A brief History of the Chess and the Chess Olympiad.
Chess is a board game played between two players. It is played on a chessboard, which is a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way to remove or defend it from attack on the next move.
The form we know today of the game emerged in Europe during the later half of the 15th century after evolving from a much older (Shatranj) of Indian origin. Some aspects of art are found in chess composition. Theoreticians have developed extensive chess strategies and tactics since the game's inception. One of the goals of early computer scientists was to create a chess-playing machine. Chess is now greatly influenced by the abilities of chess programs and the opportunity for online play. In 1997 Deep Blue became the first computer to beat a reigning World Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov.
The tradition of organized competitive chess began in the 16th century. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; the current World Champion is Viswanathan Anand. Chess is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee, and is headed by the FIDE. Curently chess is one of the world's most played games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.
The Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess competition in which teams from every corner of the globe contend with each other. The tournament is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.
The first Olympiad was unofficial. For the 1924 Olympics an attempt was made to also include the game of chess in the Olympic Games but this failed to happen because of dificulties with distinguishing between amateur and pro players. While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad also took place in Paris. FIDE was formed on Sunday, July 20, 1924, the last day of the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad. Czechoslovakia were the victors of that Olympiad.
FIDE organised the first Official Olympiad in 1927 which took place in London, which was won by Hungary. The Olympiads were occasionally held annually and at irregular intervals until World War II; since 1950 they have been held regularly every two years.
Each FIDE recognized chess association can enter a team into the Olympiad (for the UK one team for each of the four countries plus Guernsey and Jersey can enter a team separately). Every team is made of up to six players, four regular players and two reserves (altered to four regular and one alternate in Dresden 2008 ). At first each team played all other teams but as the event expanded as the years went by this became impossible. Initially team seeding took place before the competition. Later certain drawbacks were recognized with seeding and in 1976 a Swiss competition system was instituted.
The prize for winning the men's team is the Hamilton-Russell Cup, which was provided by the English magnate Frederick Hamilton-Russell as a prize for the 1st Olympiad (London 1927). The cup is kept by the winning team until the next event, when it will be consigned to the new champion. The prize for the winning women's team is known as the Vera Menchik Cup the first Women's World Chess Champion.
The 2008 Olympiad was held in Dresden, Germany. The 2010 Olympiad is going to be held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, and the 2012 Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey . The bids for the 2014 Olympiad include Tromso, Norway and Albena, Bulgaria.