Chess

“ Chess is a game of war—the various pieces represent the various kinds of forces: the pawns represent the infantry, the Knights take the place of cavalry, the Rooks do the work of heavy artillery, sweeping broad lines; the different ways in which the pieces move find a parallel in the topography of the theatre of war, in that the various battle-fields are more or less easy of access. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In fact the two rooks in chess are like the two hands in the human body, and the two knights are, as it were, the feet. Now that man has very little to boast of on the score of manhood and valour who tells you that he has given a sound thrashing to another man who had only one hand and one foot. It may be observed, however, that proportionately to the value of all the pieces in the old game, as compared with the present, the rook and knight would be equivalent to queen and rook with us. ”

“ Chess is thus described in it:
"An ingenious game, played or performed with little round pieces of wood, on a board divided into 64 squares, where art and address are so indispensably requisite, that chance seems to have no place, and a person never loses but by his own fault. On each side are eight noblemen and as many pawns, which are to be moved and shifted, according to certain rules and laws of the game." ”

“ Playing at Chess, is the most ancient and universal game known among men; for its original is beyond the memory of history, and it has, for numberless ages, been the amusement of all the civilized nations of Asia, the Persians, the Indians, and the Chinese. ”

“ CHESS OPENINGS
The opening moves in a game of Chess are of particular importance for it is in them that the strategy of the game is most clearly distinguished from mere Chess tactics. Each opening is intended to develop a certain theory or course of play, and the skill of a Chess player is indicated by his first moves, as they are made of his own free will and not because his adversary forces him to take an aggressive or defensive position, as is often the case in the later development of the game. ”

“ Any one acquainted with the moves and rules of ordinary chess can soon become a proficient, and as for the notion that it requires a great Single-chess player to make a good Double-chess-player, we must call attention, by way of analogy, to the fact that gamekeepers generally make wretched rifle-shots.
Exception must be taken to the name, ‘Four-handed Chess,’ given by some players to this game. Why not Four-brained Chess, or Four-person Chess, on the same principle? Must we call Single Chess Two-handed Chess? ”

“ Chess, as it is now played, came down to us from the Fifteenth century, when the queen of present powers was introduced, and the extensions and improvements in the moves of the bishops and the pawns and in castling effected, and which made the game exactly what it now is. ”

“ All the Chess-pieces are equal in strength, one to the other. The Pawn can overthrow and capture any piece—the Queen can do no more.
That is to say, at its turn to move, any piece can capture any adverse piece; and this is all that any piece can do.
It is true that the Queen, on its turn to move, has a maximum option of twenty-seven squares, while the Pawn’s maximum never is more than three. ”

“ The game of Chess, as already stated, is played by two persons or parties, and the object of each is to capture his opponent’s King or place him in such a position that he cannot move without being taken. ”

“ When the beginner is familiar with the rules of Chess, with the moves of the various Pieces and Pawns, and understands the meanings of the technical terms used in playing the game, he is ready to put into practice what he has learned. But before beginning the first game, there are a few general suggestions which he will find helpful until he has acquired sufficient skill to develop a system of play for himself. In Chess, as in everything else, there are exceptions where hard and fast rules cannot always be followed. ”

“ Chess teaches to conduct campaigns, to win battles, and to move troops securely and effectively in the presence of and despite the opposition of an equal or superior enemy.
Military schools graduate boys as second-lieutenants commanding a platoon. Chess graduates Generals, able to mobilize Corps d’armee, whatever their number or location; to develop these into properly posted integers of a grand Strategic Front and to manoeuvre and operate the army as a Strategetic Unit, in accordance to the laws of the Strategetic art and the principles of the Strategetic science. ”

“ We find the principal figures from the chess-board reproduced in the Tarots, and also in some of the Spanish and German packs. There is the [Pg 26] King, the Knight, or mounted horseman, and the Knave. The pawns or common soldiers are represented by numbers; but there is this difference between Cards and the game of Chess as it is generally played,—in the former there are four armies, or as we should call them “suits,” and each one is headed by the King instead of the two sides generally seen in Chess. ”

“ Most of the persons who occasionally "play at Chess" know little more than the moves and a few of the general rules of the game. Of those who have had more practice, some have acquired a partial insight into the endless variety of the combinations which may be formed, and their beautiful intricacy:—a few play moderately well ”

“ The support of chess, trifling as it is, comes from about a score of Her Majesty's subjects, and the total in a year does not now equal a sum very usual in a glove fight, or a Championship Billiard match, and the sums provided in a generation by our present machinery would not equal the value of one Al Mamun's musk balls or the rewards to Ruy Lopez for a single match. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I the humble sinner now addressing you, have frequently played with one opponent over the board and at the same time I have carried on four different games, with as many adversaries, without seeing the board, whilst I conversed freely with my friends all along, and through the Divine favour I conquered them all. Also in the great chess, I have invented sundry positions as well as several openings, which no one else ever imagined or contrived. ”

