How Did Humans Invent Chess?

64 squares, 32 pieces… and more possible games than atoms in the universe. Chess fooled an emperor, became a weapon in the Cold War, and now lives in your pocket. But who invented it? We follow chess from prehistoric bones and Egyptian Senet to Indian chaturanga, Persian kings, Baghdad masters, Viking ivory pieces, the "mad queen" revolution, the fake chess robot that beat Napoleon, Fischer vs Spassky, Deep Blue vs Kasparov, and the online chess boom. ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 More games than atoms 0:30 What this video is about 1:05 Games before chess 3:10 Chaturanga: the birth of chess 4:52 Persia: shah and checkmate 6:29 Baghdad's chess masters 7:30 Chess comes to Europe 9:06 When the church banned chess 9:35 The queen becomes all-powerful 11:13 Coffeehouses and blindfold chess 11:57 The Mechanical Turk 13:18 Chess becomes a sport 14:45 The Cold War on 64 squares 15:38 Machines vs humans 18:26 The chess boom 18:56 Who profits from chess 20:13 Women, Ukraine and chess in schools 21:19 The longest and shortest games 22:10 Your game is unique Sources: Murray, "A History of Chess" (1913); Finkel, Royal Game of Ur rules; Shannon (1950), "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess"; Silver et al. (2017), AlphaZero; Kasparov vs Deep Blue (1996, 1997). #chess #history #howdidhumans