From 19th century legends to the arrival of computers in the world of chess

Chess taken with philosophy

Each era has left its mark also in the way it conveyed its value profile on the game. The present is yet to be written

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Chess is becoming a mass phenomenon (and it has no age): this is the headline in Avvenire, which, giving voice to two of the most important representatives of the Italian chess movement, Luca Moroni and Michele Godena, the new and old generation, investigates the reasons for the enormous growth in popularity that the game has been experiencing in recent years. Many topics are touched upon: online gaming, streaming, sports ethics and cheating, the irruption of computers, with style and analysis that now border on perfection . In short, themes linked above all to the progress of machines, manifested with a disruptive acceleration following the pandemic and multimedia cult products (above all, the series “The Queen’s Gambit”). All that’s missing is to put things into a historical perspective, so we do it here, in brief: in 1858 the American prodigy Paul Murphy proves himself in the legendary “Opera Game”: it is the romantic beginning of the new modern era, made of strategic thinking and spectacular sacrifices .

In 1886 the first (official) world champion was crowned: Wilhelm Steinitz, who learned the principles of piece development from Murphy and expanded them in his own way, paving the way for the first, true chess doctrine. In 1948 the title was won by Mikhail Botvinnik: it was the beginning, in the midst of the Cold War, of Soviet chess domination, and the consecration of the Russian chess method, which took up and expanded classical dogmas. In 1997 for the first time a computer, Deep Blue, defeated a reigning world champion (luck wanted it to be the strongest of all, Garry Kasparov): it was the triumphal entry of machines into the world of chess . The last stage was in 2020, when, thanks to Covid and the slow mutation of chess “from sport to e-sport”, the most complete erosion of the old style began: heterodox openings, elephantine home preparation, concepts that were once relevant scarified from time to time based on the contingencies on the chessboard. Between one era and another, genius and madness, organization and adventure, life stories and sports stories, anecdotes and legends, calculation and poetry, din and silence.

Each era has left its mark also in the way it transmitted its value profile on the sixty-four squares, from the nineteenth-century show ethics to the ruthless and typically twentieth-century competition between blocks, up to the professional triumph of individual competition. Today, playing behind a screen rather than a chessboard changes the nature of the game once again, but the meaning of this change has yet to be written . Of the present, it is known, less is known than of the past, and of the future we are blind: about Carlsen and his beloved freestyle chess, posterity will tell.

The match: Paul Morphy vs Duke Karl - Count Isouard, Paris 1858, 1-0 We report the famous conclusion of the Opera game. White, after the last mistake of Black, checkmates in two moves. Can you see how?