Chess is the greatest sport

"Intellectual activity is perhaps the greatest pleasure of life; chess is one of the forms of intellectual activity."

Siegbert Tarrasch 

There are some examples of games which trascend the History of Humanity: draughts, go, poker... But, for me, the most iconic and important of all of them is chess, the giant among the greatest.

Chess' popularity is so huge that it´s almost impossible don´t know anything about it, but, ok, let me introduce chess, the fascinating duel on a board game.

Chess is a sport with a board game where there are 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid, half are white and the rest are black. It needs two players to star a match and only one can win. The first the move is white and the player with that color can move forward a pawn or a knight, one of the special pieces that both players have.

To know how to play it´s important to understand the type of move that has every sort of piece. Let´s go to explain this.

Over the chessboard there are two lines occupied by 16 pieces. Eight are pawns and the others eight are (from the each corner to the center) two rooks, two knights, two bishops, a king and a queen (it has to be always in the square of her color).

Pawns 

They are the most numerous piece over the chessboard. Some people think they are the less valuable piece of chess, but if you are in last part of the game (called "ending"), probably you will want to have the biggest number of your pawns fighting for the win because, when they reach the last opposite line of your side, they can transform in another piece, any piece! (except king). 

One curious thing about them is they can move two squares but only in their first move, later they only move one. But the wierdest fact is they capture the opponent's pieces using a diagonal move.

Rooks 

They seem be abandoned in those corners but, don´t worry about them, everybody remember their existence, because they are very powerful.

First of all, they can move infinitely, but their movement must be in straight line. Thanks to that, it´s easier to get the win if you have a pair of them on your side.

Knights

Knights are the strangest pieces of chess because only they can jump above other piece. This is a exclusive movement. But there are more! 

Their move is a "L" that you can make in any direction if there is a free square or occupied by a opponent´s piece.

Many pplayers, like me, have troubles to fight against them because is easy to forget that a kinght can jump almost to every position.

Bishops

These pieces are loved by almost every good player and hated if they are in the opponent band. Why? Because they move infinitely, like rooks, but in diagonal. 

They can guard behind the shadows and it´s easy forget that they can destroy one of your pieces from a very distance place, like a sniper.

There are people who prefer this piece before rook and, when there are two over the board, is usually to call them as "bishops of despair", or "bishops of nightmare" or "bishops of hell".

Choose the nickname that you prefer the most.

Queen

Queen for the "queendom"! Yeah, queen is the real boss of chess and everybody want to use her to get win faster.

What about the queen? Well, she has so many options to move that is crazy, ridiculous. Infinite squares, any direction... she can move like other piece except the knight.

For this reason there is only one at the beginning, but you can get more if your pawns reach the opposite end of the board.

King

Well, here is the most important piece of the game. If this is captured then you lose, so simple than that.

In addition, the king is the second most limited piece, because he only can move square to square, like pawns, but you can choose any direction.

For these reasons, you can say that have a king is an disadvantage but in endings, without almost any piece over the board, he starts to use his unknown power and becomes useful for the first time. 

Now we are sure how to move pieces, now we must to be sure if understand the goal. As a player you must to make checkmate, the moment when the opponent's king is captured and the other player can´t do anything to avoid that. 

But in chess is possible to get another result: a draw. When both players can't do a proper checkmate, that is a draw, but it isn´t so simple, becuase you can have a draw by different ways.

The first one is when the material is insufficient to do checkmate. For example, if both players have only the king, it´s impossible to win because a king can´t capture another king staying alone.

The second one sounds wierd but happens too much. In chess every player have a turn to move, that´s a important rule. If any case one player can´t move anything then the result is a "stalemate". I repeat, this happens a lot and is a good way to prevent defeat.

And the last. Have you considered a match with infinite moves? Okay, you're clever because that is possible. To avoid that redundant situation, exists a rule that benefits both parts. If in a match there only moves and nobody captures anything, there is a maximum number of moves, 50, if any happens until that move, the result is a draw.

