have probably seen more change in chess than all of the centuries that came before them, yet none of that is even mentioned in the "history" section. Does anybody mind writing up a subsection called something like "2000─present: online chess and computer domination" detailing everything that I described in this post? Maxipups Mamsipupsovich ( talk) 22:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Bruce leverett: @ MaxBrowne2: Just informing you that I've finished writing up the new section that I had initially proposed. Maxipups Mamsipupsovich ( talk) 13:35, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
I haven't seen any reliable sources that refer to "The Boom" with a capital B. I am still not convinced that a TV series based on a novel is a uniquely significant event in the history of the game, or that the recent surge in online games is anything more than a blip caused by the pandemic. There is a clear WP:RECENTISM bias here. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 08:04, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Hopefully most of them are improvements. I'll wait for the dust to settle. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 00:45, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
"In fact, the most important openings have now been analysed over 20 moves deep,[98] sometimes well into the endgame,[99][100] and it is not unusual for leading players to introduce theoretical novelties on move 25 or even later.[101][102][103]"
I don't like this sentence in the "Technology" subsection:
I am inclined to remove this, but because it looks non-trivial, I'll wait a little while for other suggestions. Bruce leverett ( talk) 03:59, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
We mention free online analysis, tactics trainers, examining of opponents' games using databases, and online courses. This section is rather more promotional than encyclopedic, but I acknowledge that we need to mention these things. Then we claim that these tools, and advances in opening theory, have caused "a noticeable increase in the average playing strength both at the amateur and at the professional levels", and we cite as our source Regan and Haworth. But this paper does not support that claim. It does support the claim that the 2700 rating level means the same level of strength that it did 40 years ago, and that there are indeed more players at that high level than there used to be, rather than rating inflation. But Regan & Haworth says nothing about the causes of the increase in the strength of the players. It's not hard to think of alternate explanations, starting with the far higher number of professional players. Also, Regan & Haworth says very little about amateur-level play. We have to either find a source that supports our claim, or remove the claim.
My own prejudice in this is that these tools, some of which I have used, make it more enjoyable to study chess, and may well enable one to progress more quickly up the learning curve. (But I suppose that progressing more quickly may not necessarily enable one to progress further. Hard to tell since at my age I am going the wrong direction on the chess learning curve.) But as with other hot topics, we can't rely on our prejudices. Bruce leverett ( talk) 03:19, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
I removed the reference to the World-Wide Web because the first ICS server predated the website by several years. People used to connect to it by telnet, according to Internet Chess Club.
So, strictly speaking, the WWW didn't historically "enable" chess servers. But of course, nowadays, everybody gets to chess servers via the WWW. So maybe I am nit-picking. I will leave it to your judgment how to handle this.
Regarding "allowing users to play other people from different parts of the world in real time", telegraph, telephone, and radio had already been used for playing chess. I realized that identifying what's new and what made the difference is tricky, and we were really getting deeper into the topic of history of technology than I wanted to get, or than I could get without citing sources, so I just decided it was unnecessary. Bruce leverett ( talk) 17:20, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
As it stands, the paragraph structure of the "Technology" subsection is a right mess. First, we talk about the impact of the internet on chess. Then we talk about computer chess. Then we talk about some more ways in which the internet has affected chess ─ in this case, about how it has affected chess as a spectator sport. Then we turn back to talking about computer chess (in particular, about tablebases). We then randomly briefly switch to talking about the impact of the technologies discussed earlier in the section on chess study, before going back to talking about online chess, and then again randomly switching to talking about the impact of the internet on chess as a spectator sport. It seems like the paragraphs were arranged in a randomly generated order, and the entire section is incredibly hard to follow as a result.
I honestly don't see what was wrong with the version before Max Browne's edits. The paragraph structure was very clear: first, we discussed 3 major 90s innovations ─ online chess, superhuman-strength engines, and tablebases. We then explained to the reader that these innovations affected the way that chess is studied and followed, and consequently proceeded to explain, dedicating a paragraph to both the former and the latter, in exactly what way chess study and spectating were affected.
