The modern queen and bishop turned a slow medieval game into the tactical game we play today.
Guides 1,400 years,
Chess history
1,400 years,
one board.
Chess has survived empires, printing presses, world wars and silicon. This is a dated tour of the moments that changed the game — from the first Indian battle games to the online Olympiad and the youngest world champion in history.
6eras
43milestones
c. 600earliest date
Wilhelm Steinitz beat Johannes Zukertort in the first match recognised as a world championship.
Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in a six-game match and changed how players thought about preparation.
The first online Olympiad and the streaming boom brought a new audience to the game.
c. 600 – 1497Origins and the medieval game1561 – 1894Codification and the first champions1900 – 1945The tournament age and the world wars1948 – 1985The Soviet era and the Cold War1993 – 2013Engines, the internet and the split title2016 – todayThe online era
c. 600 – 1497
Origins and the medieval game
Chess did not begin with the modern rules. It began as a game of war in India, became a courtly pursuit in Persia and the Islamic world, and travelled into Europe through trade, conquest and books.
c. 600 Origins
Chaturanga appears in India
The earliest forms of chess are associated with chaturanga, a game whose pieces represented the four divisions of an Indian army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. The exact rules are lost, but the board and the idea of a king who must be protected are already there.
c. 750 Origins
Shatranj in Persia
The game entered the Islamic world as shatranj. Pieces became more abstract, the moves were slower than modern chess, and the term shah mat — “the king is helpless” — gave English its word checkmate.
c. 1000 Origins
Chess reaches Europe
Chess spread through Iberia, Sicily and Byzantium. It was adopted by courts and monasteries, adapted into local names and shapes, and sometimes criticised by religious authorities before becoming a standard part of noble education.
1283 Culture
Alfonso X commissions the Libro de los Juegos
The Castilian king Alfonso X sponsored a lavishly illustrated book of chess, dice and tables. It preserves early problems, variants and a picture of how medieval Europe thought about the game.
c. 1475 Rules
The queen and bishop become long-range pieces
The queen gained the combined moves of rook and bishop, and the bishop gained the long diagonal. The change turned a slow game of manoeuvre into the tactical game we recognise. Contemporaries called it “mad queen chess” because the queen could suddenly tear a position apart.
1497 Rules
Lucena prints a chess book
Luis Ramírez de Lucena’s Repetición de amores y arte de ajedrez, printed in Salamanca, is one of the earliest surviving printed chess books. It contains openings, problems and the new rules of the queen and bishop, and it marks the beginning of a written theory of the game.
1561 – 1894
Codification and the first champions
Printed books made chess teachable. Coffee houses made it social. By the nineteenth century, matches, clocks and tournaments had turned a courtly pastime into a modern competitive sport.
1561 Culture
Ruy López publishes his opening treatise
Ruy López de Segura’s Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del Axedrez was one of the first systematic attempts to analyse openings. The Spanish Opening — 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 — still carries his name.
c. 1620 Culture
Greco’s manuscripts spread Italian tactics
Gioachino Greco’s games and manuscripts circulated widely after his death. They were part game collection and part textbook, and many of the attacking patterns attributed to the Italian school were preserved through his work.
1749 Culture
Philidor writes Analyse du jeu des Échecs
François-André Danican Philidor argued that pawns were “the soul of chess”. His book was the first modern treatment of strategy, and its influence lasted well into the nineteenth century.
1834–1836 Culture
La Bourdonnais and McDonnell play their matches
Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais and Alexander McDonnell played a series of matches in London that were followed far beyond the chess world. They helped establish the idea that a chess match could be a public event.
1851 Champion
The first international tournament
London hosted an international tournament alongside the Great Exhibition. Adolf Anderssen won, and during the event he played the casual game against Lionel Kieseritzky that became known as the Immortal Game.
1858 Culture
Morphy plays the Opera Game
Paul Morphy, the strongest player of his era, demolished the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard in Paris. The game is still the cleanest introduction to development, open lines and a back-rank mate.
