Long-Distance Chess Was Popular Long Before the Internet

Today, esports remain a very popular hobby. People enjoy playing games like chess with others around the world on a daily basis. But long before the internet was invented, chess was played by telegraph during the mid-19th century. One historically significant match was played between London and Washington in 1897.

The game of chess originated around 1,500 years ago from an ancient Indian game called chaturanga in the 5th or 6th century. The game evolved into its modern form around the 16th century. Chess then became popular worldwide around the 17th century. Famous figures like Abraham Lincoln, Voltaire, Karl Marx, and Napoleon were fans of the pastime.

When most think of chess, they think of the two-person board game usually played in person. However, correspondence chess, where people make moves through mail or messengers, is said to have started as early as the 9th century. Many believe that the first game of correspondence chess was played between the Harun al-Rashid, who was the caliph of Baghdad, and the Emperor Nicephorus sometime in the 9th century. Furthermore, a correspondence chess game is thought to have been played against King Louis VI of France and King Henry I of England in 1119.

By the 1820s, correspondence chess had become popular around the world. During that time, most correspondence chess was conducted by mail. Due to the expense of postage, this method of chess was mainly reserved for the middle and upper class. Time was also an issue, as one correspondence chess game between Francis Brenzinger from Brooklyn and his brother Karl in Germany lasted more than a decade. They began their game in 1859 and only finished in 1875.

But as technology advanced, this would soon change. In fact, people began playing chess over the telegraph shortly after Samuel Morse sent the first successful message from Washington to Baltimore on May 24, 1844.

In fact, the idea of playing chess over long distances was used to market a government-funded extension of the telegraph line to New York in late 1844. Morse was known to use chess games to show the telegraph’s versatility and as a way to test the system’s accuracy and speed. In a bid to show Congress the telegraph’s variety of operations, he cited chess games in an attempt to lobby them to extend the telegraph line from New York to Philadelphia.

Shortly after the telegraph was up and running, Alfred Vail and Henry Rogers developed a way to assign numbers to the chess board’s 64 squares. This shortened moves from the traditional descriptive notation into numerical codes. For example, a move that would have been stated “knight to king’s bishop three” could now be simplified to “7 to 22.”

The first official electrical telegraph chess game was played between a team in Baltimore and the Washington Chess Club in Washington on Nov. 26, 1844. Three members played on each side of the wire. Washington started by moving a pawn to the center. Baltimore then responded with the same move.

After the first match, correspondence chess via telegraph started to gain popularity all over the world. In England, people were playing matches between Gosport and London as early as 1845.  All over England, clubs started organizing regular telegraph matches. The first organized telegraph match took place between Manchester and Liverpool in 1865. People then started to compete overseas as early as 1885, with competitors from America and Britain facing off against each other.

Nations Battled Head-to-Head

But then the two countries came up with the idea to have members of the United States House of Representatives face off against players sitting in the British House of Commons. In 1897, the U.S. House held a series of chess matches to find their top five competitors. The five winners then challenged five of their British counterparts to a telegraph chess match with moves sent across the Atlantic Ocean.

The congressional chess match officially kicked off on May 31, 1897. Two of the five matches were completed on the first day. After the second day of play, the United States and Britain were tied with two wins apiece. Then during the final match between M.P. Parnell and Representative Shafroth, the game ended in a draw. Therefore, the congressional telegraph chess competition ended in a tie at 2.5.

After that famous congressional match, chess clubs began playing across the world more frequently. The world of correspondence chess changed even more after the first radio chess match. In 1902, a game was played between two ships in the Atlantic Ocean that were 160 miles apart.

Despite the new fad of playing radio chess, telegraph chess made a return in 1965 when American chess champion Bobby Fischer was forced to play in a chess tournament in Cuba via telegraph because the U.S. State Department wouldn’t let him travel to the country.

Through the years, telegraph and radio chess morphed into the popular game of online chess played today. It’s estimated that around 600 million people play chess regularly worldwide. The sport has become so popular to play online that just one website, Chess.com, often hosts up to 20 million games each day.

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