Now, I know that Max seems to hate introductory sentences which don't technically convey any information not conveyed elsewhere in the article, but which make the article much easier to read. I know that Bruce isn't the biggest fan of such sentences, either. However, if the information conveyed by them sums up well-cited paragraphs and simply makes the reader's job far, far easier, would it really be so bad if we just left them in the article? Look, if there are alternatives that preserve clarity but avoid the use of such sentences, I'm all for them. But I just don't see how such alternatives are possible. We've been taught since secondary school to structure our using the PEE format ─ Point, Evidence, Explain (we can skip the "Evidence" bit, obviously, since we have citations for that). How much would it hurt to follow this advice on Wikipedia? Maxipups Mamsipupsovich ( talk) 11:15, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm disappointed that we wasted all this time on a sockpuppet of a banned editor. I would like to revert all their edits to this article per WP:BMB but I suppose it's not feasible at this stage.-- Pawnkingthree ( talk) 18:52, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
The lead was better before, certainly more neutral and less parochial. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 01:19, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
Hey everyone. I just got a message saying that Draft:Introduction to chess could be deleted soon. I won't be on Wikipedia that much for a while, so if anyone wants to work on it feel free. AltoStev Talk 02:18, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
Murray (1913) uses "modern chess" to refer to the game after the introduction of the mad queen, i.e. post-1500. Mark Weeks ( [1]) uses it the same way. Otherwise I do not recall seeing this usage. Is it common in, for instance, India? (Searching for it using Google does not give very helpful results.) It should also be noted that there is an article about Modern Chess, which is a chess variant. It's not much of an article, but there it is.
I do not know how common the usage of "Western chess" and "international chess" are. As with "modern chess", searching for these via Google generates a lot of noise. Bruce leverett ( talk) 17:58, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
This game is not called ‘western Chess’ but rather European chess in all scholarly chess works including ‘A History of Chess’ by H. J. Murray who is the highest authority on this subject. This therefore needs to be changed to ‘European chess’.
Chaturaji (
talk)
02:04, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
This game is not called ‘western Chess’ but rather European chess in all scholarly chess works including ‘A History of Chess’ by H. J. Murray who is the highest authority on this subject. This therefore needs to be changed to ‘European chess’. Chaturaji ( talk) 01:58, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
You often hear about "rating inflation" and "title inflation" and "the grandmaster title doesn't mean what it used to" from casual commentators, but when Haworth and Regan did actual objective research, they found that this isn't actually the case. I don't think we need to give false equivalence to uninformed opinions. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 15:54, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Why is such a basic, non-controversial page semi-protected? I believe it should be removed, as most articles should be free to edit and not require protection. Siccsucc ( talk) 16:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
The word "current" is used in various places in the article, but the Wikipedia Manual of Style states that that word should be avoided.
from MOS:RELTIME
Wherever possible, we should fix the article to conform to this Wikipedia Manual of Style guideline.
- 05:25, 16 February 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:14D:5C59:8693:519D:B173:5F5F:B3E4 ( talk)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Ajedrez and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 6#Ajedrez until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. eviolite (talk) 00:08, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
I made an edit to mention that hundreds of millions, rather than just millions, of people play chess. Later, it was reverted due to being unnecessary, according to the edit summary. However, I believe that “hundreds of millions” more effectively illustrates chess’s popularity. Thoughts? ISaveNewspapers ( talk) 11:06, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
In an official International Olympics Committee (IOC) submission a few years ago, FIDE cited the number of chess players worldwide to be 605 million. Yougov's analysis was only looking at five different countries, and they did not estimate the total number of players worldwide. Looking further, I came across these two blog posts about the figure: [7] [8]. It seems this is something FIDE has been claiming for an extremely long time; they put the number at "over half a billion" in 2000. The source for the 605 number seems to be a quite dubious unpublished estimate of FIDE's (which the author of those blog posts don't really believe). I don't think I really trust this figure anymore, but it does seem to have been repeated by many sources we'd normally consider to be reliable, so there's that. Endwise ( talk) 15:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Chess has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
change : "Harbour workers playing chess in Kotka, Finland in 1958" to "Harbour workers using chess pieces to play checkers in Kotka, Finland in 1958" or remove the picture altoghether. If you look closely, all the pieces are on dark squares, there are possibly three Kings and Queens on the board and the position does - if it were a chess game - would not make any sense. The harbour workers shown in the picture were obviously using chess pieces to play checkers. 2A02:A03F:618E:3100:B471:4439:3802:B6D ( talk) 16:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
Could I suggest that as this paragraph covers the basic points, another point - even more basic, more helpful to beginners - be included? This is that (in the Staunton set at least) the distinctive shape of each main piece clearly indicates the form of the move it makes. 145.224.65.34 ( talk) 13:26, 18 April 2022 (UTC) Caroline Ashley-Cooper
@ Dark Looon and Wretchskull: As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with using the preposition "in" twice in this way, and indeed, it may even make the sentence easier to follow for the reader, who may otherwise suppose that the article "the" applies to both "literature" and "popular culture". Bruce leverett ( talk) 14:52, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
Senterej ,old game in Ethiopia is one of the chess variants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senterej Mek2022 ( talk) 06:12, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
The portion of the Post-WW2 era of Chess where the FIDE controlled the title "except for one interruption" needs a source. Specifically about the interruption. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:243:C700:38E3:1D95:1FBD:EB69:17BF ( talk) 06:56, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Dear all, I understand that the origins of chess are bit murky and that there is some desire among both Iranians and Indians to take the bulk of the credit for innovation of chess.