1886 Champion
The first official World Championship
Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort played a match across New York, St Louis and New Orleans. Steinitz won 12½–7½ and became the first officially recognised world champion.
1894 Champion
Lasker defeats Steinitz
Emanuel Lasker beat Steinitz in a match in New York, Philadelphia and Montreal. Lasker would hold the title for 27 years, the longest reign in the history of the championship.
1900 – 1945
The tournament age and the world wars
Chess acquired institutions: FIDE, national federations, grandmaster titles and a world championship that could be followed across borders. The two world wars interrupted the calendar but not the game’s growth.
1910 Culture
Réti sacrifices his queen in Vienna
Richard Réti’s nine-move queen sacrifice against Savielly Tartakower became a standard teaching example: two bishops and a lead in development can be enough to mate a king that has wandered into the open.
1921 Champion
Capablanca beats Lasker in Havana
José Raúl Capablanca defeated Emanuel Lasker to become world champion. Capablanca’s technique and endgame play set a new standard for clean, positional chess.
1924 Culture
FIDE is founded in Paris
National chess federations met in Paris on 20 July 1924 and founded the Fédération Internationale des Échecs. FIDE would eventually take responsibility for the world championship, titles, ratings and the rules.
1927 Champion
Alekhine defeats Capablanca
Alexander Alekhine won a 34-game match in Buenos Aires and took the title from Capablanca. Capablanca never received the rematch he wanted, and the two remained rivals for the rest of their lives.
1935 Champion
Euwe becomes world champion
Max Euwe, a Dutch mathematics teacher, defeated Alekhine in a match that stretched across thirteen cities. He was the first Dutch world champion; Alekhine regained the title in 1937.
1948 – 1985
The Soviet era and the Cold War
After the Second World War, chess became an instrument of national prestige. Soviet players dominated the championship, while matches such as Fischer–Spassky and Karpov–Korchnoi were watched as political dramas as much as sporting ones.
1948 Champion
Botvinnik wins the title tournament
After Alexander Alekhine’s death in 1946, FIDE organised a five-player tournament to fill the vacant title. Mikhail Botvinnik won and began an era of Soviet dominance that lasted for decades.
1950 Culture
FIDE awards the first Grandmaster titles
FIDE created the modern title system and awarded the first International Grandmaster titles in 1950. The title became the standard mark of elite chess, alongside the International Master title.
1956 Culture
Fischer plays the Game of the Century
Thirteen-year-old Robert Fischer sacrificed his queen against Donald Byrne at the Rosenwald Trophy in New York. The game made his name and remains one of the most studied attacking games ever played.
1958 Champion
Fischer becomes the youngest grandmaster
Fischer earned the Grandmaster title at 15 years and 6 months, the youngest in the world at the time. The record stood until the 1990s, when a new generation of prodigies arrived.
1972 Champion
Fischer beats Spassky in Reykjavik
The most famous world championship match of the Cold War ended with Fischer winning 12½–8½. He became the first American-born world champion since Morphy’s era, though he forfeited the title in 1975 when FIDE did not accept his conditions for a defence.
1978 Champion
Karpov and Korchnoi in Baguio
Anatoly Karpov defended the title against Viktor Korchnoi in a match full of political tension and off-board controversy. Karpov retained the championship, and the match became a symbol of how deeply the Cold War had entered the game.
1985 Champion
Kasparov becomes the youngest world champion
Garry Kasparov beat Anatoly Karpov in a 24-game match in Moscow at the age of 22. Their rivalry would dominate chess for more than a decade and produce some of the strongest tournament fields in history.
1993 – 2013
Engines, the internet and the split title
Chess engines changed preparation, analysis and the meaning of a human mistake. The internet changed who could play, watch and learn. The world championship itself split in 1993 and took more than a decade to reunite.
1993 Champion
The world championship splits
Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke away from FIDE to organise their own title match. For the next thirteen years there were two world championships, a split that damaged the credibility of the title until it was healed in 2006.
