Chess player

“ Why, in the name of common sense, do not these men learn something of chess, and thus provide themselves with a pastime which not merely hastens Time's chariot-wheels, but quickens the intellect? One gets tired of billiards, cards, horse-racing, etc., but your chess-player becomes more enamored of his game, the more he knows of it. ”

“ Some of the best chess players have played ten, fifteen, and even twenty different games, all at the same time, blindfolded, and won them all against as many separate players, each playing one game and looking at the board. Such a champion player has to carry in his head the picture of ten, fifteen, or twenty different boards, each with sixteen men, scattered about over sixty-four squares, and all continually changing. Yet they do this without ever making a mistake; just by these inner pictures in the mind’s eye. ”

“ The King's Gambit, the fourth of the principal openings, is the delight of the Chess player's heart as it affords opportunities for the most intricate and scientific combinations to which Chessmen are subject, and their study gives the student an almost unlimited fund of instruction and entertainment. ”

“ A chess game can be a terrible and enthralling thing, when you play it backwards and blindfolded. Your adversary starts out with his king in check, and tries to move his pieces back to where they were at first; that’s why you can’t apply rules or mathematical laws to crime. The great chess player is the one who can visualize the board as it will be after his move. The great detective is the one who can visualize the board as it has been when he finds the pieces jumbled. ”

“ The Middle Game, as the student has already learned, is that stage of a game of Chess when the Pieces and Pawns are so far developed that theoretical analysis is no longer possible, as it was in the opening moves. At this point, all of the player's skill in the art and science of combination is put to the test and many of the most brilliant Chess players are able to give mate without letting the game reach what the student has already learned to be End Game positions. ”

“ Until a person has become a really scientific Chess player, he cannot be expected to know all the different games; and as a little knowledge on many subjects is dangerous, the student will find it very helpful to play one game over and over, preferably, of course, some match or tournament game, until he is familiar with every move and with the reasoning that prompted it. ”

“ A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. ”

“ It is evident to the student, therefore, how important it is for him to be familiar with the preliminary moves in a game of Chess, and he must give careful attention to the study of this chapter; following each play on his own board so that it will be perfectly clear to him and easy to remember, for every successful Chess player should know the openings by name when he has occasion to refer to them. ”

“ Cards are very seductive, and you may find yourself become a gambler almost before you are aware of it. Perhaps the best plan is not to know how to play, which furnishes an answer always ready.
Chess is a game of elegance and interest, and the being a good chess-player, carries with it a certain impression of general ability and of intellectual activity and resource. Perhaps I may allow that playing at chess adds a certain degree of interest to the perusal of the history of a campaign, whether ancient or modern, with its various moves, its checks and counter-checks, its retreats and castlings. ”

“ He was a chess-player “a game much older—uralt—and the most mental, the only true abstractive game.” How differently an English chess-player would have spoken. She regarded his eager contained liveliness. Russian chess players remained alive. Was chess mental? Pure tactics. Should she declare that chess was a dreadful boring indulgence, leading nowhere? Perhaps he would be able to show her that this was not so.... Why do the Germans call two people playing chess a chess-party? “I have met there a man, a Polish doctor. ”

“ This is caused by the fact that they maintain a desultory kind of warfare, each one selecting an adversary and fighting him on his own account.
Double Chess Board.
One hundred and sixty squares.
If the Double-chess player will remember that it is absolutely essential to watch his partner and second his moves, this state of things will speedily disappear. Those who wilfully neglect this may as well content themselves with Single Chess. No matter what their powers of calculation, they will never make decent Double-chess players. ”

“ The chess player is ever absorbed in his chess and full of care, swearing false oaths and making many vain excuses, one who careth only for himself and angereth his Maker. 'Tis the game of him who keepeth the fast only when he is hungry, of the official who is in disgrace, of the drunkard till he recovereth from his drunkenness, and in the Yatimat ul Dehr it is said, Abul Casim al Kesrawi hated chess, and constantly abused it, saying, you never see a chess player rich who is not a sordid miser, nor hear a squabbling that is not on a question of the chess board. ”

“ In the early days of Chess-playing, people used to take literally weeks in which to make a single move, as they wished to study every possible situation which might develop therefrom. The Chessboard would become grey with dust and all interest, as far as the spectators were concerned, would be gone. Today, conditions have changed and now there is a rule that each player must make a given number of moves within a certain period, and if a player fails to do this he forfeits the game. ”

“ From this sameness of talent, common to the great Chess-player and the great military commander, arises the practical utility of the Royal Game.
For by means of Chess-play, one may learn and practice in their highest interpretation, mental and physical processes of paramount importance to the community in time of extreme peril. ”

“ I believe that there are, especially amongst good chess-players. When a skilful player plays well, it is because he can take in with a single glance of his mental [Pg 69] eye the whole chronological and spatial series of moves that may follow the first move, with all their effects on the board. ”

