Piece (chess)

“ For pure cussedness the knight has no equal, and when you chase him out of one hole he skips into another." Attempts have been made over and over again to obtain a short, simple, and exact definition of the move of the knight—without success. It really consists in moving one square like a rook, and then another square like a bishop—the two operations being done in one leap, so that it does not matter whether the first square passed over is occupied by another piece or not. It is, in fact, the only leaping move in chess. ”

“ Admittedly the given body of Chess-pieces has the right to move, but it is of the utmost importance to note that this privilege of moving extends only to a single piece and from this privilege of moving the pinned piece is debarred by a specific and fundamental law of the game, which declares that:
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“A piece shall not by removing itself uncover the kindred King to the attack of a hostile piece.” ”

“ Almost every moderate player thinks himself fully qualified to criticise the move by which a game has been lost.—Although, if he had himself been in the loser's place, he would, very probably, have been check-mated twenty moves sooner than the opportunity occurred for committing the particular mistake, which he thinks he should have avoided.
X.
Amongst good players, it is considered to be as much an indispensable condition of the game, that a piece once touched must be moved, as that the queen is not allowed to have the knight's, or a rook the bishop's move. ”

“ QUEEN AGAINST ROOK
This is one of the most difficult endings without Pawns. The resources of the defence are many, and when used skilfully only a very good player will prevail within the limit of fifty moves allowed by the rules. (The rule is that at any moment you may demand that your opponent mate you within fifty moves. However, every time a piece is exchanged or a Pawn advanced the counting must begin afresh.)
Example 40.—This is one of the standard positions which Black can often bring about. ”

“ It is White's move, but if he takes his Queen from in front of his King, he exposes it to check from the adversary's Rook. If he moves the King, then his Queen will be captured and the game will have to be drawn, and if he takes Black's Rook with the Queen, then the adverse King will be placed in a similar position, i. e., stalemate.
Support. A force is supported when it is within the range of another of the same color that would be in a position to capture it were it an enemy. An attacking force is supported by another Piece or Pawn which commands the square or position attacked. ”

“ The King, a purely defensive piece throughout the middle-game, becomes an offensive piece once all the pieces are off the board, and sometimes even when there are one or two minor pieces left. The handling of the King becomes of paramount importance once the end-game stage is reached. ”

“ Preventing an adverse piece from occupying an adjacent unoccupied point.
Artillery:
Offensive Fire Effect. Compelling an adverse piece to withdraw from its post upon an occupied point not an adjacent point.
Defensive Fire Effect. Preventing an adverse piece from occupying an unoccupied point not an adjacent point.
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CHESSIC CORPS D’ARMEE.
The Corps d’armee of the Chessboard are divided into two classes: viz.:
I. Corps of Position. II. Corps of Evolution. CORPS D’ARMEE OF POSITION.
“The Pawns are the soul of Chess ”

“ 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. ”

“ Never permit your hand to hover over the board, or indeed to approach it, until you have completely made up your mind what Piece to move; a contrary habit begets a feeling of indecision that is fatal to success. Play invariably according to the laws of the game, neither taking back a move yourself, nor allowing your opponent to recall one. Do not exhibit impatience when your adversary is long in making his move. ”

“ Be cautious of playing your Queen in front of your King and in subjecting yourself to a discovered check. It is better when check is given to your King to interpose a man that attacks the checking Piece than with one that does not. ”

“ En Prise.—When a Piece or Pawn is in a situation to be taken by the enemy, it is said to be en prise. To put a piece en prise, is to play it so that it may be captured. ”

“ To Interpose.—When the King is checked, or any valuable Piece in danger from the attack of an enemy, you are said to interpose a man when you play it between the attacked and attacking Piece. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A Rook is of the value of five Pawns and a fraction, and may be exchanged for a minor Piece and two Pawns. Two Rooks may be exchanged for three minor Pieces. ”

“ I made an attempt, though almost against my inclination, and after several efforts, having learned the march, my progress was so rapid, that before the end of the first sitting I gave him the rook, which in the beginning he had given me. Nothing more was necessary; behold me fascinated with chess! I buy a board, with the rest of the apparatus, and shutting myself up in my chamber, pass whole days and nights in studying all the varieties of the game, being determined by playing alone, without end or relaxation, to drive them into my head, right or wrong. ”

