New Stories about Old Chess Players

New Stories about

Old Chess Players
Jeremy P. Spinrad



In the Beginning
Although I love chess history, the history of chess leaves me cold. Let me
explain this seeming paradox. Unbelievably long books, full of academically
rigorous research, have tried to trace the journey from the beginning of chess
to its spread across the world. Historians of this persuasion weigh claims that
certain obscure references to games in Indian books, Egyptian wall paintings,
or Icelandic sagas refer to chess. Evidence of changes in pieces and rules in
different times and places are documented carefully. On the fringes, certain
chess nationalists try to claim that their country gave birth to chess,
challenging the dominant belief that the game originated on the Indian
subcontinent.
What this history of chess lacks is stories of people, which is what I love
about chess history. When you go too far back, history is all about the game,
rather than the people who played it. I am satisfied with the summary
contained in Capsule History of Chess, by Chielamangus (a.k.a. C.J.S.
Purdy), in The Fireside Book of Chess: The conclusion to be drawn is that
the game originated either in India, or not in India, between 10,000 BC and
2000 AD. Practically all the opponents of this view have now been
discredited.
However, there is one aspect of the history of
chess that consists entirely of stories about
people. For this, we must go beyond history, and
consider accounts of the creation of chess. Real
chess historians tend to dismiss these as silly
myths, tales embellished by retelling over the
years, in favor of hard facts, though H.J.R.
Murray, with typical thoroughness, tries to
determine in his huge and scholarly A History of
Chess (1913) which are genuine folk-tales as
opposed to simply being made up by a particular
author. These tales are generally viewed as the
surface scum on the sea of chess history, left to
the least reputable sort of chess historian in
other words, an appropriate subject for me to deal with.
The most famous creation story attributes the invention to Sissa, an Indian
Brahmin. Sissa invented chess as a game for a king; depending on the
version, this was either to alleviate the kings boredom, or to teach the king a
lesson (that the king is a relatively weak piece, and must rely on his
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New Stories about Old Chess Players
subjects for his power). The king was so pleased that Sissa was allowed an
award of his own choosing. He asked for a single grain of rice on the first
square of a chessboard, and to double the number of grains each day until the
64 squares were filled. The king was surprised at the seeming modesty of the
request until the stores of rice ran out, at which point he either learned a
valuable lesson, or had Sissa beheaded, depending on who tells the story.
Incidentally, since most chess books I had read gave only the valuable
lesson version, I started to think that the beheading was just a little gory
detail my father had invented for the amusement of his children. I was glad to
see that the author of the novel The Lneburg Variation, Paolo Maurensig,
who presumably had a different father from me, also says that Sissa was
beheaded.
As a professor of theoretical computer science, I also note that this is perhaps
the earliest reference to a lesson in the asymptotic growth rate of functions,
and the serious consequences of bad teaching evaluations. It seems almost
surreal to treat these legends as objects of serious research, but since Murray
delved into the question of which Indian rulers had advisers with names
similar to Sissa, I will note that in der Humorist, March 23, 1840, the name
of the inventor is given as Naffir rather than Sissa.
A Chinese legend, which I found in Coles Chessplayers Weekend Book,
attributes the invention of chess to a General Han-Sing. The army was
unhappy at having to spend the winter months idle at the front, but they
played the new game so enthusiastically that all hardships were forgotten.
A very similar story associates the invention of chess with the siege of Troy.
Perhaps the most noble of the Greek heroes was Palamedes, who is now
largely forgotten since he was killed thanks to the treachery of Odysseus and
Agamemnon before the action of The Iliad begins. Palamedes invented a
game to allay the tedium of the siege. The famous auctioneer Christie wrote a
treatise to prove that this game was chess; this is why the old French chess
journal was called Le Palamde. During the Middle Ages, this story changed
a bit, and there are books stating that chess was invented either by the
Trojans or (and this seems particularly unfair to Palamedes) by Odysseus, as
discussed by Murray.
There are a number of other stories giving chess a classical origin. By
twisting an already improbable tale of Herodotus, people have attributed the
invention of chess to the Lydians (in what is now western Turkey), and that
chess was useful during a great famine to amuse the people out of their
hunger. One version of this story appears in the London Times of April 19,
1841. Murray gives a host of others, one involving Attalus Asiaticus, another
either a philosopher named Xerxes or an inventor named Philemon during the
reign of the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Henry Bird, who is not trying to be
strictly accurate as he is rather mocking the notion of finding the inventor of
chess, mentions attributions of the invention of chess to the God Thoth,
Moses, the kings of Babylon or their philosophers, among others.
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Another war-related theme is that chess was invented to commemorate a
particular battle. A Persian story places the battle in Kashmir. The two sons
of Queen Pantchera went to war after her husband died, and one killed the
other. The wise men invented chess to represent the battle of her sons, and
the queen played it constantly to keep her dead sons memory fresh in her
mind.

