10 Scary Chess Facts That Will Make You Think Before You Play
Chess, known as “The Game of Kings,” is one of the most popular board games in the world. On the surface, the connection between this strategic game and horror is tenuous, except for the feelings of terror that I feel whenever I face an opponent older than 10, which means I gonna have to lose pretty quickly since I suck at Chess. Still, you might be surprised to hear that even the ancient game, probably invented around the seventh century AD, has its scary sides.
In the following review, we have collected 10 interesting facts about Chess, some more well-known and some less, which explain that it is possible to kill the King – but not this beloved game.
1. Chess Is A Sport, Which Reminds Us Of A Marathon
Quite a few people doubt or even grin when they hear about “Chess Sport.” The game is associated with sitting for hours, sometimes dozens of hours, in a hall that is supposed to be air-conditioned without moving too many muscles, at least seemingly. Although Chess is not part of the Olympic Games, held once every four years, a biennial Chess Olympiad has been held since 1924 (unofficially) or 1927, officially.
The International Olympic Committee defines Chess as a “sport” for the simple reason that playing causes significant development and adoption of the muscles in the brain. Believe it or not, data shows that a chess player may burn about 6,000 calories (!) on a day of competition. His blood pressure during a competition is higher than that of other sports (such as tennis) and is very similar to that of marathon runners (!).
An example is the 1984 World Chess Championship, considered the longest and most tiring in history. The reigning champion Anatoly Karpov and the challenger Garry Kasparov fought for the coveted title, with the winner being the first to reach six victories. After 32 games, five of which Karpov won and the rest ended in draws, Kasparov achieved his first victory in good time. From there, the competition continued for another five months without a decision, during which Kasparov lost about 10 kilograms of body weight and was hospitalized several times due to exhaustion. Only in the 48th game, out of concern for the players’ health, did they decide to stop the competition with a score of 3:5 in favor of Karpov and declare it a draw.
2. Chess Has Many Strange Names
It is impossible to talk about facts about Chess and ignore that this game has several names, some of which are scary or strange to a certain extent. The roots of Chess are unknown, and one of the consequences is that this game has quite a few variants and names. According to the accepted theory, the game was invented in India in the sixth century under “Chaturanga,” meaning “four-armed.” The name refers to the four units that made up the Indian army in ancient times: infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots.
In Persian, the origin of the name is “Shah Mat”: loosely translated, “the king is frozen” (and not necessarily a direct translation of “the king is dead,” as is commonly thought) or “ambush the king.” Other names for the game are “Nardshir,” “Ishkok,” and “Ishkoka,” which sound more like strange dog names to me than chess games. But whatever.
3. There Is Almost Infinite Number Of Unique Chess Games
Chess is a complex game that can develop in countless different directions. It’s hard to estimate the exact number of legal states in Chess, with estimates ranging from a number between to .
To put it in perspective, this number is larger than the number of electrons in the universe. I have no idea how much that number is worth, and it sounds tremendous, but it’s probably a little less than the number of possible legal states in Chess.
4. A Game Of Chess Can Be Very Long
Since I’m pretty bad at Chess, the games I lose are short: Once, I lost in about five minutes when I played against a Russian genius. Many years have passed since then, but I may have fallen for the theory that from the starting point, there are eight different ways to get checkmate in two moves (Yes!), and 355 ways to do it in just three moves.
In practice, closer games can have many moves. Theoretically, the longest possible chess game is 5,949 moves. The longest official game in this manner took place in Belgrade in 1989. The game lasted 269 moves and ended in a draw after about 20 hours of play.
If you get to a situation where a king is in play, the number of theoretical possibilities for the king’s path is huge, at about 122 million.
5. There Are Many Names For Opening Moves, Including One With Universal Monsters
Chess offers many types of openings and sub-openings, some of which have explosive names. Many of these names are after places in the world, such as the “French Defense” or the “Catalan Opening.” There are openings named after important people, such as the “Caro-Kan Defense,” the “Alekhine’s Defense,” or the “Grob Opening.”
Some names will remind you of the chess craze of recent years, especially openings with the term “Gambit” – including “Queen’s Gambit,” that record-breaking Netflix series starring horror darling Anya Taylor-Joy. Generally, a gambit opening is based on the welcome idea of sacrificing pieces at the beginning of the game to gain some advantage.
What interests us, of course, are names that connect to the world of horror, which must be an integral part of this scary overview of chess facts. In this context, we were pleased to discover, for example, that an opening called the “Vienna Game” has a variation called the “Frankenstein Dracula Variation.” The term probably refers to the “bloodbath” in this opening.
6. There Are Many Versions Of Chess Games
The basic game of Chess is based on a 64-square board, on which 32 pieces are placed “by the book.” But there are many other versions, with different parameters such as the board’s shape, the arrangement of the pieces, the type of pieces, the rules, and so on.
