Odishatv Bureau

Around 1500 years of its known existence, chess has been seen as a metaphor for human relations, an instrument of military strategy, and a criterion for genius minds as chess has evolved over time.

From Where The Game Chess Came

The earliest known records of chess have been registered from the 7th century, but many believe that the origin lies in the 6th century when the youngest prince of the Gupta Empire was killed in a battle.

And his younger brother derived a way of telling the scene to his mother as to how her elder brother was surrounded by the enemy and was killed on the battlefield.

The younger brother used an 8×8 Ashtapada board which was then used for other past times to explain the whole episode to the mother. From there a new game emerged with two key characteristics which were different rules for moving different types of pieces and a single king piece whose fate decided the outcome of the game.

Origin Of The Name CHESS

This game was originally known as CHATURANGA, a Sanskrit word for ‘four divisions’. As the game moved to the Persian empire, it acquired its modern name CHESS, derived from ‘shah’ which means king, and ‘checkmate’ from ‘shah mat’ or the king is helpless.

Trade through the silk road carried the game to east and southeast Asia. Where China, Arab, Japan, and many regions developed their local variants of chess.

How Chess Took Its Modern Form

But it was in 1000 AD when Chess began to take its modern form in Europe. The game was included in the education system and soon was a symbol for different social classes.

It was in the 15th century when the game fused into the modern form that we see today. This century was an important turn of events in the history of chess.

The introduction of the powerful queen happened and it affected the style of play in a great manner. The game pace was accelerated and while analyzing the game common openings that we today call Gambits and endgames appeared. From this point, the chess theory was born.

Modern Chess Board and Pieces

Modern chess is played on an 8×8 board with 32 white boxes and 32 black boxes arranged alternatively. It has 8 pieces of Pawn, 2 each of Rook, Bishop, and Knight. It has one piece each of a queen and the King for black as well as white.

Man vs Machine In Chess History

With more understanding of the chess, the nature of the game became to change as mathematical and algorithm approach was being used for the chess theory.

Computers began to compete with humans in the late 1960s but were not very effective. In the late 19th century an IBM computer named deep blue ended the dominance of Soviet players. In 1997, Deep blue’s win over Garry Kasparov was the first incident where a machine defeated a sitting world champion.

Today the chess software has developed so much that the best human players are unable to challenge them, thus making the computers invincible.

History Of Snakes & Ladders

This game has a great impact on Indian children, we all have played ‘Saanp Seedi’, and history shows that when the game was invented it was for a very different reason.

The early Snakes & Ladders game in ancient India was originated as Mokshapat or Moksha Patamu. In simple words, the game can be defined as the ladder to Moksha. According to some historians, Swami Gyandev invented the game in the 13th century AD.

The game was initially invented to teach children about morality and about karma and kama which means destiny and desire. According to information, the game initially had more snakes and fewer ladders as it was believed that the path to goodness is hard to achieve and one can go on the evil path easily.

Boxes used to have different symbols in the early Snakes & ladders game

The game used to have boxes with symbols that symbolize evil and virtue. Some of the virtue boxes were faith, reliability, generosity, knowledge, and asceticism.

(PBNS)

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