Professor Willard Fiske
I first ran across a similar story attributed to one of the least believable
possible sources, though I have since found the same story in Murrays book.
D.W. Fiske, in his book Chess Tales and Chess Miscellanies, discusses a
book on chess by a writer named Andraa who had a very poor reputation.
Andraa generally wrote under the pseudonym Geisler, and Fiske found a
number of amusing quotes about Geisler from his own contemporaries, such
as Among the 6,000 bookwriting pens that are now wielded in Germany,
none is wielded by a worse writer than AF Geisler. Another writes What is
the use of criticism if it cannot put an end to the scribbling mania of a man
such as this? In his chess book, in addition to ridiculous chess advice,
Andraa declares himself to be the first to realize the (obvious and well-known
even in that time) fact that chess represents a game between two oriental
armies. He then declares that chess was devised to prepare Shah Nushirvan
for a war, in which he subjugated his rebellious son.
The Spirit of the Times, on December 11, 1858, gives an interesting
biography of the first chess players, in a story translated from Sanskrit. The
players were Schatrenschar, the Persian, who could count the stars, one by
one, who is known to have been borne (by the Simorg, the Eternal Fowl) at
midnight, first to the Evening Star and then to the Moon, then set down safely
again in his home; and Al Kahlminar, the Arabian, who was a Mystic Seer,
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and had conversed face to face with the Demons of the Seven Planets,
approaching so nigh unto Uriel on one occasion, that his beard was singed by
the Sun, wherein that angel resideth. This story gives us not only the most
powerful inventors of chess, but the oldest origin for chess, since the date is
given as 10 million years ago.

There is a lack of precision, however, in the date 10 million years ago,
which we do not find in certain other versions of the origin of chess.
Although we have already seen chess attributed to Palamedes, the Chicago
Tribune of February 26, 1871 claims this game was backgammon, giving a
strangely precise date of 1224 BC. Chess, however, is given an exact date of
680 BC, a date repeated in the Albion (April 17, 1875) and the Tribune of
June 7, 1887. The 1871 Tribune article has many interesting dates for other
inventions, such as wine (Noah, 2347 BC) and bricks (2247 BC).

This form of historical evidence, known in logic as proof by vehement
assertion, can be used to prove other interesting facts. The Chicago
Tribune of April 3, 1887 informs us that chess was originally invented by a
physician in India during the sixth century, unfortunately neglecting to tell us
just what ailment is cured by a strict regimen of chess.

With so many conflicting stories on the origin of chess, many writers simply
give a laundry list of possible inventors. The Albion of June 24, 1865
mentions Sissa, Palamedes, the ancient Greek king Pyrrhus, Attillus king of
Pergamus, the Hebrews, the Chinese, the Hindoos, Attalus the
mathematician, a Lombard knight and lady who were present at the siege of
Troy, Chilo the Lacedomian (one of the seven wise men of Greece),
Dimomenes (a contemporary of Alexander the Great), Xerxes (minister of
Evilmerodac son of Nebuchadnezzar), and many other worthies.

