Chess is the only game, where one, by effective strategy of the intellectual power can even capture a king! Chess falls under the category of abstract strategy games, which is game that proceeds purely on analytical reasoning and consequent decisions, with absolutely no room for chance. Two players or two teams generally play chess. Chess is an abstract strategy board game and an intellectual challenge between two players. The objective of the game is to arrest the opponent`s king in such a way that there is no room for him to escape. This fatal entrapment of the king is called checkmate. One must also try to protect ones own king during the game. The game is begun, with the white making the first move, followed by the black, and thus, the moves are alternated. Each piece in the chessboard has certain powers, which enables or restrict certain movements.

Chess is one of the world`s most popular board games and is played both recreationally and competitively. In contemporary times, India is placed among the top chess playing countries in the world, all due to players like Viswanathan Anand and P. Harikrishna. With the roots of the game tracing back to the ancient Indians and Persians, it was a game meant for the kings and for royal personalities, since it involved military planning and strategy. The legend goes like this: In ancient India, there was great concern about the prevalence of gambling games using dice. A great number of his people were playing for high stakes and becoming addicted to these games of pure luck. One day the Indian King Balhait summoned Sissa, a Brahmin known for his high analytical repute and requested him to create a game which would require pure mental skill and would hence, oppose the teaching of games in which luck decides the outcome by the throw of dice.

Moreover, the king requested that this new game should also have the ability to enhance the mental qualities of prudence, foresight, valour, judgment, endurance, and analytical and reasoning ability. Sissa then invented a wonderful game called Chaturanga. It was played on an ancient board named "vastu purusha mandala", which was the mythical board of 8 x 8 squares used by antic architects to design the plan of the cities. Indian players redefined the board representing the universe, as a board game under the secular name of "ashtapada". Sassa is believed to have contributed a lot towards the spread of the game in the entire country. He also achieved one more thing; he used just the chessboard, not even the pawns, to baffle the king and his entire court!

Akbar was known to have played human chess; he is said to have organized the game, with 32 virgins, in a big ground, and gifted all the 32 women to the winner! This game later, gradually percolated into the homes of the working class as well. Until the mid 19th century, pieces tended to come as one of two extremes. The rich would display very ornate expensive decorate pieces with delicately crafted representations of kings, queens etc. which were often top-heavy and impractical while everyone else mostly used roughly hewn wooden lumps with only the height of the pieces to distinguish between them.

In 1497 the first chess manual appeared, followed by others. In 1749, Francois-Andre Danican Philidor, a composer and leading Chess player at the time, published `L`analyse du jeu des Echecs` (Analysis of the game of chess). This is one of the greatest Chess works of literature ever written and has been translated into many languages since. Howard Staunton, the top player in the mid 19th century also wrote several important theoretical works and organized the first international chess tournament in London in 1851. Adolf Anderssen from Germany won this. In 1858, Paul Charles Morphy came to Europe from the USA and managed to take the mantle of best player at a very youthful age.

The British brought in the rules of the modern version of the game sometime during the 19th century. This game was also actually patronized by many and was considered as a very important part of one`s recreation. There were players of extraordinary caliber, patronized by the Maharajah`s of the princely states and wealthy aristocrats. Pandit Trivengadacharya of Pune, Ghulam Kassim of Madras and Mahesh Chandra Banerji of Bengal were some of the leading chess exponents of that time. Pandit Trivengadacharya also authored Vilasamanimanjari, a Sanskrit book on chess. Moropant Mehendle, Vinayakrao Khadilkar, Sripad Vishnu Bodas and Narayan Rao Joshi of Maharashtra, Kishan Lal Sharda of Mathura, Gurbaksh Rai and Gurdasmal of Punjab were some of the leading chess players in the early years of the last century.

The first one to leave a lasting impression at the international level is Mir Sultan Khan. It is said that Sultan Khan was uneducated and was working under Sir Umar Hayat Khan, who took him to Britain in the late 1920s. Mir Sultan Khan showed extraordinary genius in Chess in Britain that he not only won the British chess championship in 1929, 1932 and 1933 but also represented Britain in three chess Olympiads as its leading player. Sultan defeated the legendary Jose Raoul Capablanca of Cuba, who was the reigning world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. He also defeated Dr. Savely Tartakovar, a renowned player in a match of 11 games. Mir Sultan Khan was rated among the world`s top ten chess players of that era. Sultan Khan`s glorious career came to an end, when he had to return to Indian with his employer in 1933.This prevented him from creating several milestones.

Chess Federations
FIDE: Founded in Paris on 20 July 1924, the World Chess Federation or Federation Internationale des Echecs, known, as FIDE from its French acronym is the supreme body responsible for the organization of chess and its championships at global and continental levels. Following its recognition as an International Organization in 1989, the IOC recognized FIDE in June 1999 as an International Sports Federation.

Prior to the founding of FIDE, chess had existed as a sport played at competitive level for centuries. In its over 2000 years history, the game had undergone a series of changes and transfigured into its present day from by the 15th century. In those days, there was no common code governing the Laws of Chess or uniform regulations for international competitions, the only binding forces were that it was a gentleman`s sport in which the players were expected to act in a certain form of decorum and the enduring beauty of the game to its practitioners. Today, FIDE with a membership of 161 countries is one of the most dynamic sports organizations in the world. It carries out its main task of developing the activities of millions of chess players around the world.