Okay, I think that everybody knows now how to play. Exist a lot of theory about the beginning with the openings but it´s better if you learn that playing chess that reading about that in this blog. So, why did I choose this topic? Because I love chess and I am a federated player, yeah! I play in name of the university, so wish me luck, hahaha.

And now let's go to talk about others important concepts about chess and other related topics.

What is Elo?

Elo is the the common way to talk about Elo rating system, the standard method the players and the FIDE organization use to calculate the `power´ of a single player. This method was implemented in 1970, so, yes, a half century ago! 

Something very interesting about Elo is the existence of two different types: one is official and another is digital. Both are a good aproximation about the real quality of gaming, but first one only appears when a person plays in official tournaments and matches with a correct validation of a FIDE judge. It´s harder and it grows very slowly cause you must to participate in several places with official staff.

Meanwhile, virtual Elo is that you can get playing in websites and apps of chess, like the previous I´ve mentioned. It´s easier and faster to get a proper number which indicates your hability as a chess player, cause the method is simpler. Normally, if the matchmaking was good and your opponent  have a similar hability, you will win 8 points with a victory, none point with a stalemate and 8 points less with a defeat. Numbers can change depending on the difference of Elo before starting the match. It´s even possible to get no one point despite the victory if your opponent is too much underrated compares you.

One of my favourite questions what is the top for humanity respect Elo. When we search the highest ranked players in chess history, we can see nobody got the peak of  three thousand points, the glorious 3000 number. Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen almost get that benchmark; however, several players surpassed that magical reach with digital Elo in the most visited chess websites. Hikaru Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen, Andrew Tang, Daniel Naroditsky, etc. All of them could reach even numbers so unbelievable like 3300, 3400 and 3500.

But digital Elo is easier to get, for this reason 3000 of Elo is a so important mark , because the most advanced engines and IA are over that and, nowadays, the best engine has around 3500 points.

The best players in chess history

If we talk about chess in a general way, we must to mention, at least, a good list of the most relevant, famous and influence players of this legendary sport.

Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941)

   

Was the second world champion because he had a very good creativity and his style had a psychological personality, a correctform to confuse his opponents.

Jose Raul Capablanca (1888-1942)

THE player from Cuba, the third world champion, the genius who almost never lost. What an excellent rapid player, with solid preparation and interesting moves created by his intuition.

Mikhail Tal (1936-1992)

Another world champion who was called yhe "Magician of Riga". A lot of people love his style because he was always unpredictable and very impressive, and scary, sacrifices. Playing against him was a risky idea because he elaborated many traps over the chessboard.

Robert J. Fischer (1943-2008)

He is, probably, the final boss of chess. It´s almost impossible that somebody doesn´t know who is he. A genius of his era and even today, his skills combine a very prepare opening repertoire, which was limited, and a perfection of the election of moves, like a modern engine.

Garry Kasparov (1963-present)

If you don´t like Fischer for any reason, you must to choose Kasparov as the greatest player of chess, without no question. He became in the thirteenth world champion thanks to his deep analize and dynamics with surprising piece sacrifices.

Vladimir Kramnik (1968-present)

One of the most famous players from Russia, he was the most hardful opponent for Kasparov. He has a knowledge so deep of chess that, nowadays, he is working to elaborate major modifications in game to do it more dynamics.

Viswanathan Anand (1969-present)

Anand was that indian guy who loves chess, but he was the first one to become in world champion, at least some years before the rises of Magnus Carlsen. His style is so nature and intuitive that he is capable to beat bgrandmasters in onle a few moves. He is also the personality who impulses chess in India.

Hikaru Nakamura (1987-present)

In chess elite there are several players famous for their velocity and Hikaru is, for the majority of critics, the most talented player on bullet category. He is also famous for being so emotional that you can see all his expressions meanwhile he plays.