“ Between War and Chess there is a seeming incongruity, which is the basis of that doubt of the utility of Chess-play, so commonly held by laymen, and which fallacy few, even among proficients, are competent to combat.
This doubt most frequently is voiced by the query:
If Chess and War are analagous, why was not Napoleon a Master Chess-player and Morphy a great military Commander?
This query readily is answered in the words of Frederic the Great, viz.:
“To be possessed of talent is not sufficient. ”

“ There is then no analogy whatever between the operations of the Chess-Player, and those of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage, and if we choose to call the former a pure machine we must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond all comparison, the most wonderful of the inventions of mankind. ”

“ Chess holds forth to the philosopher relaxation from his severer studies,—to the disappointed man, relief from unavailing regret,—and to the rich and idle, an inexhaustible source of amusement and occupation. It has, however, been frequently urged as an objection to the study of the game, that no man can pursue it, with a fair prospect of becoming a good player, without devoting to it much time and attention which might be more beneficially employed. ”

“ The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all those more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind. ”

“ While Chess is a purely scientific form of amusement, and one that requires constant practice and study, if a player desires to become skilled, it affords such pleasure to those who are among its devotees and offers such exceptional opportunities for mental development that no person of culture can afford to neglect it. Of course, the scope of the present volume only permits a survey of the general principles and laws of the game but the compiler has endeavored to give the student a thorough groundwork for ordinary purposes ”

“ When the player who has drawn the White Men moves a Piece or a Pawn, it is his opponent's turn, and so the game continues, each moving alternately, one man at a time, of his own color and capturing only the men of the opposite color. ”

“ For this reason, the student should learn, from the very beginning, to think quickly and be ready to make his move when his turn comes. Quick playing sustains the interest of the game and adds to the pleasure of the players, as well as to that of the spectators.
In Chess Clubs and in match and tournament games, a system of clocks or watches is used so that the length of time it takes each player to make a move can be recorded, just as time is taken in races and other contests of skill and speed. When a beginner is hurried, however, he becomes nervous and makes unnecessary mistakes ”

“ It is very well to follow the rules and systems of scientific players, but if the student's opponent does not follow the same system and make the correct moves in return, the student's knowledge will be of little avail and luck may win for the ignorant player an advantage that rightly belonged to the one who was familiar with the science of the game, but who failed to vary his general system of play to meet unexpected situations. ”

“ III. The chessmen must be of a pattern in general use and any player may object to playing with men of a foreign design, provided the objection is made before the first move. A game once begun must be completed with the same set of men. ”

“ The student will remember that a gambit means the sacrifice of a Piece or Pawn for the sake of an advantage that is to be gained later by the first player. Each player, in turn, moves his KP to K4 and then the first player moves his KBP to KB4, where it is in a position to be captured by the adverse Pawn.
The student will note that in each of these openings, the first move of each player is identical, i.e., the KP to K4. This opening move clears the way for the King, the Queen, and the King's Bishop, if the player cares to develop them. ”

“ If neither player has sufficient material left to enforce a mate (compare following chapter) the game is considered a draw. A draw may also be claimed by either player if the moves are repeated so that the same position occurs three times with the same player on the move, or if fifty moves have been made without the capture of a man or the move of a Pawn.
II ELEMENTARY TACTICS The beginner who thinks he ought to be able to play a good game of Chess after learning the moves of the men is like the soldier who is confident that he could lead an army after he has learned how to march. ”

“ A theoretical amateur, with much real genius for the game, is often beaten by a fourth-rate player at a chess club, who has become from constant practice thoroughly acquainted with all the technicalities of it, and quietly builds up a wall for the other to run his head against. The loser in this case may perhaps eventually become the better player of the two ”

“ For the normal advantage that attaches to the first move in a game of Chess is vastly enhanced by a peculiarity in the mathematical make-up of the surface of the Chess-board, whereby, he who makes the first move may secure to himself the advantage in mobility, and conversely may inflict upon the second player a corresponding disadvantage in mobility. ”

“ Umpleby, the retired fishmonger in the chess story declared that he would have been the best player in the world, but for the Knights at chess which jumped about in the most unreasonable and absurd manner without rhyme or reason, here there and everywhere, and the lady who it was said was found engaged and playing with thirty-two men remained single ever afterwards. ”

“ Shortly after my arrival in London, I called upon the Secretary of the St. George's Chess Club, Thomas Hampton, Esq., and introduced myself to him. Chess is a bond of brotherhood amongst all lovers of the noble game, as perfect as free masonry. It is a leveller of rank—title, wealth, nationality, politics, religion—all are forgotten across the board. Every chess player recognizes this, and none more so than Mr. ”

“ She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited. ”

“ Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. ”

“ Every player at Chess has defects; many have very great ones. In searching for these one should not treat himself tenderly, and when examining his faults, he should grant himself no quarter.
Particularly should the student cultivate confidence in and rigidly adhere to the standard of skill, as interpreted by that immutable System of Chess-play, of which Morphy is the unapproachable and all-sufficient exponent. ”