Chess, A Brief History: Including the Johnson Family Chess History (Heroic +1 #1,761)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In our last several plus ones, we've been spending time with the first African American chess Grandmaster in history, Maurice Ashley. His new book, Move by Move Life Lessons on and off the Chessboard is awesome. Today we're going to wrap up our quick tour through his book as we take a quick look at the brief history of chess for curious souls. We'll throw in a brief Johnson family history of chess as well. Let's get straight to work. We'll start with some high level chess goodness, then get into the history goodness. Maurice tells us, quote, thinking like a chess player can change your life. And he says, I'm not writing these words just because I've spent more than four decades studying, playing, coaching and commentating on chess. The 605 million people worldwide who play regularly would agree. School systems in several countries have included chess in their curricula because educators know that the game helps develop analytical and strategic thinking, abstract reasoning, concentration, focus, patience, grit, determination, memory, creativity, self awareness, and respect for the genius of others. The United nations has set aside a special date for chess, recognizing July 20 as world chess Day. Not only does chess promote fairness, inclusion and mutual respect, the UN said, but it is one of the most ancient intellectual and cultural games with a combination of sport, scientific thinking and elements of art. Now he continues by saying, these days, everywhere you turn, chess is being used to explain war, business, sports, art, science, personal development, music, and even love. As the runaway popularity of the Netflix series the Queen's Gambit has shown, anyone can become enthralled by the subtle mysteries of the game. It's not just high school chess geeks, but also actors, musicians, artists, world leaders and business tycoons who rave about what the game has done to help take their thinking to a higher level. Athletes in particular often attribute a mental edge to playing chess. Now, those are actually the very first words of the book. Chess. It does a hero good. And now it's time for that quick history of chess. Here we go. The ancient version of chess was invented in India in the seventh century, around 1500 years ago. As per Wikipedia, precursors to chess originated in India. There, its early form in the 7th century CE was known in Sanskrit as Chaturang, which translates to four divisions of the infantry, cavalry, elephantry and chariotry. These forms are represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, the knight, bishop and rook, respectively. Wikipedia continues by telling us chess was introduced to Persia from India and became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility around 600 CE in Sassanid, Persia, the name for the game became Shatrang in Persian, which subsequently evolved to Shatrange in Arabic. The rules were developed further during this time, players calling Shah Persian for king when attacking the opponent's king and Shah Mat Persian for the king is helpless. C. Check mate when the king was attacked and could not escape from attack. These exclamations persisted in chess as it traveled to other lands. End quote now again, the history of chess and its remarkable evolution over the last 1500 years across the globe is as fascinating as the game itself. Learn more with this Wikipedia entry on the history of chess. Check it out, it's linked in the plus one today, chess is played by over 605 million people. To put that in perspective, only 250 million people play soccer, the world's most popular sport. Another fun fact. Membership on popular online chess sites tripled at the end of 2020 during COVID and a million dollar online chess tour sprang to life to take advantage of the increased interest. Now for curious souls, here's the quick take on the Johnson family history of chess. I didn't play my first game of chess until I was a junior in College at UCLA. I was 21 years old. I can vividly remember learning the names of the pieces and how the pieces moved and then playing my roommate to a draw in my first match, which wonderfully irritated him. I typed that with a laugh and I couldn't help but read it with a laugh. So I played a bit with friends and online forever ago, but never actually studied the game. Now I knew enough about chess to teach Emerson the fundamentals, controlling the center of the board, creating tempo with your pieces, etc. And 18 months ago I'm typing this on April 10, 2024, he was good enough to beat everyone but me. Then one day, September 17, 2022 to be precise, I took the kids to a park in Austin on one of our weekend adventures. A group of guys had just finished playing chess and one of them asked Emerson if he'd like to play a game. Emerson said yes, they had a great time and the guy told us that they played every Saturday and that we should come back next week to join. Now I have an album of pictures on my iPhone called Chess Mastery Font. The very first picture in that album is from the following weekend, September 24, 2022. It's a picture of Emerson playing an adult at that park with Eleanor watching and Townly. Check it out. We got a link to it. Now. On that same day I met the dad of an insanely great and cute little chess player named Theroon Theron was only like 5 or 6 years old at the time and he dominated Emerson, who was nine in their first match and Emerson loved it. They were both giggling as they moved their pieces. It was truly awesome. Note Theroon is now one of the top 107 year olds in the country. So Theroon's dad told me about a website called Chesskid.com he told me that that was how Theroon got so good and that Emerson would probably love it too. Note I got goosebumps typing that because my little target swipe micro moment of Austin with Theroon's dad completely changed our lives. I hooked Emerson up with a Chesskid.com account when we got home that day and Emerson went off watching basically every video Fun Master Mike, the resident genius chess teacher on the site, created. We homeschool Emerson and He would spend two to four to six to eight hours every single day on chesskid.com and after a few months it was clear he was super into it. So we got him an incredible coach. Nick Mata, you rock. Fast forward a bit. Emerson starts playing informal tournaments, then he plays in the novice division for the regionals here in Austin, Texas and won it. Then he played in the Texas State Championships, his second tournament ever and he won that. And more recently last month he placed second in the championship division in the Texas State Championships. He absolutely loves the game, wants to be like Maurice, a chess grandmaster and I absolutely love our boys only chess weekend trips while enjoying the opportunity to support him in his heroic quest while sharing all these ideas with him. Note My all time favorite piece of wisdom from Emerson's quest is Effort counts thrice. Check out that +1. It is linked in this one. Now I've had a lot of friends ask me, so I want to make sure I make this explicit. If you're a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, etc. With a kid who shows some interest in chess, I highly recommend Chesskid.com As I say in the first chapters of Arete, in which I share how I'm applying heroic ideas to Emerson's chess pursuits. Check out this, this and this in the plus one. Fun Master Mike is one of the best teachers I've ever seen and that's officially way more than enough from me. I hope you enjoyed that quick little Johnson family chess history. It's time to get back to work. Today's +1. How about we celebrate moments we couldn't have anticipated that can change our lives while keeping our eyes peeled for the next little micro moment of awesome that might do the same. It is day one. We're all in. Let's go.