The oldest name for chess is chaturanga, a Hindu word referring to the four branches of the Indian army, elephants, horses,chariots and fott soldiers, which were not in existence after the birthof christ. Therefore, chess is at least 2000 years old.

The Persians never took to four handed chess and looked down on dice-chess. The latter did spread to Europe via the Moslems, where it persisted until the 14th century. The Moslems most likely learned dice-chess direct from the Hindus. The Persian empire fell to the Moslems in the 7th century, and chess very popular in the Moslem world. At least, it did after their theologians decided that chess playing wasn't contary to the teachings of Mohammed. This descion took about 100 years and illustratesthe curious power of a simple game. After the official descion that there was no harm in chess, the Moslems created a greatly detailed literature about it.

Chess may have arrived in Russia as early as the eighth century, about a hundred years before it reached Western Europe. 16th century travelers to Russia reported that people of all classes played chess there. In the rest of Europe, chess playing was the game of nobility until the 18th century. In certain parts of Russia, the modern rules didn't take hold until the 20th century.

By the late Middle ages, Europeans and Moslems had started tinkering with the rules. In the 13th century, the first known instance of the chessboard with it's light and dark tiles was created. 15th century Mohammedan documents note that the Great Mogul Timor played'Great Chess', a version which required a board of 10 by 11 squares. Meanwhile,Europeans were frustrated with the amount of time it took to complete agame, and typically made some rule changes designed to speed things up. In the original version, the Bishop could only move two squares diagonally, but had the ability to leap over pieces in it's way. The Queen, at the time,was easily the weakest piece on the board, moving only one diagonal square per turn.When a pawn reached the 8th rank, it was promoted to a Queen, this was the only was to keep the pawn in the game. Over a period of time the Bishop and Queen grew in strength to what they are now days.

Given the offensive power of the Bishop and Queen, the King became to easy to capture. The answer to this problem was castling. The ability to suddenly move the King two squares increased the depth of stratagy to avoid checkmate. At about the same time, the pawns were given the option to move one or two squares as their inital move. So that this move could not beused to avoid capture the move en passant was devised. There have been noother alterations to the game since the 16th century.

Interestingly, in the 1920s, the then world champion Jose Capablanca proposed the addition of two new pieces. The chancellor would move like the knight or rook at the players option, and the archbishop which would move like a bishop or a knight. These pieces would require two more pawns and a larger board, but supposedly had the effect of cutting playing time in half. Capablanca's suggestions were notacted upon.