As has been commented on endlessly, the most recent lockdown has left many of us sitting at home, twiddling our thumbs. The first lockdown was greeted with some measure of determination and grit, and people made the best of things by picking up new hobbies and skills, trying their hands at cooking, gardening, a musical instrument or a new language.
The second lockdown was disheartening, particularly with the good weather of the first left receding into the distance and a wet winter to look forward to. However, people again dug in their heels and tried to make the most of the situation by resorting back to the things they’d picked up the first time around, then dropped as restrictions eased and summer beckoned.
This third lockdown has hit both myself and those around me much harder than the others, if for no other reason than that life is thoroughly boring at this stage. The depths of the streaming services have been plumbed, outdoor pursuits, while not impossible, are far less appealing in January than in, say, May or June. Webcammed socials aren’t novel as they were last April.
One activity that hasn’t lost its appeal since I picked it up last April for the first time, however, is chess. Having never learned to play before then, I’d always been put off by what I perceived as its impenetrable complexity and its lofty following. As I had little else going on at the time, though, I created a profile on chess.com and haven’t looked back since, my fears allayed.
The history of chess
Where did this world-conquering game come from? Its origins remain shrouded in mystery, with little evidence that chess existed in a form resembling the modern game before the 6th Century AD. Game pieces found in Russia, China, India, Central Asia, Pakistan and elsewhere that have been determined to be older have since been regarded as coming from distantly related board games.
One of those earlier games which came closest to modern chess was a war game called chaturanga, a Sanskrit name for a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. The game was popular in north-western India by the 7th Century and is considered the closest precursor to modern chess because of two key features found in the game today – different pieces had different abilities, and victory was based on one piece, much as it’s based on the king in today’s game.
There were differences between this game and today’s but it paved the way, with the game spreading to the east, north and west, taking on different rules and characteristics along the way. A form of the game found its way to Europe, by way of Persia, the Byzantine empire and the Arabian empire – with Muslims, Slavs and Vikings responsible for propagating the game beyond these bounds.
Modern form
The modern form of chess, with standardised rules and pieces, evolved slowly, with many variations depending on region. However, by the late 19th century, the rules had more or less settled to what they are today. While it was once a game limited to the upper echelons of society in most places, modern competitions have done a lot to stoke up interest in the game, while in very recent times, chess websites, such as the aforementioned chess.com, have made the game easily accessible to millions around the world – more than ever before.
The structure of the game
While chess may appear daunting, it’s really as complicated as you make it. Those playing at the highest level, such as the world champion, Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, may have hundreds of possibilities running through their head as they stare at the board, but for those of us with humbler capabilities (such as myself), it need not be so complicated.
Once you understand that the goal of the game is to checkmate, or trap, the king, and once you understand how the pieces move, it’s a matter of starting off and learning more as you go.
The Pawn can only move one square forward, with the exception of moving an extra square forward on its first move; the Knight moves in an ‘L-shape’, and is the only piece that can jump over other pieces, be they friend or foe; the Bishop can move any number of squares along diagonals; the Rook (also known as the ‘Castle’) can move any number of squares in a straight line, be it horizontally or vertically; the most powerful piece in the game, the Queen, can move any number of squares in any direction, while the most ‘valuable’ piece in the game, the King, can only move one square in any direction.
Once the basics are understood and remembered, there are just one or two more rules to be imbibed, such as castling and the En passant rule, and then you have all that’s required to start your journey.
Deepening your experience
While the game and its basics are incredibly easy to learn, dip into and enjoy, what I’ve found most valuable and what keeps me coming back is the endless depth to the game. After the first few moves the potential number of ways the game could go is already up into the millions. With so many options, strategy upon strategy has been developed, each tailored to the different stages of the game: the opening, the middlegame and the endgame.
The greatest players in the world spend their entire lives studying these strategies and developing their own, which means that the game will never be exhausted as we’ll never run out of areas of our game to develop.
A good option
As I mentioned in the beginning, boredom is a real threat to our sense of contentment – particularly during this present lockdown. Rather than flee into distractions which leave us feeling as though we’ve wasted our time, now is the time to invest in things that have the potential to blossom into lifelong loves.
Not only is chess enjoyable, there are a number of benefits that come with developing an interest in the game. These include:
– Increased focus: As the American master Bobby Fischer once said, “Chess demands total concentration”. He wasn’t wrong. It doesn’t matter your skill level or how perfect a game you’ve played, one mistake is all it takes to go from winning a game to losing badly. This focus translates well into the other areas of life, be it school, work, and leisure.
– Develops problem solving skills: Every time you sit down to a game of chess, what you’re really sitting down to is a problem to be solved. Good players are those who consider the situation they have before them and weigh up the pros and cons of each move. As with the focus chess demands and develops in its players, this ability to solve problems comes with you long after you’ve stood up from the board.
– Exercises the entire brain: Chess has long been understood to exercise both our logical and creative capacities, which fits nicely into the modern understanding of the brain as having two hemispheres which correlate to those to aspects of ourselves. A game which develops both carries obvious benefits.
At the time of writing this, there have been over 10 million games played on chess.com today, with over 400,000 playing as I write. It’s quite likely a lot of these picked up the habit over the past year as they struggled to entertain themselves or grew tired of watching new shows and series. How about joining them and seeing if it’s for you?