Magnus Carlsen (1969-present)

The current world champion is, without doubt, the prodigy of chess. Everybody talk about Fischer and Kasparov, like old days, but this incredible player will be the one who all elite players will study in the future and in the present. He almost never makes blunders and his streak of victories is unbelievable, 125 matches (in classic format) without losing.

All types of chess depending on time

• Correspondence: Before creating Internet and mobile phones people already wanted to play with others who was far, far away, so the method to start and finish those matches was using letters, mail filled with the moves to do in a own chessboard with a invisible opponent. That was a time when information spends days of time to travel, even more if the distance was between countries. Nowadays you can recreate that experience thanks to websites, but this way isn´t so fascinating as live chess, and it´s common to forget that you must play!

• Classic standard: When someone thinks about chess the most probable imaginary scene which appears is two players calculatingover hours to get the best move, and this is correct. Chess matches can be very long, even tedious, in the classic format. This kind of game is whatever which starts with, at least, 25 minutes on the clock for each player, with increment or not.

• Rapid: Some players have not enough patience or time to play along hours, so a shorter format to calculate in a deep way but without so much free time is rapid. We can considerer a match is into this format when it starts with 8-10 minutes for player on the clock.

• Blitz: If you like velocity and thinking fast, you must try this format, because you only will have between 3 and 8 minutes to do all your moves. It´s a very popular format, maybe the most, because it´s rapid but you don´t need a superb brain to understand what is happening.

• Bullet: Okay, okay! Stop, please! STOP! Bullet it´s the fastest way to challenge an opponent. You have a time under three minutes! Can you imagine how fast is the calculation to get a proper move? Almost a sigh! So, if you have serial problems to think using only a couple of seconds, try to avoid this format. But the most incredible fact about this format is the subdivision, because exist two faster versions.

An example of several matches between two grandmasters.

1. Hyperbullet: Your time is under a minute! Under a minuteee! There is no time think, just move! Do you think this is ridiculous? Okay, me too, but is very outstanding see other people finish a complete match, yeah, with checkmate, not losing for time.

Andrew Tang reaching 3053 points of Elo in a digital tournament (and winning it).

1. Ultrabullet: Do you think time under a minute is too less? Well, and, what about a time under a half of a minute? Of course, it´s a nonsense, but it´s still possible to finish the match. My opinion about that is I barely can see what happens, but I find this very impressive and wonderful to watch.

Andrew Tang, the best player of ultrabullet, showing his skills.

White people VS Black people, a question about races

When someone thinks in famous chess players, probably the first names will be Fischer and Kasparov, and probably Magnus.  The first one is from United States, the second from Russia and the third is from Norway, and all of them are white people.

In this era people are concern about over- and underrepresation of different races. For me this topic is trivial and a toxic way to overthinking about reality, but we won´t talk about this controversial discussion, because I want to talk about the curious phenomenon of the almost inexistent black people in elite chess.

For some reason anybody can tell, there are only a few examples of grandmasters in chess history. Maybe, in the past, people of that race were not allowed to play the famous game.  You know, for racist reasons, but in the present those kind of limitations are gone, so, why that disparity?

Perhaps, in the future, we will have a scientific explanation about this, because there only three grandmasters in the world who are black people: Maurice Ashley, the first one to get the title in 1999, who born in Jamaica; Pontus Carlsson, titled as GM in 2007, from Sweden; and Amon Simutowe, who became in GM in 2009, from Zambia.

In my case I only know the player Maurice Ashley because he is, without doubt, the most popular black player, because he is also a charismatic commentator of chess.

A portrait picture of Maurice Ashley

Maurice playing against a hustler in New York

What about women in chess?

Maybe another unexpected fact about chess is the underrepresentation of women in this sport. For some reason, something similar happens here like in the previous segment about races. Women seems not to exist. Why?

