What if? | How Easily Can Chess and World History Be Changed?
It is the night of the 14th of April 1912. The RMS Titanic is sailing to New York, when the crew spots an iceberg. The crew scrambles as they begin steering the ship... But it's too late, they will hit the iceberg. If the crew had detected the iceberg less than 15 seconds before, the ship would likely have stayed afloat, and if the crew detected it more than a minute later, it still would have stayed afloat, after hitting it head-on.
The whole reason why the Titanic sank was because of the fact that it hit the iceberg on its side, opening more water-tight compartments, and thus, sinking it. There are thousands of more what if questions like this in both chess, and world history. Like many of us, I am a history nerd, so hopefully I can tickle your brain.
Table of contents:
-Rasputin and Magnus's Run to World Champion.
-Bobby Fischer's World Championship and World War 1
After FIDE split in 1993, the chess world was stunned. Eventually the FIDE was able to hold negotiations and eventually was able to reconstruct. The two parties' world champion would end up playing each other. The first official world chess championship in more than 13 years was taking place.
Vladimir Kramnik was a very positional player. That was how he dethroned Kasparov and was how he would be playing Topalov. Topalov however, was much more attacking.
When the match began, each player scrambled for the first win. Eventually Kramnik was victorious after getting his position to the endgame, in which, he was able to convert the game. In the next few games, Kramnik would win another in game two, and draw games 3 and 4. However, in these masterful games, Topalov and his coach realised that Kramnik went to the bathroom much more than usual, while also playing brilliantly. And thus, Toiletgate emerged.
Eventually with all the controversy, FIDE decided to abolish the sperate bathrooms rule for the next game, but instead of just excepting it, Kramnik simply didn't show up.
As a protest against both FIDE and Topalov, Kramnik just didn't show up. This was the first time this happened since Fischer in 1972. Eventually FIDE was able to negotiate new rules and continue the match. Kramnik still won that world championship but sparked a big controversy and sparked debate if enough was done to address the cheating problem.
How did it change chess?
If this event didn't happen, there is a good chance that Kramnik wouldn't have started all of the drama about Hikaru, and later, Daniel Naroditsky. 
The Titanic's sinking.
The Titanic has always captured the attention of people as a one of the worst tragedies, but one of the most preventable. For example, the room that contained the binoculars were locked after the person with the key left the ship without realising that he took the key. There are more of these examples than you could probably imagine. There was a ship just 10-20 miles away from where the titanic hit the iceberg, and where the titanic hit the iceberg, was precisely where a fire had weakened the iron.
As mentioned previously, there are hundreds of these on the Titanic alone, which, in many ways, changed history.
What if the Titanic didn't sink?
If the Titanic didn't sink, there would be a very high likelihood that it would have been used as either a war ship or a medicals ship such as its sister ships, Olympic and Britannic, which were built very similarly to Titanic.
Many ships sank due to the first world war. Some were even civilian ships such as the Lusitania sunk, killing 1200 civilians after it was struck by a torpedo. Even Titanic's sister ship, Britannic sank due to a sea mine in just 55 minutes. If the titanic survived, it might've also been a victim to the war, potentially killing even more.
-Rasputin and Magnus's Run to World Champion.
You might've heard the song Rasputin without knowing the full context. Rasputin was born in a Russian province about 300 kilometres from its closest neighbour, country, Kazakhstan. Rasputin has an extreme interest of religion, and with his divine charisma, he began to spread across Siberia, and eventually traveling to St. Petersburg, where he first gained connections to the Tsar.
Eventually after formally meeting Rasputin, the Tsar and his wife were convinced that Rasputin had the miraculous power to heal people. So, when Rasputin realised that the Tsar's son was suffering from Haemophilia, he prayed for him, and I'm not kidding here, the Tsar's son recovered the next day.
There was even a point in 1912 where the Tsar's son started bleeding so uncontrollably that the doctors were not sure if he would make it, so they called Rasputin and the son ended up surviving.
Even though Rasputin ended up becoming a very close friend of the Tsar, the Russian populus were much more sceptical and Rasputin would be surrounded by controversy. Rasputin had come so close to the Tsar that he was able to even make decisions on their behalf. Of course, people decided that he had to go. Protests erupted and when that didn't work, ag group of people decided that it was their jobs to get rid of him in the form of assassination.
Rasputin was invited over to a palace for a party to have some fun where he ate 3 cyanide-laced-cupcakes and 2 cyanide-laced-wine bottles. The assassinator ran up to the top of the stairs to reveal the news and said this to his friends: "it's impossible: he's drank 2 bottles of wine, multiple slices of cake, and as you can see, nothing's happened. Absolutely nothing!" He eventually grabbed a pistol and shot Rasputin himself. Rasputin was finally dead. It was finally over. Except it wasn't... Rasputin eventually was upright and was running away. One of the assassinators grabbed the pistol and fired 4 times, with only one hitting Rasputin. Rasputin's body was eventually dropped in the cold river. Finally ending the nightmare.
What if Rasputin never met the Tsar?
There is a very high likelihood that the Russian revolution would have either never happened or been postponed to a much later time. Potentially even after the first world war. The Russian empire proved to be no match for the Germans, getting pushed far back into their own territory.
Magnus' run to World championship.
Magnus Carlsen was just 23 in the 2013 candidates tournament, and yet, he is the number 1 in the world. He starts the first 2 games slow, with two draws, but in the next game, he blasts Boris Gelfand with a masterfully played endgame, where he sacrificed his knight to ensure promotion.