The purpose and aim of FIDE are the diffusion and development of chess among all nations of the world, as well as the raising of the level of chess culture and knowledge on a sporting, scientific, creative and cultural basis. FIDE supports a close international cooperation of the chess devotees in all fields of chess activity, thereby also aiming to improve friendly harmony among people. FIDE issues the rules of chess and the provisions pertaining to the organization of the Chess Olympiad, World Championships and all other FIDE competitions. It awards the international chess titles of Grandmaster, International Master, FIDE Master, Woman Grandmaster, Woman International Master, FIDE Woman Master, International Arbiter and other titles.

a) The World Chess Championship: The World Chess Championship is undoubtedly one of FIDE`s most prestigious events. Throughout history, chess players have known who were the strongest (or at least the most famous) players of their day. Before the advent of FIDE and a clearly established system of qualification tournaments was put in place, there were those players who clearly held sway over their counterparts in the world and in this sense, became known as World Champions. But, at the same time, there were instances of World Champions who kept avoiding worthy challengers or choosing weaker opponents and chess was the poorer for it.

Although the players made efforts in 1922, some two years before the birth of FIDE, to establish regulations for the World Champions, it was not until 1948, however, when FIDE, decided to take over the management and administration of the World Chess Championships. Following the death of World Champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946, FIDE went on to organize the World Championship Tournament among the leading players at the time and Grandmaster Mikhail Botvinnik became World Champion. Since then, FIDE has successfully organized a series of qualifying tournaments, starting from the National Championships to Zonal Tournaments, played in the FIDE zones around the world, including the performance on the rating list from FIDE`s over 5000 tournaments globally, to the preliminaries and final matches of the World Chess Championship. These series of qualification tournaments and matches as instituted by FIDE, have seen the emergence of such great names in chess history as Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov.

FIDE through its various organs introduced a series of measures to fine-tune the system of qualifications as well as the cycles of the World Championship but by far the most significant change introduced, was the series of knockout matches, which was the brainchild of FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The idea was to have the top 100 players in the world engaged in a series of elimination matches over a one-month period. It was also a system, which focused on improving the financial circumstances of more players as against the old system, where only a few people were benefiting as professionals in the cycle. FIDE also sought to use this system of matches to bring in both Grandmasters Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in a unification tournament, but following the refusal of Kasparov to honor the invitation, FIDE had no choice than to ensure the continuity of the World Chess Championships in line with its established rules and regulations.

Thus, after a series of discussions at various meetings of FIDE, the $5,000,000 World Chess Championship based on the knockout format was inaugurated with the preliminaries and semi-final rounds in Groningen, while the finals were staged at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. The success of these exciting knockout matches, which showcased chess as a true modern sport, led the FIDE General Assembly to overwhelmingly approve the proposal of the Presidential Board to institute the yearly World Championship cycle with a prize fund of $3,000,000 beginning with the 1999 Championship in Las Vegas.

Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi, popularly known as "Vijji", from Tamil Nadu, ended Maharashtra`s domination in women`s chess. The Chennai-born Vijayalakshmi, who had won all the national chess titles open for the women from the under-10 girls title to the National "A" Chess Championship in 1995, won the five senior national titles in a row from 1998 to 2002. In all, so far she has won the national chess championship for a record number of six times. Apart from winning the Asian Zonal women`s chess crown at Teheran, Vijayalakshmi has won the women`s title in the Commonwealth Chess Championship twice.

But her most creditable performance has been in the two successive chess Olympiads held respectively at Istanbul (Turkey) in 2000 and at Bled (Slovenia) in 2002, where playing on the first board she won a silver medal in both Olympiads. She is the first Indian girl to earn WGM (Woman Grandmaster) title. She also won the IM title by the standards of men`s chess, thus making the title WIM a misnomer. She proved to the world that women can play chess at the same level of men and there is no necessity for a separate title.

The latest sensation in Indian women`s chess are Koneru Hampy and Dronavalli Harika from Andhra Pradesh. Koneru has won four world titles - under-10, under-12, under-14 and Junior Girls` World Title. She is the youngest woman player to earn the men`s GM title at the age of 15 years, one month and 27 days, eclipsing the earlier record of the legendary GM Judit Polgar of Hungary, who had accomplished this feat at the age of 15 years, 4 months and 28 days. In the latest FIDE ratings, Koneru is ranked fifth in the world. Dronavalli has the distinction of being India`s youngest WIM (Woman International Master) replacing Koneru Humpy as the youngest WIM in Asia. Dronavalli, who turned 13 on January 12, 2003, had accomplished this feat on December 17, 2002.

Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand has been way ahead of his times, as well as his peers. Fondly known as "Vishy", he is also reverentially known as "lightning kid", "Madras Tiger" and many other sobriquets. Anand was born on December 11, 1969. His first coach was his mother, Susila Viswanathan, and this coaching began when Anand was six years old.