Over the years, the basics of the game remained the same, while the number of different strategies and notable moves continued to stack up. The oldest known chess manual, dating back to about 840, was written in Arabic by a renowned Arab chess player named al-Adli ar-Rumi. The origins of chess are believed to date back to the beginning of the seventh century. In other words: it's chess, not checkers. A player wins when they are able to put the opponent's king in a position from which escape is impossible, which is called a checkmate. The pieces are moved and used to capture opposing pieces according to precise rules. At the start, each player controls 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The board has 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Chess is a board game of strategic skill for two players, played on a checkered board. Some people think because of the similarity in the boards that chess is like checkers, but it's a bit more complicated. How do you play chess? Is it like checkers? (The phenomenon was probably also helped by the fact that most people were staying home or sheltering in place during the pandemic.)
Adapted from the 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, the stylish miniseries starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chloe Pirrie, Bill Camp, and Marcin Dorocinski is about the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon.ĭue to the popularity of the show, the gaming industry saw an unprecedented interest in chess sales of books about chess and chess boards skyrocketed! Suddenly, people really wanted to learn about chess and play chess again. If you've been following popular culture recently, you know that one of the most popular shows of the last year is The Queen's Gambit, which debuted on Netflix in October of 2020.