Claim: Chess has a regulated regional playoff.

Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a chessboard , a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an 8 × 8 grid . The game is played by millions of people worldwide .   Each player begins with 16 pieces : one king , one queen , two rooks , two knights , two bishops , and eight pawns . Each of the six piece types moves differently , with the most powerful being the queen and the least powerful the pawn . The objective is to checkmate the opponent 's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture . To this end , a player 's pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent 's pieces , while supporting each other . In addition to checkmate , the game can be won by of the opponent , which typically occurs when too much material is lost , or checkmate appears unavoidable . A game can also in several ways end in a draw .   Chess is believed to have originated in India sometime before the 7th century , being derived from the Indian game chaturanga , which is also the likely ancestor of the Eastern strategy games xiangqi , janggi , and shogi . -LRB- A minority view holds that chess originated in China . -RRB- The pieces assumed their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century ; the rules were finally standardized in the 19th century . The first generally recognized World Chess Champion , Wilhelm Steinitz , claimed his title in 1886 . Since 1948 , the World Championship has been regulated by FIDE , the game 's international governing body . FIDE also organizes the Women 's World Championship , the World Junior Championship , the World Senior Championship , the Blitz and Rapid World Championships , and the Chess Olympiad , a popular competition among international teams . There is also a Correspondence Chess World Championship and a World Computer Chess Championship . Online chess has opened amateur and professional competition to a wide and varied group of players .   FIDE awards titles to skilled players , the highest of which is grandmaster . Many national chess organizations also have a title system ; however , these are not recognized by FIDE .   Until recently , chess was a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee ; some national sporting bodies such as the Spanish Consejo Superior de Deportes also recognize chess as a sport . Chess was included in the 2006 and 2010 Asian Games .   Since the second half of the 20th century , computers have been programmed to play chess with increasing success , to the point where the strongest home computers play at a higher level than the best human players . Since the 1990s , computer analysis has contributed significantly to chess theory , particularly in the endgame . The IBM computer Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997 . The rise of strong computer programs -LRB- called `` engines '' -RRB- runnable on hand-held devices has led to increasing concerns about cheating during tournaments .   There are also many chess variants which utilize different rules , pieces , or boards . One of these , Chess960 -LRB- originally `` Fischerandom '' -RRB- , has gained widespread popularity as well as limited FIDE recognition .