Chess Trivia:

The first chess clocks used were hourglasses.

The first match played was the time limit that faced Anderssen and Kolisch in 1861. Players had to make 24 moves in 2 hours.

During the American Revolution, the colonists tried to rename the King, Queen and Pawn as Governor General and Pioneer.

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) is the second largest world organization, bringing together 122 nations (as of 1977). Its annual budget is only $ 150,000 (22 million pesetas). Founded in 1924 by the Frenchman Pierre Vincent. Their motto is Gens Una Sumus (We are one people).

Anatoly Karpov was world champion (in 1975) before getting to be Champion of the Soviet Union. The title was granted to give the then champion, Bobby Fischer, to defend (and not because he was afraid, but because of disagreements with FIDE). Karpov thus became the only world champion proclaimed without playing a match.

In 1965, Bobby Fischer participated in a tournament in Cuba playing for Telex from New York (did not get a visa to travel). Each game lasted between 5 and 7 hours. After the tournament, the Cubans had to pay a $ 10,000 bill.

Bobby Fischer once left a tournament because he was playing a woman (it was Lisa Lane, Champion of the United States).

The first official World Chess Championship was held in 1886 Johann Wilhelm Steinitz and H. Zuckertort and was won by Steinitz, who thus became the first World Chess Champion.

Chess was then the second sport in history to have a World Champion (the first was the Pool).

Wilhelm Steinitz, was the oldest world champion in history. He was 58 when he lost the title to Emanuel Lasker in 1894.

The German Emanuel Lasker was World Champion that longer retained his crown: 26 years and 337 days. He won the title in W. Steinitz and Capablanca lost to JR.

Gary Kasparov held until 2001 the record of being the youngest World Champion of all history, to win the title in 1985 at the age of 22 years (against A. Karpov). His compatriot Maya Chiburdanidze was Women's World Champion 1978 at the age of 17.

Paul Keres never became world champion, but defeated World Champions 9 throughout his life.

The Peruvian Esteban Canal won the title of Grandmaster in 1977 at the age of 81.

Miguel Najdorf, who was never even a finalist in the World Championship, holds the record for having confronted the World Champions all except the first (Steinitz) and including Karpov and Kasparov. He beat 5 of them on occasion.

To get used to all the vicissitudes of the tournaments, Botvinnik (3 times World Champion) was trained by him to take his opponent snuff smoke in the face.

A Joseph R. Capablanca never gave her mate.

The first film was dedicated to Chess Chess Fever, shot in Moscow in 1925 and starring the then World Champion Jose Raul Capablanca.

In 1922 Joseph R. Capablanca played a simultaneous against 103 opponents. Engaged in a game and won the rest.

The Czechoslovakian Vlastimil Hort was one of the greatest players of simultaneous and consecutive items of all history. In 1977 he played over 30 hours against 550 opponents and of those, 201 did against simultaneously. Overall, only lost 10 games. In 1984 he got the record for most number of consecutive games played, the players do against 663 for 32 hours and at times playing against 100 simultaneously. He won about 80% of the games.

The blindfold chess was banned in the early days of the Soviet Union to be considered artistically obtuse and damaging to mental health.

Until the 11th century the square of the chessboard were not escaqueados.

Grandmaster Aaron Nimzowitsch using cards with the following inscription: A. Nimzovich, candidate for the World Chess Championship and World Crown Prince of chess.

In 1978 A. Karpov was named best athlete of the year Soviet.

Grandmaster Lothar Schmidt (World Championship referee between Spassky and Fischer) has the largest private library of chess in the world with 20,000 volumes.

Currently (1997), only one country in the world bans chess: Iran.

In China, about 200 million people are active players of chess.

In 1910 the Austrian master Josef Krejcik gave a simultaneous against 25 boards. He lost every game.

The first chess tournament from what is recorded, was held at the Royal Court in Madrid in 1575.

The highest number of tournament participants with master level was the 1985 World Open, with 1251 players.

Bronstein once took 50 minutes to make your 1st move.

Francisco R. Torres was planning his move for 2 hours and 20 minutes in a game against Luis Santos at Vigo, Spain in 1980, which to date is the record of slowness in a single move. Interestingly, only had 2 possible moves to make.

In one of the first women's tournaments were held, the first prize was a sewing machine.

The Soviet Nona Gaprindashvili was the first woman to hold the title of Grand Master among men in 1978. It was also the first woman to win a men's tournament, held at the Lone Pine in 1977. The Hungarian Judit Polgar was once the youngest person in history to achieve the Grandmaster title (including men), to win in 1991 at the age of 15 years and 150 days, dethroning of the youth record Bobby Fischer, who was Grand Master at 15 years (later, the record was beaten fellow Hungarian Peter Leko with 14 ½ years and as recently as this year, the French Etienne Bacrot, 14 years and 2 months .)
The first chess column published in a newspaper appeared in 1813 in the Liverpool Mercury.

The first chess magazine Le Palamede was founded in 1836 by La Bourdonnais.

The first university to have a Chess Club was to Oxford in 1845.

