How do you improve on chess? Ask an Italian! A review of Shuuro

Shuuro approved by cats

Right lets get this out of the way, Chess is a very old game, in fact I'm pretty certain that if you're a creationist Chess as evidence for the opposition must be almost as hated as say, oooh the theory of evolution, because both show how utterly bonkers the idea that the earth is only 6000 years old is. Because I'm sure there was a version of chess being played more than 6000 years ago and archeologists have found evidence of similar games being played thousands upon thousands of years ago. However the first actual recorded use of a Chess type game is in northwest India during the Gupta empire some 1600 years ago. Cathuranga as it was known was then believed to have moved over to Sassanid Persia some 100 years later, where it became known as Chatrang. After the Islamic conquest of Persia what would ultimately become chess had yet another name change to Shatranj!!! You still keeping up with all this at the back...

...Good, so I'll continue. It is felt that chess might have been brought into Europe by 3 rough sorts of route by the 9th century, into southern Iberia by the Moors, Persian traders (probably selling rugs) in Italy and Greece and via Russia. Around 1200AD it is believed that us Europeans decided we'd start tinkering with the game, you see we're pretty awesome in Europe and can pretty much improve on anything the rest of the world invents, like spaghetti!!! Funnily enough it was the Italians who are also credited with changing the rules to what is now considered modern day chess, where the pawns have the option of moving two places at the start, the Queens became super powerful and the bishops got there powers. Not surprising given the power of the church in Italy and powerful female matriarchs in Italian history like Catherine De Medici. The name chess is also believed to be derived from the persian word for king, shah linguistics fans. So with the Italians being credited (along with the Spanish) for creating modern day chess perhaps it is fitting then that another Italian has decided that Chess could do with yet another makeover, Alessio Cavatore. Obviously another theory proposes that Chess has actually evolved from the Chinese game Xiangqi, but that theory really doesn't fit well with my article so I'm going to ignore it! What? Look its a review of Shuuro not an academic piece on the origin of Chess!!!

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