Did you know that chess has more possible moves than the total number of the world’s atoms?

Vol 27 Issue 19

Hello, this week I have some interesting facts about chess.

You probably know this famous game, I don’t like it much personally because it’s too complicated, but I discovered that between 600 million and 1 billion people all over the world play chess.

Although the modern chess board that we see nowadays was invented in Europe in 1090, Chess itself was invented in India for the first time and then became popular in Iran and then the rest of the world.

People play chess for an average of one hour per day.

Let’s read some fascinating chess facts!

Fact 1: According to Shannon’s number, there are 120^10 possible chess moves, more than the total number of atoms in the universe. This means after each move in chess, you have about 400 possible moves to choose from.

Fact 2: The shortest chess game ever lasted just 2 moves, while the longest game took 269 moves and lasted 20 hours!

Fact 3: the “50 moves rule”, is one famous rule in chess. It says that if after 50 moves no one wins, to prevent a never-ending game, the game is declared a draw.

Fact 4: The second book ever printed in English was about chess! It was written by William Caxton in 1483.

Fact 5: the youngest chess world champion is Garry Kasparov, who won at 22 years old and the oldest one is Wilhelm Steinitz who won at 52 years old.

Fact 6: Did you know that the AI we use now has been playing chess for decades? In 1988, an artificial intelligence called “Deep Thought” played against world champion Garry Kasparov, but it lost. Then in 1997 another AI called “Deep Blue” could defeat him.

Fact 7: chess in one of the oldest world championships happened in 1886.

Fact 8: Chess is one of the best ways to improve your brain skills, such as memory, creativity, problem-solving, etc.

Fact 9: Grandmaster (GM) is the highest title a chess player can achieve, and it is awarded by the International Chess Federation (FIDE). The youngest player to become a grandmaster was Sergey Karjakin when he was just 12 years old.

Fact 10: Checkmate is a worldwide phrase that means the king is dead and comes from the Persian phrase (Shah Mat).

After these exciting chess facts, if you are interested in learning chess, there are many ways to do this. Several chess schools, books, online courses, and applications that you can use even free to learn this funny game.