1996 Technology
Deep Blue wins a game against Kasparov
IBM’s Deep Blue became the first computer to win a game against a reigning world champion under tournament conditions. Kasparov still won the 1996 match, but the result changed how players thought about machine chess.
1997 Technology
Deep Blue wins the rematch
In the 1997 rematch, Deep Blue beat Kasparov 3½–2½. It was the first time a computer had won a match against a reigning world champion under standard time controls, and the sixth game — a nineteen-move positional crush — became part of chess history.
2000 Champion
Kramnik ends Kasparov’s reign
Vladimir Kramnik beat Garry Kasparov in London without losing a game. His Berlin Defence became a model for neutralising 1.e4, and the match marked the end of Kasparov’s fifteen years as world champion.
2006 Champion
The title is reunified
Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov met in Elista to unify the split championship. Kramnik won the rapid tiebreak after the classical games finished level, and the two competing titles became one again.
2007 Technology
Online chess platforms go mainstream
Chess.com launched in 2007 and online play began to compete with clubs and correspondence chess. The internet made it possible to find an opponent at any hour, at any level, without leaving home.
2010 Technology
Lichess launches as a free, open-source server
Lichess offered free online chess, open-source software and a clean interface. Together with other platforms, it helped turn online chess into the default way many players practised, watched and studied the game.
2013 Champion
Carlsen beats Anand in Chennai
Magnus Carlsen defeated Viswanathan Anand 6½–3½ to become world champion at 22. Carlsen’s universal style, endgame technique and willingness to play long, grinding games defined the next decade.
2016 – today
The online era
Streaming, rapid chess, a pandemic and a new generation of players changed what a chess career looks like. The world championship is still the summit, but the audience now lives online.
2016 Champion
Carlsen beats Karjakin in a rapid tiebreak
All twelve classical games of the 2016 World Championship were drawn. Carlsen won the rapid tiebreak 3–1 in New York, and the match became a showcase for the growing importance of faster time controls.
2017 Technology
AlphaZero learns chess from self-play
DeepMind’s AlphaZero learned chess without human opening books or handcrafted evaluation, then defeated Stockfish in a 100-game match without a loss. The result was published in Science in 2018 and changed the conversation about how machines understand chess.
2018 Champion
Carlsen and Caruana draw all twelve classical games
The 2018 title match in London produced twelve classical draws, a first for a world championship. Carlsen won the rapid tiebreak 3–0, and the match intensified the debate about the balance between classical and faster chess.
2020 Culture
The first online Chess Olympiad
FIDE held an online Olympiad during the pandemic. India and Russia shared the gold medal after a server disconnection controversy, and the event showed how much of competitive chess could move online. Streaming events such as PogChamps brought a new audience to the game.
2021 Champion
Carlsen beats Nepomniachtchi in Dubai
Magnus Carlsen won 7½–3½. Game six lasted 136 moves, the longest game in world championship history, and the match confirmed Carlsen’s dominance in both classical and faster formats.
2022 Champion
Carlsen declines to defend the title
Carlsen announced that he would not defend the world championship, saying he had achieved what he wanted in the format. The decision opened the title to a new generation and changed the conversation about what the championship is for.
2023 Champion
Ding Liren becomes world champion
Ding Liren beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in Astana, winning the fourth rapid tiebreak game after the classical portion finished level. He became the first Chinese world champion, and the match was one of the most dramatic in recent memory.
2024 Champion
Gukesh becomes the youngest world champion
D. Gukesh beat Ding Liren 7½–6½ in Singapore at the age of 18, becoming the youngest undisputed world champion in history. The result marked the arrival of a generation that had grown up entirely with online chess and engines.
Today Culture
Chess is played online first
Most games are now played on a screen, most analysis starts with an engine, and most young players learn from streams, videos and online puzzles. The board has not changed since the fifteenth century, but the way the world reaches it has.
A note on dates.
Early chess history is approximate. The sixth-century date for chaturanga, the 1475 date for the new queen and bishop, and the exact publication year of Lucena’s book are all debated by historians. This timeline uses the widely accepted milestones and says “c.” where the evidence is uncertain.