0:00:07.230,0:00:10.820
The attacking infantry advances steadily,

0:00:10.820,0:00:14.980
their elephants already having [br]broken the defensive line.

0:00:14.980,0:00:19.990
The king tries to retreat, but enemy [br]cavalry flanks him from the rear.

0:00:19.990,0:00:23.010
Escape is impossible.

0:00:23.010,0:00:25.200
But this isn’t a real war–

0:00:25.200,0:00:27.250
nor is it just a game.

0:00:27.250,0:00:32.000
Over the roughly one-and-a-half millennia [br]of its existence,

0:00:32.000,0:00:35.897
chess has been known as a tool [br]of military strategy,

0:00:35.897,0:00:41.497
a metaphor for human affairs, [br]and a benchmark of genius.

0:00:41.497,0:00:45.376
While our earliest records of chess [br]are in the 7th century,

0:00:45.376,0:00:50.076
legend tells that the game’s origins [br]lie a century earlier.

0:00:50.076,0:00:55.696
Supposedly, when the youngest prince [br]of the Gupta Empire was killed in battle,

0:00:55.696,0:01:00.622
his brother devised a way of representing[br]the scene to their grieving mother.

0:01:00.622,0:01:06.801
Set on the 8x8 ashtapada board used for[br]other popular pastimes,

0:01:06.801,0:01:10.894
a new game emerged with two key features:

0:01:10.894,0:01:14.319
different rules for moving [br]different types of pieces,

0:01:14.319,0:01:19.179
and a single king piece whose fate [br]determined the outcome.

0:01:19.179,0:01:23.283
The game was originally [br]known as chaturanga–

0:01:23.283,0:01:26.344
a Sanskrit word for ‘four divisions.’

0:01:26.344,0:01:28.894
But with its spread to Sassanid Persia,

0:01:28.894,0:01:31.774
it acquired its current name [br]and terminology–

0:01:31.774,0:01:38.804
“chess,” derived from ‘shah,' meaning [br]king, and “checkmate” from ‘shah mat,’

0:01:38.804,0:01:41.744
or “the king is helpless.”

0:01:41.744,0:01:45.534
After the 7th century Islamic conquest [br]of Persia,

0:01:45.534,0:01:48.184
chess was introduced to the Arab world.

0:01:48.184,0:01:51.304
Transcending its role as a [br]tactical simulation,

0:01:51.304,0:01:54.984
it eventually became a rich source [br]of poetic imagery.

0:01:54.984,0:02:00.154
Diplomats and courtiers used chess terms [br]to describe political power.

0:02:00.154,0:02:03.765
Ruling caliphs became avid [br]players themselves.

0:02:03.765,0:02:09.115
And historian al-Mas’udi considered the [br]game a testament to human free will

0:02:09.115,0:02:11.679
compared to games of chance.

0:02:11.679,0:02:17.289
Medieval trade along the Silk Road carried[br]the game to East and Southeast Asia,

0:02:17.289,0:02:20.316
where many local variants developed.

0:02:20.316,0:02:24.776
In China, chess pieces were placed at [br]intersections of board squares

0:02:24.776,0:02:29.496
rather than inside them, as in the native [br]strategy game Go.

0:02:29.496,0:02:34.408
The reign of Mongol leader Tamerlane saw [br]an 11x10 board

0:02:34.408,0:02:37.428
with safe squares called citadels.

0:02:37.428,0:02:43.188
And in Japanese shogi, captured pieces [br]could be used by the opposing player.

0:02:43.188,0:02:47.518
But it was in Europe that chess began to [br]take on its modern form.

0:02:47.518,0:02:52.512
By 1000 AD, the game had become part [br]of courtly education.

0:02:52.512,0:02:54.762
Chess was used as an allegory

0:02:54.762,0:02:58.572
for different social classes performing [br]their proper roles,

0:02:58.572,0:03:02.439
and the pieces were re-interpreted [br]in their new context.

0:03:02.439,0:03:06.949
At the same time, the Church remained [br]suspicious of games.

0:03:06.949,0:03:10.713
Moralists cautioned against devoting [br]too much time to them,

0:03:10.713,0:03:14.643
with chess even being briefly [br]banned in France.

0:03:14.643,0:03:16.673
Yet the game proliferated,

0:03:16.673,0:03:21.603
and the 15th century saw it cohering into[br]the form we know today.

0:03:21.603,0:03:27.195
The relatively weak piece of advisor was [br]recast as the more powerful queen–

0:03:27.195,0:03:31.952
perhaps inspired by the recent surge [br]of strong female leaders.

0:03:31.952,0:03:34.723
This change accelerated the game’s pace,

0:03:34.723,0:03:36.953
and as other rules were popularized,

0:03:36.953,0:03:41.663
treatises analyzing common openings [br]and endgames appeared.

0:03:41.663,0:03:44.646
Chess theory was born.

0:03:44.646,0:03:49.986
With the Enlightenment era, the game [br]moved from royal courts to coffeehouses.

0:03:49.986,0:03:53.796
Chess was now seen as an expression [br]of creativity,

0:03:53.796,0:03:57.376
encouraging bold moves and dramatic plays.

0:03:57.376,0:04:03.796
This ‘Romantic’ style reached its peak [br]in the Immortal Game of 1851,

0:04:03.796,0:04:07.078
where Adolf Anderssen managed a checkmate

0:04:07.078,0:04:11.408
after sacrificing his queen [br]and both rooks.

0:04:11.408,0:04:15.963
But the emergence of formal competitive [br]play in the late 19th century

0:04:15.963,0:04:21.157
meant that strategic calculation would [br]eventually trump dramatic flair.

0:04:21.157,0:04:23.585
And with the rise of international [br]competition,

0:04:23.585,0:04:27.495
chess took on a new [br]geopolitical importance.

0:04:27.495,0:04:28.745
During the Cold War,

0:04:28.745,0:04:33.585
the Soviet Union devoted great resources[br]to cultivating chess talent,

0:04:33.585,0:04:37.457
dominating the championships for the rest [br]of the century.

0:04:37.457,0:04:40.907
But the player who would truly upset [br]Russian dominance

0:04:40.907,0:04:43.347
was not a citizen of another country

0:04:43.347,0:04:47.697
but an IBM computer called Deep Blue.

0:04:47.697,0:04:50.862
Chess-playing computers had been [br]developed for decades,

0:04:50.862,0:04:55.462
but Deep Blue’s triumph [br]over Garry Kasparov in 1997

0:04:55.465,0:05:00.475
was the first time a machine [br]had defeated a sitting champion.

0:05:00.484,0:05:04.794
Today, chess software is capable of [br]consistently defeating

0:05:04.799,0:05:06.639
the best human players.

0:05:06.639,0:05:08.759
But just like the game they’ve mastered,

0:05:08.759,0:05:12.149
these machines are products [br]of human ingenuity.

0:05:12.149,0:05:18.439
And perhaps that same ingenuity will guide[br]us out of this apparent checkmate.