The history of chess: from Indian origins to the digital age

Chess is the oldest strategy game still played in the world today. Born in India more than 1,500 years ago, it travelled through the Persian and Arab empires before conquering medieval Europe. Here is the fascinating story of a game that has shaped humanity’s strategic thinking.

The origins: from India to Persia (6th – 7th century)

Chaturanga: the Indian ancestor

Who invented chess? The most historically sound answer points to 6th-century India. The ancestor of chess is called Chaturanga (from the Sanskrit chatur = four, anga = limbs), referring to the four divisions of the Indian army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and war chariots.

Chaturanga was played on a 64-square board called the ashtāpada. The pieces represented the king’s four army divisions: foot soldiers (future pawns), cavalry (knights), elephants (future bishops) and chariots (future rooks). The king and his counsellor (future vizier, then queen) completed the set-up. This was the first time in history that a game combined pure strategy, no element of chance, and military simulation.

Shatranj: the Persian version

Chaturanga arrived in Persia in the 7th century, probably via the trade routes between the Gupta Empire and the Sassanid Empire. The Persians adopted it under the name Shatranj and made crucial changes to it. It was in Persian that the terms “check” (shāh = king) and “checkmate” (shāh māt = the king is dead) were born.

When the Arabs conquered Persia in 651, they discovered Shatranj and became its most fervent ambassadors. The Abbasid caliphs organised the first chess tournaments as early as the 8th century in Baghdad, at the court of Harun al-Rashid. The first theoretical treatises were written in Arabic, laying the foundations of what would become chess strategy.

The conquest of Europe (10th – 15th century)

Two routes towards the West

Chess reached Europe via two main routes:

The European adaptation

Europeans profoundly transformed the game between the 11th and 15th centuries. The Indian elephant, unknown in Europe, became the bishop. The chariot turned into the rook (fortress). The vizier became the queen. Chess became part of courtly culture: it was one of the seven arts of the knight, alongside horsemanship, archery and poetry.

But it was around 1475 that the most significant revolution occurred: the queen and bishop gained their modern moves (the queen could move in any direction across any number of squares, the bishop diagonally). This “reform” considerably sped up the game and made it far more dynamic. In Italy, this was known as scacchi alla rabiosa (the furious chess).

The key dates in the history of chess

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The Staunton style: standardising the pieces

Before 1849, every region of Europe used its own piece designs, often hard to tell apart. The Englishman Nathaniel Cooke then designed a clean, instantly recognisable set, endorsed by champion Howard Staunton, who lent it his name.

The Staunton style is characterised by universal symbolic shapes: the king’s cross, the queen’s crown, the bishop’s mitre, the knight’s head, the rook’s battlements. This design was adopted by FIDE as the mandatory standard for competition and remains, 175 years later, the reference model for all quality chess sets.

The champions who shaped history

The digital age: from computers to streaming

Artificial intelligence in chess

In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a match — an event that made headlines around the world. But the true revolution came in 2017: AlphaZero, developed by DeepMind (Google), learnt to play chess from scratch in 4 hours and crushed the best existing engine (Stockfish). The AI no longer calculated like a machine — it developed an “intuitive” understanding of the game that fascinated Grandmasters. To explore this decisive turning point further, read our detailed account of the Kasparov vs Deep Blue duel.

Today, electronic chess boards integrate these AIs directly into the board, allowing anyone to play against an opponent of adjustable strength, analyse their games and improve — a dream chess players have had for centuries.

The online chess boom

Online chess sites such as Chess.com (100+ million members) and Lichess have democratised the game like never before. Online blitz has become a spectator sport, with streamers such as Hikaru Nakamura and the Frenchman Kevin Bordi (Blitzstream) drawing millions of viewers.

The Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit (2020) amplified this phenomenon further: chess set sales jumped by 300%, sign-ups on online platforms soared, and chess club membership doubled. Chess has never been more popular than in the 21st century.

Chess in France

France holds an important place in the history of chess. François-André Philidor (1726-1795), regarded as the finest player of his time, published Analyse du jeu des Échecs in 1749, a founding work of modern theory. His maxim “pawns are the soul of the game” remains a reference to this day.

Today, the French Chess Federation has more than 60,000 licensed members. France has produced great players such as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (known as MVL), regularly ranked among the world’s top 5 players, and Alireza Firouzja, the French-Iranian prodigy who became a Grandmaster at 14. Chess is increasingly taught in French schools, recognised for its benefits on concentration and cognitive development.

1,500 years of history, one board

From Indian Chaturanga to streaming on Twitch, chess has spanned 15 centuries without ever losing its fascination. The pieces have changed names, the rules have evolved, champions have come and gone — yet the essence of the game remains the same: two minds face to face, 64 squares, endless possibilities.

Whether you’re drawn to studying openings, to the repertoire of moves, or simply to the pleasure of a family game, every time you place a piece on a chess board, you carry on a thousand-year-old tradition.