Chess theory

H.J.R. Murray wrote in his seminal 1913 book A History of Chess that the literature on chess probably exceeded that on all other games put together. In the intervening 95 years the number of books on chess, and computer-based sources of information unknown to Murray, have greatly proliferated. Today there is a wide body of theory concerning the opening and endgame phases of the game, and to a lesser extent the middlegame.

Opening theory

Opening theory in the current version of chess began in the late 15th century with Italian writers such as Giachino Greco. Certain sequences of moves at the beginning of the game began to be given names, such as Giuoco Piano (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5), Two Knights Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6), and King's Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4), and books discussing games with those openings, traps, and the best way for both sides to play those openings were published.

In the mid-to-late nineteenth century, a number of influential treatises largely or solely devoted to the openings were published. The English master Howard Staunton, one of the world strongest players in the 1840's and 1850's, devoted over 300 pages of his 1849 treatise The Chess Player's Handbook to analysis of the openings. Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Champion, widely considered the "father of modern chess" extensively analyzed various double king-pawn openings (beginning 1.e4 e5) in his book The Modern Chess Instructor, published in 1889 and 1895. The German (language) Handbuch des Schachspiels, first published in 18??, was also very influential for many decades. In 1893?, E. Freeborough and the Reverend C.E. Ranken published the first edition of Chess Openings Ancient and Modern. In 1911, R.C. Griffith and J.H. White published the first edition of Modern Chess Openings, which has since become the longest-running opening treatise; its fifteenth edition, by Grandmaster Nick de Firmian was published in April 2008.

Opening theory was greatly advanced in 1972 by the publication of the first volume of Chess Informant in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, containing 466 annotated games from the leading chess tournaments and matches of the day. Its great innovation was that it expressed the games in languageless figurine algebraic notation and annotated them using no words, but rather seventeen symbols, whose meanings were explained at the beginning of the book in six different languages. This enabled readers around the world, despite their lack of a common language, to read the same games and annotations. This greatly accelerated the development of opening theory. In subsequent years, the editors of Chess Informant introduced other publications using the same principle, such as the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Encyclopedia of Chess Endings treatises. Chess Informant is now published thrice annually, and published Volume 100 in 2007 (which uses 57 symbols, explained in 10 languages, to annotate games). Former World Champion Garry Kasparov has written, "We are all children of the Informant.

In the 1990's and thereafter, the development of opening theory has been further accelerated by such innovations as extremely strong chess engines such as Fritz and Rybka, software such as ChessBase, and the sale of multi-million-game databases such as ChessBase's Mega 2008 database, which has approximately 3.5 million games. Today, the most important openings have been analyzed 20-30 moves deep, and it is not unusual for leading players to introduce theoretical novelties on move 25 or even later.

Today there are tens of thousands of books on chess openings. These include both comprehensive openings encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Modern Chess Openings; general treatises on how to play the opening such as Mastering the Chess Openings, volumes 1 and 2, by John L. Watson; and books on specific openings such as Understanding the Gruenfeld and The Classical Sicilian.

Middlegame theory

Middlegame theory is considerably less developed than either opening theory or endgame theory. See Ludek Pachman, Modern Chess Strategy, Dover Publications, 1971, unnumbered page preceding page 1 ("The middle-game in chess has never received the same attention from chess authors as the opening."). ISBN 0-486-20290-9. Aron Nimzowitsch's influential books My System (1925), the German Die Blockade (1925), and Chess Praxis (posthumously published in 1936 after Nimzowitsch's untimely death in 1935) were, and remain, among the most important works on the middlegame. In 1952, Grandmaster Reuben Fine, one of the world's leading players, published the 442-page The Middle Game in Chess, perhaps the most comprehensive treatment up until that time. The mid-20th century also saw the publication of The Middle Game, volumes 1 and 2, by former World Champion Max Euwe and Hans Kramer and a series of books by the Czechoslovakian grandmaster Ludek Pachman: Complete Chess Strategy, Volume 1, Complete Chess Strategy, Volume 2, Complete Chess Strategy: Play on the Wings, Modern Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Tactics, and Attack and Defense in Modern Chess Tactics.

Endgame theory

In 1941 Reuben Fine published his monumental 573-page treatise Basic Chess Endings, the first attempt at a comprehensive treatise on the endgame.

Computer-generated endgame tablebases have revolutionized chess theory, conclusively showing best play in many complicated endgames that had vexed human analysts, such as queen and pawn versus queen. They have also overturned human verdicts on a number of endgames, such as by proving that the two bishops versus knight ending, which had been though drawn for over a century, is normally a win for the bishops.