Some of the more interesting Chess versions include:
♟️ Three-player Chess, played on a hexagonal board with pieces in black, white, and red
♟️ Four-player Chess, usually in black, white, red, and blue, with the possibility of alliances between the players
♟️ Crazyhouse Chess, in which a player who captures another player’s piece can take it to his “bank” and implant it on the board
♟️ King of the Hill Chess, in which you can also win by bringing the King to the center of the board
♟️ 360 Chess / round Chess, in which the board is round with a gap in the middle, like a disk
♟️ Atomic Chess – an apocalyptic chess game in which when a piece is captured, the pieces next to it (within a radius of one square) also leave the board
♟️ Battle Chess – typical mainly in computer games, in which they “fight” with each other during a meeting between two pieces. Sometimes you need arcade skills, “Mortal Kombat” style, to win
♟️ 3D Chess, where the pieces can also move up or down
♟️ 5D Chess with time travel between universes, including some complex rules that probably cause a lot of headaches
♟️ Chess 960 – classic Chess, with one difference: the players will start at random positions on the board
♟️ Drinking Chess – drinking glasses replace traditional pieces in this version, suitable for joint game evenings. After each blow, you may have guessed, the loser has to take a shot from the glass
7. You Can Find Scary Chess Board Games
Similar to other board or box games that have received branded horror versions, such as Monopoly or The Clue, which we have already reviewed on the site, in the case of Chess, you will also find some great products for horror fans. Some of these sets are custom or custom-made, which means they can cost hundreds of dollars.
Some of the fabulous versions of horror Chess sets we found online include:
♟️Gothic game sets, where players take on the scary shapes of skeletons, skulls, etc. Here are some examples from Amazon
♟️Jurassic Park Chess – A scary Chess game starring dinosaurs (Here on Amazon)
♟️Chessboard with horror characters, such as Chucky, Tiffany, Pennywise, Jason Voorhees, and Ghostface, found on Etsy
♟️The Nightmare Before Christmas Chess – A limited edition branded game set featuring the characters from the horror classic “The Nightmare Before Christmas” was released by Disney to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film. There are also unofficial versions of Chess boards with characters from the movie
♟️Halloween Chessboard, with characters related to the holiday’s traditions and customs
♟️Disney’s “The Haunted Castle” Chessboard
♟️A game with Horror Chess pieces starring zombies, and sometimes also plants vs. zombies (following the popular computer game)
8. Chess Has Starred In Movies, But Not Really Horror Movies
The Seventh Seal Chess Scene
Chess appeared on television or movie screens long before Netflix. The most famous and iconic scene is in Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece, “The Seventh Seal” (1957). The film’s hero, the knight Antonius, is facing death. The angel of death arrives to transport him to a world where everything is good, but the knight convinces him to play Chess against him. The principle is that as long as the knight doesn’t lose, he stays alive. Of course, this is an allegory for many things in a philosophical and profound film because we discuss Ingmar Berman here.
X Men Chess Scene
Chess has returned several times in the X-MEN films, usually to mark the battle of wits between Charles Xavier and Professor Magneto – because we are talking about a school for the gifted here, after all. Here is an example of the final scene of “X-Men” from 2000, centered on a chess game between the two geniuses inside Magneto’s plastic cage. At the end of the game, Magneto promises that despite losing in the chess game or the battle between good and evil, there will be many sequels.
Sherlock Holmes Chess Scene
Another famous scene is in “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” (2011) by Guy Ritchie – an avid chess fan himself – with a prolonged battle between the brilliant detective and Professor Moriarty, considered one of the film’s tense highlights.
2011 A Space Odyssey Chess Game
The brilliant director Stanley Kubrick was also an avid chess fan, and the game appeared in various of his films, such as “The Killing” (1956) or “Lolita” (1962). The most famous chess scene from Kubrick’s films is probably in the masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey” from 1968, in which one of the astronauts plays against the intelligent computer Hal 9000.
The Thing Chess Match
In its opening scenes, John Carpenter’s “The Thing” presented another Chess game against a technological entity – a computer known as “Chess Wizard.” In the scene, the helicopter pilot and film’s main protagonist, R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell), plays against the computer. The computer communicates with him in a female voice and also defeats him because we all know that women are more intelligent than men (not really, but my wife is sitting next to me).
The unfortunate McCready has difficulty accepting the evil of fate and destroys the computer by pouring a glass of whiskey on it – further proof that men do not know how to lose and that you shouldn’t play Chess while drinking.
9. There Is Also A Human Chess
Human Chess has been played in several places worldwide from ancient times to the present day. It’s a Chess game by the book, on a giant board, with a little twist: the players are real people, sometimes dressed as chess pieces, who sometimes add elements of some role-playing game or even a full-fledged theater performance to the fabric. The result can be pretty scary Chess match.
One of the most famous scenes involving human Chess, more or less, is in the book and film “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” As you may recall, Harry, Hermione, and Ron play wizard chess (Chess in which the soldiers are wizards who may oppose some of the moves), knowing that only winning the game will allow them to advance toward the Philosopher’s Stone. In the end, thanks to Hermione’s wisdom and Ron’s sacrifice, the three manage to lay a trap for the queen, which allows Harry to reach the King and kill him. The rest is history.
10. The Queen Of Horror Brought Chess Back Into The Spotlight
As mentioned, Netflix’s hit series “The Queen’s Gambit” was a huge success. The series tells the story of the steel girl Elizabeth (Beth) Harmon in the 1960s: from her childhood as an orphan, through the complex story of the debtor, including drug and alcohol addiction, to her winning the chess championship. The series won several awards, most notably the Emmy and the Golden Globe.
“Queen’s Gambit” also influenced the consumer aspect. The series was launched towards the end of October 2020, “too” close to Halloween, but the following year, there was a massive demand for Queen’s Gambit costumes in particular and Chess in general. Since then, many Queen’s Gambit products and collectibles have been launched, such as variations of Funko Pop dolls, clothing products, glasses, and chess boards. Some of these products are independent and not officially licensed.
Of course, the book on which the series is based, written by Walter Twiss back in 1983, was also in huge demand following its success.