History
Although modern chess had been established since around 1475, the first tournament (in the sense of structured competitions) was in Leeds in 1841. There was a knockout tournament in London in 1849 and a tournament in Amsterdam in 1851. The first international chess tournament was held in London in 1851. The London 1851 tournament took place during The Great Exhibition, and would serve as a guide for future international chess tournaments that would follow it. The tournament not only showed the need for time controls but it also clearly demonstrated the drawbacks to the knockout elimination tournament format. It was won by Adolf Anderssen of Germany, who became regarded as the world's best chess player as a result.
The number of international chess tournaments increased rapidly afterwards. By the end of the 1850s, chess tournaments had been held in Berlin, Paris, Manchester, New York, San Francisco, Birmingham, and Vienna. By the end of World War II there were 24 international chess tournaments per year, and by 1990 there were well over a thousand.
Read more about this topic: Chess Tournament
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“As I am, so shall I associate, and so shall I act; Caesar’s history will paint out Caesar.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)