Sixty-Four Squares, Fifteen Centuries: teacher key

Chess, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. A history of chess, from a four-part army in northern India to engines that no human can beat, and the numbers that measure it.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Where did chess begin?
   • Persia
   • Northern India (answer)
   • Spain
2. What changed for the queen in the late 1400s?
   • She lost her moves
   • She became a pawn
   • She became by far the most powerful piece (answer)
3. Who was recognized as the first world chess champion?
   • William Steinitz (answer)
   • Paul Morphy
   • Capablanca
4. What did Deep Blue do in May 1997?
   • Lost to Kasparov
   • Won 4 to 2
   • Beat world champion Kasparov, 3.5 to 2.5 (answer)
5. What is the Shannon number?
   • The number of squares
   • A rough estimate of possible chess move sequences (answer)
   • Kasparov's rating
6. Why is the Mechanical Turk an example of a trick, not a machine?
   • It hid a skilled human player (answer)
   • It beat only Babbage
   • It had no pieces

Words

• chaturanga: early chess
• hypermodernism: center idea
• zugzwang: forced bad move
• engine: chess program
• grandmaster: top title
• variant: changed version