“All rook and pawn endgames are drawn” is a chess quote that was often attributed to the great chess player (and doctor) Siegbert Tarrasch.
However, this statement is far from being absolutely true and rook endgames NOT ALWAYS easy to play.
We have invited our friend and VERY strong GM Mikhailo Oleksienkoto teach you how to play rook endgameswith only one pawn left properly. He will show you the general principles to keep in mind, such as how to place your rooks to attack and defend.
Last but not least, he will give you the secrets that you must know that even strong Grandmasters sometimes forget.
He’s the current Ukrainian Rapid Chess Champion, has won a couple of international tournaments and achieved an awesome 2640 rating in 2014.
On Saturday, 22 November, at 3p.m. GMT (London time) you can attend GM Mikhailo Oleksienko’s webinar “Intuitional Rook endgames”. You can get all the details and sign up here:
Now, let’s get back and continue with the 2nd part of the article “The History of Chess”. (If you’ve missed the 1st part, read it now: LINK.)
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In this game (chess), there used to be four participants, due to which it was named‘CHATURANGA’, meaning “four bodies” – to be elephants, horses, chariots and foot soldiers. Another name for this game was ‘Ashtapada’, meaning “eight steps”.
Sir William Jones claimed that chess, under the Sanskrit name Chaturanga, was exported from India to Persia in the 6th Century AD and that, by natural corruption, the Persian influence changed the name to Chatrang; but when their country was afterwards taken possession of by the Arabs, who had neither the initial nor the final letter in their alphabet, it was altered further to ‘SHATRANJ’.
The Persian poet Firdousi, in his historical poem The Shahnama, gives an account of the introduction of Shatranj into Persia in the reign of Chosroes I Anushirwan, to whom ambassadors from the sovereign of Hind (India) had come with a chessboard, asking him to solve the secrets of the game if he could or else pay tribute.
The King asked for seven days’ grace, during which time the wise men vainly tried to discover the secret. Finally, a minister of the King took the pieces home and discovered the secret in a day and a night.
Shatranj, as Forbes has pointed out, is a foreign word among the Persians and the Arabians, whereas its natural derivation from the term chaturanga is obvious.
Even the term “checkmate” is derived from the Persian term ‘shah-mat’, which means “the king is dead”. The Sanskrit version of this term would be ‘khastra mruta’.
1,400 years went by before the game reached the Western world. The Moors brought it to Spain, while the Italians learned it with remarkable speed from the Saracens.
In India, His Majestic Beneficence and his vizier led the pieces of the King’s army – elephant, horse, chariots, and foot soldiers – into battle. The vizier was to become a queen in the European version of the game, and in the course of history, the Indian elephants metamorphosed into bishops and the chariots into rooks.
One of the set of counters used in chess are ‘the rooks’. A rook is similar to an Indian chariot, protecting the army’s flank.
The term originated from the Persian ‘roth’, which means “soldier”. The Persian word is derived from the Indian term ‘rukh’, which obviously seems to be generated by the Sanskrit word ‘rakshak’, which means “soldier” or “to protect”.
‘The bishop’ amongst the Persians was called ‘pil’ (“elephant”); but the Arabs, not having the letter ‘p’ in their alphabet, wrote it ‘fil’, or with their definite article, ‘al-fil’ (“the elephant”). It was the next in command and had a force assisting acounsellor or minister.
The elephant was represented by short, upright pieces deeply split on top,symbolising the tusks of these animals. This shape was erroneously interpreted as a foolscap in France and as a bishop’s mitre in Portugal and in many English-speaking countries.
‘The queen’ in Europe, where women did not play the subordinate role assigned to them in the Orient, represented ‘the advisor’.
The queen is the most curvaceous of the modern pieces and has undergone changes in name, sex and power. In Shatranj, this piece was called ‘firz’ or ‘farz’,meaning “counsellor” or “general”.
‘The knight’ as a symbol has come to represent the virtues of chivalry, with its mane and tail exquisitely sculpted and flowing in the breeze. Its features have been delicately accented in the Staunton chess set.
Phidias was the sculptor who worked on the Athenian Parthenon (Elgin Marbles) and is considered the greatest sculptor of Ancient Greece. The Grecian statues were designed in accordance with a set of mathematical proportions and Phidias’ masterpiece was the Parthenon in that city.
The horse became identified with a rider on horseback, “knight” in English,“chevalier” in French, “cavaliere” in Italian, “springer” in German, and so on.
The game framework has remained fixed since that period. It is a square board on which horizontal and vertical lines mark off eight rows of eight cells each.
The squares on the traditional boards are always referred to as black and white, the same as chessmen regardless of their actual colour.
Many Jewish and Christian scholars have played chess. The early Christian church condemned the game, which shows the full force of the intolerant medieval mode of thinking prevalent during that period of florescence.
Chess is also played in many Eastern countries, which shows that the game hasglobal appeal.
For 500 years, chess was played in Europe with the rules inherited from the Muslims. But it took so long to play a whole game that most players confined themselves to solving special positions. During the latter part of the Middle Ages, leading Spanish and Italian players proposed sweeping changes to the rules that shortened the game considerably.
By the end of the 15th century, the new rules had been accepted in all European countries and gradually the Orient followed suit. As players everywhere preferred the shorter game, it transpired that within 100 years it was again played with the same rules but on a near-global basis.
Because of its previous pre-eminence as an intellectual pastime favoured by the upper classes, chess is also called THE ROYAL GAME.
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