Most people are unaware that chess was not always the "packaged game" that it is today. It has already undergone countless changes over the centuries! The earliest form of the game, called chaturanga (Hindu for the four branches of the Indian army) bore little resemblence to the 64 square board shown above on the left. Depending on whether or not you subscribe to the belief that the ashtapada was used to play chaturanga, the earliest form of chess may have involved rolling dice! (Note: The Indian ashtapada was a general purpose playing surface which was used for many different recreational board games that almost invariably used dice to determine the course of play.)

It was because that chaturanga was so interesting that a great many people were enjoying it. The Hindu players took to adopting variations of the game, including making a four-player version of the game, both with and without dice. The diceless four-player game, which involves only eight pieces per side, is still played in 21st century India.

As chaturanga made its way further east, local customs, local fauna, and even "bad translations" had influenced the game. For example, the four branches of the Indian army from chaturanga had names that translate roughly to elephants, horses, chariots, and foot soldiers. As the game made its way into Arabia, the Hindu word for elephant was translated to al-fil. The Spanish still call this piece the alfil, but the Italians sought a phonetically similar word, which was alfiere, meaning "standard-bearer." We know that the traditional design for this piece featured a split mark at the top to signify the tusk of an elephant, but the English players had mistaken it to resemble the miter of a Bishop. The French also misinterpretted the context of the split mark, and believed the "hat" to be one that a "court jester" would wear. The modern day French player would call the Bishop fou which literally means "fool", but means "jester" to the players of the game.

As the game evolved, and the "bad translations" and other factors molded the game, one thing remained common across all cultures.

A game of shatranji, ajedrez, xadrez, scac, ... chess, could get rather long.

It was in the Middle Ages, believed during the 13th century, that the rules of the game of chess started to resemble the present day 64-square board. There was still some tinkering going on, however. The Bishop was only permitted to move two squares diagonally, but it could leap over a piece blocking its path! This is far different than the Bishop of today! If you could believe it, the Queen was even weaker. Originally called the Counselor, our modern day Queen could only move one square diagonally at a time. This means the Queen was actually weaker than a pawn at one point in time!

It was shortly after 1500 that the Bishop was given full reign over the diagonals as it does today. The Queen was likewise given the full power of horizontal and vertical Rook motion as well as the newly strengthened diagonal capabilities of the Bishop. The Rook and the Knight, the two strongest pieces from the Medieval era, were the only pieces that were never augmented in power.

With the added power of the Bishop and Queen, combined with the fact that pawns could now opt to promote to the compelling Matriarch, games were not requiring as many moves as the antiquated version of chess. The European adoption of the new rules was so rapid, that it surely proves that players welcomed brevity and profundity over exaggerated exercises in recalcitrance. But this new power came at a price: now the King needed some defense!

An entire mini-odyssey regarding the modern day castling manuever began to unfold. At first, the King was permitted to move to any two (or in some cases, three) squares during the course of one turn, placing the Rook leisurely at his side wherever he landed. The rules gradually become more restrictive in this regard, but the Italian School was still holding out for "freeform castling." The "freeformers" eventually gave in to the modern version of the rule regarding only the horizontal displacement of the King during castling. It should be noted that this debate was contested for decades.

The French had one last hand in the shaping of the contemporary rules of 8x8 chess, that being the strange en passant pawn capture. Depending on whose story you read, the French viewed the bypassing of an infiltration achieved by a pawn as an "act of cowardice." Basically, if you moved your pawn twice on the first move to get passed a pawn that was pressuring the pawn you moved, the French reserved the right to remove the "cowardly" pawn as if it had directly impaled itself by moving forward only once. This special capture, known as en passant, (on the passing) can only be made on the turn following the "cowardly advance." This peculiar rule was finally universally accepted by the 1880's, but it had been used widely for over 200 years prior to this.