I am just a layman when it comes to history, but the complete lack of any mention of the persian form of the game Shatranj in the introduction seems a bit politically motivated given the centrality of this form both in the documented history, development and transmission of chess between east and west.
While there is no doubt that the most ancient predecessors of the game originate from India, it seems equally well established that the first complete descriptions of a game resembling modern chess are from persian/arabic sources (please correct me if I am wrong - again I am just a layman!). Also, from my understanding there is no doubt that the persian/arabic form of the game was the form that Europeans were initially exposed to when western chess was developed.
So the current statement "The current form of the game emerged in Spain and the rest of Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from chaturanga, a similar but much older game of Indian origin." seems to be positively misleading as Europans would not have been exposed to chaturanga at this time - rather something along the lines of would probably be more accurate "evolving from shatranj, a persian adaptation of chaturanga, a much older game of Indian origin."
I hope that these issues can be addressed in way that reflects the importance and primacy of both the original Indian form of the game as well as the deep historial influence of the subsequent Persian adaptation.
Again, I am not a historian, and would very much appreciate any corrections to my understanding! 155.91.73.3 ( talk) 10:34, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Chesse and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 November 19#Chesse until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. FAdesdae378 ( talk · contribs) 03:20, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
From The Oxford History of Board Games, Parlett, 1999:
From New Rules for Classic Games, Schmittberger, 1992:
-- IHTS ( talk) 15:10, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Rank and file (chess) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 November 20#Rank and file (chess) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. FAdesdae378 ( talk · contribs) 18:38, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
The redirect Chesss has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 February 27 § Chesss until a consensus is reached. Mast303 ( talk) 23:55, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
An editor has modified the article as if Calvo's theory of the Spanish origin of modern chess was generally accepted. Is this warranted?
Comparable modifications have been made to
History of Chess.
Bruce leverett (
tal)
17:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
-- IHTS ( talk) 01:13, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
IMO, beginner players come along to read the article, first thing they read is "Chess is an abstract strategy game", which equates in their heads to "Chess is an abstract game", totally feeding their previously held misconceptions that chess is only for brainiacs. Result: a turn-off. The unintended consequence is perpetuation of the misconception. -- IHTS ( talk) 20:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each starting with sixteen chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king.
Or:
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king.
-- IHTS ( talk) 08:08, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Done -- IHTS ( talk) 21:55, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
This is the photo that comes up when googling "chess". Why have such cheap-looking plastic pieces? 2A01:CB05:519:700:9980:9E93:F8E2:60EB ( talk) 13:03, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
As controversial as it is a lot has been said regarding chess origin however ,I wanted to add that BLACK from history perspective specialy in Africa should also be part of the history given that there are historical documents and photos showing that games similar to chess exsisted.So i ask anywone with editing access to add or link SENTEREJ so that more african chess historians could study further.Where does the concept Black came from?🙏🇪🇹 Meknoah ( talk) 06:30, 29 April 2023 (UTC)