A Short, Happy History of Chess

No Two Authorities agree about the origins of the royal game. Over a dozen different nations and cultures have been named as its breeding-place. Some say it began as far back as 200 B.C.; others place the date as late as 500 A.D. It is believed that the word "chess" stems from the Persian shah (king), and the word "checkmate" from shah mat (the king is dead). The Eastern origin of the game, at any rate, seems fairly well established.

Chess as we know it has fascinated men and women of all races, creeds, and nationalities. So hypnotic was the lure of chess in the Middle Ages, particularly among the nobility and clergy, that the Church had grave misgivings about a game that seemed to be an instrument of the Devil in diverting men's minds from God. Moralists looked askance at the wagers that were often attached to the outcome of a chess game, and they were alarmed by the violence that was sometimes exhibited by a bad loser. Cracked heads and bloody noses were no uncommon hazards in those days of play at "ye chesse." The situation became so serious that the Church was finally moved to issue a number of ecclesiastical decrees placing chess on the list of games forbidden to the clergy and the knightly orders.

This early experiment in prohibition worked about as well as our Volstead Act. The sinful charms of Caissa, the tutelary goddess of chess, continued unabated, and a kind of bootlegging in chess paraphernalia began to develop. Many monks resorted to the use of a specially contrived chessboard in a box design that could be folded to resemble a book. Thus whenever a game of chess was interrupted by the imminent appearance of a superior, a bit of dexterous sleight-of-hand could swiftly convert a chessboard into a splendid imitation of a pious volume. Eventually the attractions of chess proved too strong for any prohibitory edict, and by 1400 the Church had not only abandoned its crusade but had gone over to the other side. Much of the early European chess literature began to be written by members of the clergy.

Islam, too, had its doubts about the legality of chess. When the game threatened to become popular, Moslem law and theology, which defined all human conduct and belief, were required to arrive at a clear-cut decision. It was useless to go to the Koran, for Mohammed was silent on the question--although he did lay down the law that a true believer should confine his amusements to his horse, his bow, and his wives. Moslem lawyers hunted precedents and traditions, wrangled for years, and apparently finally arrived at the opinion that a true believer could play chess--provided that he looked upon it as an exercise in the solution of military problems and not as means of recreation or financial gain. Thus a way was found for a Moslem to make the acquaintance of Caissa without endangering his prospects of meeting the houris of Paradise.

One would hardly suppose that there could be much connection between chess and sex, and yet both legend and historic record show some extraordinary twists and turns in this respect. There is an amusing yarn, for example, about the siege of Troy, according to which the Greek chieftains whiled away the time in a chess tournament. Briseis, a tasty female slave, was to be the prize. Achilles and Agamemnon became the finalists, and Achilles lost both the tournament and the girl when his crafty rival plied him with wine. Small wonder that the mighty warrior afterward sulked in his tent!

One of the most entertaining chess legends concerns Satan and his diabolical chess prowess. Apparently the Prince of Darkness likes nothing better than to go around playing mortals for their souls. Why any mortal would be fool enough to accept a challenge from so terrible an antagonist is never made clear, unless it is because chess players are the most self-confident tribe on the planet.

A typical scene is depicted in a 19th Century painting by Moritz de Retzsch, Satan Playing at Chess with Man for His Soul. Flanked by a gargoyle and a death's-head, the cocky, almost handsome Devil is seated opposite an opponent who is nervously pondering his next move. On the sidelines an angel looks on glumly, foreseeing disaster but prevented by tournament ethics from offering advice. The end is apparently not far off.

Unbeatable as the Devil ordinarily is, he came a cropper on at least one memorable occasion. A rare old document tells of a narrow escape from the Master of Evil when, about to deliver the coup de grâce at the tail-end of a terrific combination, he found that he could not make the winning move because the final position would take the form of a cross! For once the Devil had outsmarted himself, and "with a shriek of rage that rent the board in twain, he disappeared."

A famous legend that recurs frequently in early Persian and Arabian lore concerns the inventor of chess. As a reward for his invention, he asked payment in grains of corn--one grain for the first square of the chess board, two for the second, four for the third, eight for the fourth, and so on until the geometrical progression reached the last or 64th. The king, astonished by the apparent triviality of the request, readily assented, but got the shock of his life when he discovered that all the corn in India would not meet the demands of the 30th square. On arriving at the last square, the amount of corn required would be the staggering figure of 18 quintillion grains or 30 quadrillion bushels, enough to cover the surface of the globe to a depth of nine inches. The inventor said that he knew all the time he had no chance of collecting the reward, and the king, we hope, never again signed on the dotted (concluded on page 62)History Of Chess(continued from page 51) line without searching for the fine print.

From time to time living chess games are staged in which human beings enact the roles of Pawns and pieces. In the Italian village of Mariostica such a game of living chess has been played annually for 400 solid years to commemorate an ancient chess duel between two suitors for the hand of the governor's daughter. The props used in these games include wooden turrets and real horses as part of the representation of Rooks and Knights. Experts conduct the play in a venerable castle adjoining a gigantic chessboard laid out in the village square below, and a courier relays the moves to the human chessmen.

Hollywood in 1945 was the scene of a living chess display by a glittering array of actors and actresses; but eclipsing this spectacle was a truly colossal production at Stockholm in 1950, when Swedish film stars stalked about on a huge board of 400 square meters in an arena jammed with 30,000 chess fans. The moves were broadcast on a loud-speaker as fast as they were received from two Swedish chess masters directing the play.

This brief account of a few highlights in chess annals would not be complete without some mention of the famous chess automata--the "Turk," "Ajeeb," and "Mephisto"--that caused the world to scratch its head in puzzlement for more than a hundred years. These machines, the first and most important of which made its bow in 1770, were ostensibly designed to prove the superiority of metal over man. Of course they were operated by human hands and brains--usually belonging to chess masters of the first rank--but so ingeniously hidden within the works that people could be found to argue that concealment was manifestly impossible. One of these machines--the "Turk"--so fascinated Edgar Allen Poe that he applied his deductive mind to it and finally exposed its human operation in a famous essay, Maelzel's Chess-Player.

Returning to flesh-and-blood champions, we would like to note, in passing, that the abilities of many chess masters were by no means confined to the checkered squares. Philidor was a noted musician, Dr. Emanuel Lasker could (and did) argue relativity with Einstein, and Zukertort followed various pursuits including musical criticism, military science, and the study of languages. Conversely, plenty of artists, scientists, politicians and businessmen have been good chess players. Among these were Henry Thomas Buckle, the historian, Moritz Rosenthal, the pianist, Charles Schwab, the steel king, and Benjamin Franklin, patriot, statesman, scientist, philosopher, journalist, printer, bookseller, bon vivant, and six or seven other things. Napoleon also played chess, but was a surprisingly poor strategist on the miniature battle-ground. Bringing the history of chess up to our own day, addiction to chess has claimed such diverse types as Cubist painter Marcel Duchamp and John Foster Dulles.

Rook

Pawn