Chess Set
History
Chess is thought to have origionated some 1500 years ago during the 6th century in northwestern India. The modern version of chess we know today made grew out of various rule changes made in Southern Europe from around 1200 to 1475. In the 1400′s literature about chess started to emerge. Fast forward to 1851 and the first modern day chess tournament was held in London. In 1924 the World Chess Federation (Fédération Internationale des Échecs – FIDE) was founded in Paris, France.
Titles
There are four titles assigned to the top players by FIDE
- Grandmaster for world-class chess masters. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title. Requires an Elo rating of 2500
- International Master, similar to GM, but less demanding. The minimum rating for the IM title is 2400.
- FIDE Master, rating of 2300 or more.
- Candidate Master, rating of at least 2200.
Elo is a chess stats system developed by Arpad Elo and has been in use since the 1960′s. The highest every Elo ranking was 2851.
Learning to play
The US Chess Federation has some excellent information available if you’d like to learn how to play chess.
You can learn more about chess by clicking here and you can find the official rules of chess by clicking here.