The first international sporting event after the World War 2, which also marked the debut of the Soviet Union in international sport, was a match of chess played against U.S. radio in 1945 (which in turn was the first match of the History played by radio). Never before has a team representing the Soviet Union had faced any other country in any other sport.

The first chess game played between space and Earth was held on June 9, 1970 and confronted the crew of the Soyuz-9 with fellow Earth. The cosmonauts played on a board designed specifically for the occasion given the absence of gravity. The game ended in a draw.

The first table known to the topic of chess is The Chess Players, painted in 1490.

The first known ballet based on chess was the Ballet des Echecs, represented to King Louis XIV of France.

The Nobel Prize in Literature Elias Canetti wrote in 1935 the novel Auto da fe, in which the protagonist is a man named Fischer who wants to be world chess champion. The real Bobby Fischer was born in 1943 (8 years after writing the novel) and was proclaimed world champion of chess in 1972.

The best-selling chess book of all time was Chess Made Easy (Made Easy Chess) published by CJ Purdy and G. Koshnitsky in 1942.

The first ever tournament Active Chess (30 minutes per player) took place in Gijon in 1988 and was won by Karpov and Tukmakov. The first World Championship in this kind was held in Mexico and won Likewise Karpov.

In 1950, T. Thomas was the first blind ajecedrista participate in a chess Olympiad (Dubronik, Yugoslavia).

Braille The World Association of the Blind was a chess player, R. Bonham.

In 1968, the Braille Chess Association of the U.S. had only 25 members blind. The Association for the Soviet Union belonged 150,000 blind.

During the chess tournament in Palma de Mallorca in 1976, former World Champion Mijhail It became the first Russian to fight in a bullfight.

The largest number of moves without producing any arrest was 57 and occurred in a game Chajes-Grunfeld in 1923. The game lasted 15 hours over 121 moves.

During the World Championships in Reykjavik (Iceland) in 1972 between Fischer and Spassky, the Russian delegation blamed the poor play Spassky to some kind of emanation or power emanating from Fischer's chair, so much to complain about . The chair was effectively quarantined and placed under police surveillance for 24 hours as was analyzed by X-rays and various chemical tests.

Otho Blathy has accredited the longest chess problem: mate in 290 moves.

Iceland is the largest number of chess players per capita. With only 250,000 inhabitants (1997), has 6 Great Masters. The state itself financed the practice of chess through a lottery.

The records of victories bulkier result in international tournaments or matches, possess Jose R. Capablanca and Bobby Fischer. The first got 3 times leaving his marker at 0 and 3 times was in New York in 1910 (7-0) in 1913 (13-0) and 1914 (11-0). Meanwhile, the American won the 1963 U.S. championship with a 11-0 and in the same beat Candidates Tournament by 6-0 Taimanov and Larsen by others 6-0.

In 1983 Wolfram Harlman passed into history to occupy the last place in the tournament in Hanover and yet beat the World Champion in active (Anatoly Karpov) in that same tournament. Karpov again suffered the same humiliation the following year in the tournament in London was defeated by the player who finished last.

The American Sam Loyd has been perhaps the greatest composer in the history of chess problems (3,000 issues), most of them of unusual type (eg, chess retroactive). He was president of the Chess Club of New York and is the inventor of popular games such as Parcheesi and Game 15.

How many different openings are there? It is easy to see that there are 400 different positions after the first play (one of the White and Other Black), 72,084 after the 2nd play and more than 9 million after the 3rd move. After 4 ply there are over 280 million different positions. This number is multiplied by about 1000 every time we take into consideration one more play. After the 6 th move, there are about 300 Billion of different positions. The fastest computer available today that would take 4 days of continuous operation simply to raise these positions (another case would be analyzed).

Records of the World Championships (data up to 1997):

Reduced number of Tables: 1 (Steinitz-Chigorin, 1889)

Increased number of tables: 40 (Karpov-Kasparov, 1984-85)

Increased number of consecutive tables: 17 (Karpov-Kasparov, 1984-85)

Longest Game: 124 plays (Korchnoi-Karpov, 1978)

Game won in fewer moves: 19 (Steinitz-Zukertort)

Longest match: 48 games (Karpov-Kasparov, 1984-85)

Increased number of games played in World Championships: 157 (Botvinnik)

Increased number of games won in World Championships: 52 (Lasker)

Increased number of matches played by the title: 8 (Lasker)

Greater discrepancy in age between the contenders: 32 years (Steintitz-Lasker)

Longest reign as World Champion: 28 years (Lasker)

Shortest reign: 1 year (Mijhail Tal). Actually, this record can be attributed to Max Euwe, who after becoming World Champion between 1935 and 1937 (defeating Alekhine and derotado again be the same), was named World Champion for 1 one day after the death of Alekhine.

Youngest World Champion Gary Kasparov at age 22

World Champion at older ages: Steinitz, Chigorin defeating at 56

Unique World Champion died in possession of the title: Alexander Alekhine

World Champion more active: Karpov, with 32 tournaments and 8 team championships. It is followed by Alekhine, who only participated in 16 tournaments during his reign.

Increased number of games played to be World Champion: Karpov with 454. Petrosian followed with 265 games.

Source: http://www.davchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1374

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