5 facts about chess that fans of this game will appreciate

1. Napoleon and Franklin lost in chess to a mechanical Turk

In 1770 Wolfgang von Kempelen invented and gave the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria a large table with a mechanical doll dressed as a Turk. The mannequin moved his arm and moved the chess pieces on the board, playing better than any living grandmaster.

For almost 84 years, the roboturk was demonstrated in Europe and America, and he defeated many strong rivals, including various statesmen. Among them turned out to be Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin.

It turns out that the device was equipped with the world's first version of artificial chess intelligence, which became the prototype of the famous Deep Blue? Not certainly in that way.

Just under the table there was a camera where a live chess player sat and pulled the levers, controlling the robot.

AI neural networks had not yet been invented, so Wolfgang von Kempelen had to go for a trick.

Turk's covert operators included some of the strongest chess players of the 18th century, including Johann Allgaier, Aaron Alexander, William Lewis, and Hyacinthe Boncourt. The last one, by the way, somehow came for a session with a cold and all the time coughed, and these sounds frightened the spectators present at the game.

Von Kempelen after this match added a lot of clanging metal wheels to the Turk and clicking mechanisms that were designed to create noise that masked the presence of a live operator inside.

2. The chess clock was invented so that the participants would not fall asleep

Now even an amateur tournament without time control is unthinkable, but earlier, until 1853, one could think about the move as much as one wanted. And this led to various funny incidents.

For example, at the first international tournament in 1851, chess players Williams and Macklow took so long to thought over their moves, that they overworked themselves, and because of this the competition came to a standstill. The assistant referee commented on this in his notes:

The game was left unfinished as both opponents fell asleep.

In the same year, Williams played against Howard Staunton. The match went 6-3 in favor of the latter, but Williams was so slow that his opponent freaked out and gave up, just to get rid of this slow mind.

For the first time the watch was use in 1853 - they were sand. And the modern device with two switches was invented in 1900. Then it worked on mechanics, and later became electronic.

Watch solved the problem with chess players falling asleep, but created another complication: sometimes a player can forget to press the switch. As a result, his opponent pretends to think about his move, and watches how someone else's time is wasted.

For example, in the second game of the World Championship match in 1987, Kasparov did move, but after that he did not switch the clock for three minutes, and his opponent, Karpov, delicately "did not notice" this. As a result, at the end of the game, Kasparov had only one free minute left for all moves, which, of course, led him to defeat.

3. There is a hybrid of chess and boxing

Usually the average boxer still beats the average chess player, but not in the case of chessboxing. This sport discipline was originally appeared as a joke - it was invented by a French artist comics Enki Bilal.

A Dutch chess player and performance artist Ipe Rubing developed rules and founded the World Chess Boxing Organization (WCBO). By the way, he became the first world champion in this sport.

World and European chess boxing championships with the participation of athletes from England, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Japan, Bulgaria, the USA and Russia are held since 2003.

The rules are simple: the fight consists of 11 rounds, even - boxing, odd - chess blitz.

Victory can be achieved by knockout, checkmate, or overstaying chess time. Can't beat your opponent with a dashing Queen's Gambit? Add to the jaw on the right, then it will definitely work! A very versatile discipline.

4. The queen used to be a weak piece

The modern queen, or queen, is the strongest unit that can move any number of squares in all directions. But it was not always so.

In classical medieval chess, borrowed Europeans among the Arabs, the queen was the weakest character in the game and moved only one square diagonally.

But somewhere around 1300, in order to diversify the game a little, they added the ability to “jump” two squares diagonally, horizontally and vertically on the first move. It turned out to be a kind of crazy version of a pawn, but still not very useful.

The queen became the most powerful piece on the board only after another reform of the rules in the 15th century.

Historians differ on why this happened. Most popular version saysthat the queen strengthened queen Isabella I of Spain, who herself allegedly was an avid chess player.

In her country, as, indeed, in most European countries, this figure was called not a vizier (advisor), but a queen. And the mighty Isabella considered it outrageous that her counterpart on the board was limited in moves, and therefore forced the courtiers to rewrite the rules. As a result, in neighboring Italy, her version of the game began to be called "queen's chess" or, pejoratively, "madwoman's chess."

There are also theories that the queen intensified, impressed by the power of other powerful ladies of the Middle Ages, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine or Blanca of Castile. Or was it generally a kind of tribute to the knightly cult of the Virgin Mary - some medieval poets associated the figure with the Mother of God herself.

And, by the way, until the XII century, pawns that reached the end of the board did not turn into a queen, because there could not be two queens in one country. Only then in the rules added clause allowing such a transformation. But the transformed figure was called the adviser, and not the second queen.

5. Chess can be played with custom pieces on a 3D board

Chess players constantly strive to complicate their lives by inventing new variations of the rules of the game. For example, Thomas Dawson, president of the British Society of Chess Problem Lovers introduced new figures. His night rider galloped like a horse, but could repeat the move until he reached the edge of the board, the joker imitated the last move of the opponent, and the grasshopper moved like a queen, but only jumping over others figures.

And in his rules there are a chancellor, a chariot, an eagle, a hamster, an elk and a sparrow. It was probably not easy to remember how this whole zoo walks.

There are other ways diversify boring parties. For example - Swedish chess, which is played by two teams of two people, each on their own board. The captured pieces are handed over to the partner, who can put them in the appendage to his own. And in "atomic" chess, such pieces "explode", taking both their own and others in neighboring cells.

But the most mind-blowing variation is three-dimensional chess, they are also raumshah (from it. Raumschach - "cosmic chess"). Invented in 1907 by the German physician Ferdinand Maack.

In them play on a special design, which consists of eight boards placed one above the other. The pieces move in the same way as usual, but not only left and right, but also up and down. Something similar was played by Spock from Star Trek.