An alternative approach is to combine several myths into a single story. The
Ogden Standard (March 11, 1892) cites the story of Ravan, a king of Ceylon,
who was undergoing a siege, when the Hindoo mathematician Seffa invented
the game for the amusement of his royal master, who was thus enabled to
mimic the movements of his enemies on the tiny battlefield before him. With
just a few sentences, the writer has conflated Sissa, the siege, and the military
lesson, as well as adding a Ceylonese flavor that is entirely new to me.
Murray gives a number of other stories about the invention of chess. These
include an attempt to replace the fatalism of backgammon, where you must
trust in the luck of the dice; a test for some wise men to see if they could
discover the rules simply from a board and set; and a desperate attempt to
justify chess as a valid Islamic game by placing it as a compensation to Adam
for the death of Abel, and that this game was then taught to the Persians
rather than being imported from them.
I found a reference to an article with a very strange title in Le Journal des
scavans of 1825, page 254-5, available on-line through the French library.
There is a reference to a publication Origine astronomique du jeu des echecs,
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New Stories about Old Chess Players
explique par le calendrier egyptien, printed by Treuttel and Wurtz. The mix
of astronomy, Egyptians, and chess sounds like it would go well with tales of
aliens building the pyramids, but unfortunately I know nothing more about
this theory.
My favorite story on the invention of chess comes from the Colorado Springs
Gazette, Oct 16, 1875:
Chess is a game for which some claim an age of more than 2,000
years. It is remarkable that in an old Hebrew book, Tsiuni, it is
mentioned, and the more on account of the reason there given for its
origin. A queen of antiquity wished to destroy the peace of a conquered
enemy even after his death. She had a game made of his teeth in 32
parts. Jewish Messenger
It is a bit artificial to work an actual chess game into this section. However,
since I am indebted to the Colorado Historic Newspaper Project for making
the story of the teeth accessible to me, let me present the earliest game of
chess I found published in these Colorado papers. The game is from the
Weekly Commonwealth, September 4, 1862. The contestants are Dr. Hall and
Mr. Westlake vs. Justice McPherson and Becker, and the game was played in
Cash Creek. Hall seems to have been the chess champion of Colorado (Rocky
Mountain News April 29, 1862). I presume this championship came as a
result of a tournament discussed in the News on March 8 (where a list of
contestants is given) and March 11, 20, and 21, though I could not find any
mention of tournament results in the paper. This game was played on August
20, 1862, and is said to have been played for the championship, but there is
no mention of what the general event may have been. Can anyone find an
earlier reference for a chess tournament involving consultation games? The
game has a sufficient number of weak moves and errors for a consultation
game so that we can conclude chess in Colorado then was not at a particularly
high level.
Dr. Hall and Mr. Westlake - Justice McPherson and Becker, Cash Creek,
Colorado, 1862 (notes by Taylor Kingston, assisted by Fritz8): 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4
Nf6 3.d3 Bc5 4.a3 a6 5.Nc3 c6 6.Nf3 d6 7.h3 h6 8.b4 Ba7 9.O-O b5 10.Ba2
Qe7 11.Ne2 Be6 12.Bxe6 Qxe6 An opening of the peaceful coexistence,
you let me develop my pieces, and Ill let you develop yours sort. Black
seems uninterested in opening the f-file for possible aggressive action. 13.
Ng3 Nbd7 14.Nf5 Rg8?! Yet he apparently harbors thoughts of queenside
castling. 15.Qe2 Nb6 16.Be3 O-O-O??
A classic case of castling into it. 17.c4?!
Not bad, but far from best. 17.a4! would
yield a winning attack, viz. (A) 17bxa4
18.Bxb6 Bxb6 19.Rxa4 Kb7 20.d4
intending 21.Qxa6+; (B) 17Qd7 18.
axb5 axb5 (if 18cxb5 19.Rxa6) 19.Nxd6
+! Qxd6 20.Rxa7+; or (C) 17Kb7 18.
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axb5 cxb519.Ra5 Ne8 20.Rfa1 Nc7 21.c4
Ra8 (or 21bxc4 22.Rxa6! Nxa6 23.Qa2
+) 22.Qa2 Na4 (if 22.Bb8 23.Bxb6 Kxb6
24.Nxd6! and wins, since if 24Qxd6??
25.c5+) 23.cxb5 Bxe3 24.bxa6+ Ka7 25.
fxe3+. 17d5 18.Bc5?! Better is 18.cxb5 cxb5 a4. White never does hit on
the idea of opening the a-file. 18Rd7 19.cxb5 Na8??
Another blunder; relatively best was 19
cxb5. 20.Bxa7 Again missing the best
line: 20.bxc6 Rc7 (if 20Qxc5 21.Nxe5)
and either 21.d4 Nxe4 22.Qxa6+ or 21.
Bd6 Rxc6 Ne7+ win handily. Still, after
19Na8??, Whites position is so strong
that he almost cant help but win. 20
Rxa7 21.bxc6 Rc7 22.Rfc1 Kb8 23.Qc2
Nb6 24.Qc5 Nfd7 25.Qa5 dxe4 26.dxe4
Nc4 27.Qd5 Unduly cautious; stronger is
simply 27.Qxa6, or the nifty 27.Rxc4!
Qxc4 28.Nxe5! Nxe5 29.Qb6+ Ka8 (29
Kc8?? 30.Nd6+) 30.Qxc7 Qxc6 31.Qxe5 and White is a piece up. The text
leads to wholesale exchanges and a fairly easy pawn-up rook endgame that
White still manages to misplay. 27Ndb6 28.Qxe6 fxe6 29.Ne3 Rxc6 30.
Nxc4 Nxc4 31.Nd2 Rgc8 32.Nxc4 Rxc4 33.Rxc4 Rxc4 34.f3 Kb7 35.Rd1
Kc7 36.Rd3 Kc6
37.Kh2? Far better is the less committal
37.Kf2, leaving White the option of
invading the kingside or going queenside
if necessary. 37Kb5 38.Kg3 Rd4! 39.
Re3 Not 39.Rxd4?? exd4 40.Kf2 Ka4 and
Black wins. 39Kc4 40.Kh4? Again, 40.
Kf2 was called for.
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New Stories about Old Chess Players
40Rd3?? The last miscalculation. With
40Rd2!, Black had good drawing
chances. Now White can simplify to an
easy win. 41.Rxd3 Kxd3 42.a4! Finally!
As strong now as it was back at move 17!
42Kc4 43.b5 axb5 44.axb5 Kxb5 45.
Kh5 Kc4 46.Kg6 Kd3 47.Kxg7 Ke3 48.
Kxh6 Kf2 49.g4 Kxf3 50.g5 1-0

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