Modern ChessNear the end of the 15th century, the game of chess underwent a dramatic transformation when the powers of two of the weakest pieces were enhanced. The slow game characterized by a long opening buildup was suddenly a rapid game where checkmate was possible after only a few moves. The new game, quickly adopted wherever it was played, pushed the old game aside after only a few decades. The best players began to investigate the subtleties of the opening and of the endgame.
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Modern Moves |
In the Arab game of Shatranj, the piece next to the King was called the firz (or firzan). It moved one square diagonally in any direction and a Pawn reaching the 8th rank was promoted only to a firz. The medieval piece that replaced the firz was called the fers. In addition to the same diagonal move, it could jump to to a nearby empty square. The moves of the modern chess Queen were introduced around 1475. In Shatranj, the piece that started the game where the Bishop now starts was called the fil ('al fil' = elephant). It could jump only to the square located two squares diagonally. This meant that it could never reach more than eight squares on the entire board. The piece was variously called alfil, alfin, and aufin in the medieval game. The moves of the modern chess Bishop were introduced in the 15th century and the name of the piece changed in all European languages.
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Castling |
Under the rules of Shatranj, the King moved one square in any direction. Medieval chess later let the unmoved King leap two squares in any direction. Lucena described castling in two moves: the Rook was played to its castled square on one move and the King jumped over it the next move. Later this was done in one move, but the King and Rook were allowed to finish on different combinations of squares. In 1561 Ruy Lopez described castling as we now play it, although regional variations continued.
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The rules of chess haven't changed since the early 1600s