Well, that kind of questions are so complicated to answer that nobody can tell us the truth, but maths doesn´t lie. In the first 110 players in the top of FIDE organization, just only one is female, Yifan Hou, the current female world champion. So there is something very deep to create this curious gap.

Nowadays, the idea nearest to science is considering that brain is different according to gender, a fact relative about neuronal combinations and development of distinct areas. For this reason, each gender is better doing several and unique activities. Men's brain love the idea of competitive and strategy and women's brain... well, not so much. Because of that female are less interested in this kind of games and they reach a level in skills not so high that men can do. Natural determinism is the guilty.

However, a woman can become in an excellent player, capable to beat almost every man on Earth, so no one must to give up, just keep playing and improve yourself! The best example of hard work is Judit Polgar, the female who led the "queendom" of chess. One of the strongest players of all time, so good that even Kasparov had troubles fighting her.

The special match where Yifan Hou played against Magnus Carlsen, in 2018

Chess popularity nowadays

Despite the fact chess is a intellectual game where it´s necessary to have patience and have to be focused to do a lot of calculations, its popularity is huge since centuries ago. Every man (and now woman too) was interested in using brain to get a win, for this reason this discipline survive so many years.

Nowadays exist an uncountable number of players around the world, in all continents, even Antartic, there a chessboard (or a computer) with somebody prepare to do checkmate. And thanks to audiovisual staff like The Queen's Gambit chess increase like a trend.

By the other hand, thanks to chess streamers like Hikaru Nakamura or Alexandra Botez websites like chess.com and twitch.tv organize casual events where famous youtubers and others streamers play against each other. This kind of championship are very good for the sport because we can see that we don´t need to be a professional to get fun playing the game.

And it´s quite interesting see crossovers like Nakamura and El Rubius like below: 

Chess engines

The development of technology and advances in computation let us to create machines which can play chess. It´s probably you know the existence of Deep Blue, the first machine which could beat a human grandmaster, but it isn´t the first one, cause it was an automaton built in 1912 by a spanish person. So informatic engineers spent decades of work trying to get a machine which was better than human and now, in the present, it clearly happens.

But there are some fake ideas about this kind of programs. First of all, many people think engines always do the "best move", and that is not correct because if it was true, then engines couldn´t improve in any case, how can you improve yourself if you are already doing the perfection? Just see the matches between computers, one machine can beat another one. They seem to do the best because our limited perspective.

The second biggest lie is engines can "solve" chess, get the perfect match in any position, and that is far far away to capabilities of computation because the possibilities are so many that there are more possible final positions than... atoms in the whole universe! Here below I put a video with a mathical explanation about that.

And another common mistake is think that engines and AI are different things, but no, they are the same, at least in chess. AI is the abbreviation of Artificial Intellegence, and the common programs which makes things on differents ways are "intelligents".

All of this engines works at the same way, with algorithms which can understand the context and the inputs, so they can do properly their job. Nowadays AI are trending because exist a development in "neuronal" connections of learning, with different algorithms and an unique form to analize and get results. This "new" way is more like human's brain works.

Humans VS Engines

Kasparov VS Deep Blue, 1996-1997, when the future comes to present. Was in that series of six matches when humanity lose against the machine. Was a huge impact in culture see THE master be desesperated by the engine´supremacy, but, if you read a lot and use the proper sources, you can find a interesting reflexion. Kasparov lost because of his mind, Deep Blue didn´t win by superiority.

And how is possible that result? Well, in chess exists one crucial fact, psychology is always working behind the chessboard. Sometimes, when you see how other person is playing to something, you can see inmediately the mistakes and the advantages, and this miracle conception of the match (chess, videogames, whatever) happens thanks your role as viewer, as a spectator who is far away the action. Because of this people can think without pressure and make the corrections decisions more properly.