“ Vida.
↑ The chief art in the Tacticks of Chess consists in the nice conduct of the royal pawns; in supporting them against every attack; and, if they are taken, in supplying their places with other equally supported: a principle, on which the success of the game in great measukre depends, though it seems to be omitted by the very accurate Vida. ”

“ No! it is impossible! no common sinner innocent of chess knows these lower deeps of remorse. Vast desert [Pg 142] boards lie for the chess-player beyond the gates of horn. Stalwart Rooks ram headlong at one, Knights hop sidelong, one's Pawns are all tied, and a mate hangs threatening and never descends. And once chess has been begun in the proper way, it is flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone; you are sold, and the bargain is sealed, and the evil spirit hath entered in. ”

“ The Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French writers who refer to chess, and in our own country Chaucer, Lydgate, Caxton, Barbiere, Pope, Dryden, Philidor, and the Encyclopaediasts deal mainly with traditions, each having a pet theory; all, however, conclude by declaring in words, but slightly varied, that the origin of chess is enshrouded in mist and obscurity, lost in the remote ages of antiquity, or like Pope pronounce it a problem which never will be solved. ”

“ Chess claims to be a more intellectual, and even more ancient, game than cards. Its history and its principles have been set forth in goodly volumes. Poetry has sung its charms. The lives of its famous players have been written and their methods described, and a whole library of its peculiar literature has grown up around it. ”

“ In every country, where Chess is played, the Pieces are referred to by their initial
letters, and as the student may have occasion to study the games played by persons of skill in foreign countries, a table is given on page 84, so that the student may familiarize himself with the names of the Chessmen in the languages of the principal countries of Europe. ”

“ THE GAME OF CHESS I THE RULES OF THE GAME BOARD AND MEN The game of Chess is played by two armies who oppose each other on a square board or battlefield of sixty-four alternate white and black squares. Each army has sixteen men ”

“ 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. ”

“ Chess and Go are both in a sense military games, but the military tactics that are represented in Chess are of a past age, in which the king himself entered the conflict — his fall generally meaning the loss of the battle — and in which the victory or defeat was brought about by the age of single noblemen rather than through the fighting of the common soldiers. ”

“ The history of the game of Chess is identical with that of most intellectual pursuits. The inventions of genius, the productions of art, the institutes of sound philosophy, spring from a vigorous epoch in the annals of a great nation. ”

“ For this reason, Chess openings have been a study of profound interest to Chess players all over the world wherever the game is played, and the principal or regular openings are named after the Piece or Pawn which determines their character, the persons who invented them, or the countries where they were originally adopted. ”

“ Every home has its chess-board at which Darby and Joan while away the winter evenings before the fire, or place it upon a table in the garden in summer-time. In fact, chess is familiar to every inhabitant from the time they leave the cradle. Every one talks chess and thinks chess.
Chess-boards are everywhere. You may rest your elbow on one while you sip your beer at an old-fashioned inn, which is itself called "The Chess-Board," and there, if your quiet and subdued manner makes you appear worthy of the honor, the landlord will show you the set of chess-men presented to the inhabitants in 1650. ”

“ 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. ”

“ CHESS AND OPINIONS IN REGARD TO ITS ORIGIN Chess is the English name for the most intellectual as well as diverting and entertaining of games. It is called in the East the game of the King, and the word Schach mat, or Shah mat in the Persian language signifies the King is dead, "Checkmate." Chess allows the utmost scope for art and strategy, and gives the most various and extensive employment to the powers of the understanding. ”

“ In developing a game of Chess, the beginner should remember this maxim: Move no Piece or Pawn twice, until each has been moved once. By following this principle none of the forces will be needlessly exposed to attack from the enemy, for it is true of Chessmen that divided they fall, and united they stand. The student should, also, develop his game on both wings that is on the King's side and on the Queen's side before beginning an attack. As the student progresses he will learn that there are many Chess openings and that each develops a certain line of play, which he must follow up ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is among the middle and humbler classes that the spread of a taste for chess has been most apparent, with the fashionable or higher classes, so far as any manifestation of public interest or support is to be taken as a criterion, its appreciation has died out, and for twenty noble names among its patrons in Philidor's time, we cannot reckon one in ours. ”

“ You already understand that the moves at chess are played by [26] each party alternately; in this case it is White's turn to play, and he will checkmate his antagonist in two moves. Place the chess-men on your board exactly in the order they stand in the diagram; having done this, suppose yourself to be playing the White men, and take the Black King's Pawn with your Queen, in the manner before shown, i.e., by taking the Pawn from the board and stationing your Queen on the square it occupied. ”