First-move advantage in chess draw given best play prevails. Even if it cannot be proved, this assumption is considered "safe" by Rowson and "logical" by Adorján. Watson agrees that "the proper result of a perfectly played chess game ... is a draw. ... Of course, I can't prove this, but I doubt that you can find a single strong player who would disagree. ... I remember Kasparov, after a last-round draw, explaining to the waiting reporters: 'Well, chess is a draw. World Champion Bobby Fischer thought that "it's almost definite that the game is a draw theoretically". Similarly, British grandmaster Nigel Short wrote that
Chess in China via Persia from ancient India, where it was known as chaturanga. Chaturanga is assumed to have also spread eastward to China, under the name of xiangqi ("elephant game"). According to the chess historian H. J. R. Murray, the earliest certain reference to xiangqi in Chinese sources dates to 762 AD (earlier passages containing the character "xiang", which has several different meanings, cannot be proven to refer to elephant chess). The European form of Chess was only introduced in China during the 19th century but has never been as popular as Weiqi or Xiangqi. Alexander Alekhine was the first great chess