But there is another aspect of this kind of matches. Engines aren´t humans. "Of course not!" probably you shout in your mind after reading that sentence, but it is not that easy. When you play against a human you know the opponent can have mistakes, even blunders, along the game, but engines don´t, because they always do the "correct move" (that is not true, but in our perspective it seems to), so think about that. Imagine play against someone who always do the best, without condition, imagine to see a move and considerer it seems a mistake to you, but it was done by machine, so it "can´t be" a mistake. Are you sure you can stand that pressure?

Kasparov has a mental breakdown and lost his nerves. He was even paranoid about the truth behind Deep Blue, he repeated over and over that IBM (the company which created the engine) was fooling him of some way. In reality, he couldn´t beat his own desperation. 

But that clash was almost three decades ago and Deep Blue is obsolete now, the best grandmasters can beat it like Kasparov did before, but Deep Blue can´t beat any modern AI. The next question is primordial, can humans beat engines now?

The answer is astonishing because is... YES! A "yes" capitalized, and there many examples along the years, matches registered and analized deeply.

One of this incredible and memorable clashes was Hikaru Nakamura against the engine called Rybka, the first one to reach 3000 points of Elo. If you want to compare, Deep Blue had a puntuation of 2853. This match was so epic because it was in blitz format, do you remember blitz? Yeah, 3 minutes on clock for each player. Nakamura beated an engine with only 3 minutes and using 271 moves to reach the unbelievable checkmate with FIVE bishops. Have you forgotten in chess every player has only two bishops at the beginning? Well, Hikaru got three more to finish the game.

But that moment was in 2008, almost fifteen years ago, so engines could be improved so much since that year, and it´s correct, but ten years later a human like Andrew Tang could beat the strongest neural network based chess engine, Leela Chess Zero, the successor of Google AlphaZero, whose Elo in that moment was 3233 points. That was possible because the bot made a huge blunder and lost his queen with no reason, and maybe you think "Ok, so the following work couldn´t be so hard with up a whole queen", BUT, Andrew did it in ultrabullet format, 15 seconds on his clock. Just amazing, because he is, probably, the last person to beat that IA in chess history.

After that achievement Andrew became very popular to get wins against engines. On July of 2020 he could beat all Stockfish's levels in, again, ultrabullet format and Stockfish is currently the best IA of the world playing chess.

But it´s true that rapid formats aren´t the best to play for engines, because they can´t calculate so deeply (neither humans as well). What happens if we try to beat an engine in slower matches? In theory is harder, but you can study the way engines works and adapt this information to preparation. It´s because of this a "simple" person can get the win, using strange movements which the machine can´t understand properly and misscalculate the correct coun terplay. Jonathan Schrantz is a well known youtuber who has several videos demostrating he beated Stockfish on different ways.

The best spanish players

For some reason, in any sport there are a huge bunch of superb players, but all of them are from others countries (excuse me, Rafa Nadal). Fortunately, in chess exists a couple of examples from Spain, one of the past, born in the Franco era, and other born in the 90's and playing nowadays.

The first one was Arturo Pomar Salamanca, who appears below with the Caudillo, a child prodigy of chess who was used to do marketing of the regimen. When he grew up, Franco and his government lost the interest, so "Arturito" (his alias when he was younger) disappear into oblivion and only played games for fun. Some day, a huge tournament met a lot of players of different places, and he wanted to prove himself so he joined. 

There one of his opponents was the incredible Bobby Fischer and "Arturito" made the unbelievable, he could get a draw. That was very significant because, in that point of his life, Arturo was only a postman and he went to the tournament without preparation, without coach and without any support as others elite players. Here you can see the whole match.

The second one is David Antón, a very promising young player who born in 1995 and who already played against the most talented players. He is known as "el niño Antón", a nickname similar as "Arturito", for his young face but his style of play is very mature. 

He got a draw against the currently world champion, Magnus Carlsen, in a match played on January of this year, 2021, and also got a huge popularity after that because audience and critics were impressed. You can see a review about that match here below.