“ VI. The inability of the Knight to move either on diagonals, verticals, or horizontals, and the limitation of its move to two squares distance. VII. The inability of the Pawn to move either on obliques or horizontals, and the limitation of its first move to two squares and of its subsequent moves to one square. VIII. The limitation of the King’s move to one square.
These limitations and impediments to the movements of the Chess-pieces, are equivalent in Chess-play to obstacles interposed by Nature to the march of troops over the surface of the earth. ”

“ MOST FAVORABLE BATTLEFIELD
That relative advantage in Organization expressed by superior potential totality, is materially manifested upon the Chess-board by the geometric and sub-geometric symbols of those Chess-pieces possessed of the superior potential complement. Such symbols taken in combination, describe that field of battle most favorable for the execution of those Major Tactical evolutions which appertain to the Chess-pieces of superior organization. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The art is French, but the ideas may have come from anywhere, like the game of chess which the pilgrims or crusaders brought home from Syria. In the Oriental game, the King was followed step by step by a Minister whose functions were personal. The crusaders freed the piece from control; gave it liberty to move up or down or diagonally, forwards and backwards; made it the most arbitrary and formidable champion on the board, while the King and the Knight were the most restricted in movement; and this piece they named Queen, and called the Virgin:— ”

“ The pawn on the chess-board has a life of a very uneventful character, simply because his progress is slow, methodical, and unchanging. Not so the knight, who, with all the errantry of his race, dashes here and there, encountering every rank and condition of men,—continually in difficulties himself, or the cause of them to others. ”

“ The exhibiter begins by wheeling the chest to the entrance of the apartment within which it stands, and in face of the spectators. He then opens certain doors contrived in the chest, two in front, and two at the back, at the same time pulling put a long shallow drawer at the bottom of the [Pg 17] chest made to contain the chess men, a cushion for the arm of the figure to rest upon, and some counters. ”

“ Under these circumstances, the kindred corps will be possessed of facilities for movement represented by thirty-six squares; while the logistic area of the opposing army will be restricted to twenty-eight squares.
There are, of course, two great central diagonals of the Chess-board; but as the student is fully informed that great central diagonal always is to be selected, which extends towards the Objective Plane.
Mobility, per se, increases or decreases with the number of squares open to occupation. ”

“ In diagram 1, the pieces, or chess-men, are arranged for the beginning of a game, while diagram 2 shows the denomination of the squares according to the English and German systems of notation. Under diagram 1 are the names of the various “pieces”—each side, White or Black, having a King, a Queen, two Rooks (or Castles) , two Knights, and two Bishops. The eight men in front are called Pawns. At the beginning of the game the queen always stands upon a square of her own colour. The board is so set that each player has a white square at the right hand end of the row nearest to him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fondness of our ancestors for the game of chess appears by the frequent mention of the amusement in the ancient romances. Sometimes a lover procured admittance to the place where his mistress was confined, by permitting the jailor to win from him a game at chess. Again, the minstrels in the baronial hall, spread over their subject all the riches of their imagination. They were wont to fancy the enchanted castle of a beautiful fairy, who challenged a noble knight to play with her at chess. ”

“ The eight Pawns, by reason of their limited movements, their inability to move backward and the peculiarity of their offensive and defensive powers, are best adapted of the Chesspieces to perform those functions which in the Military Art appertain to Corps of Position. ”

“ Except the theatre of actual Warfare, no spot known to man furnishes such facilities for the practice of combined strategy, tactics and logistics as does the surface of the Chess-board.
To those familiar with the Science of Strategetics, it needs no proof that ability to play a good game at Chess, indicates the possession of faculties common to all great military commanders.
At a certain point, the talent of Morphy for Chess-play and the talent of Napoleon for Warfare become merged ”

“ At the same time the student should thoroughly instruct himself in military history, topography, logic, mathematics, and the science of fortification. With all of these the strategist must be familiar.
But his chief aim must be to perfect his judgment and to bring it to the highest degree of broadness and exactness.
This is best done by contemplation of the works of the Great Masters.
The past history of Chess-play, is the true school for those who aspire to precedence in the Royal Game. ”

“ The passion for chess was universal at that period, when the favorite forms of recreation were a pantomime of war. The songs of the minstrels, or troubadours, were another source of delightful amusement; and deeds of valor, with maxims how to win a lady’s favor, were the perpetual theme. To play upon the harp, and be able to sing his love in verse, were considered as necessary qualifications to the knight of chivalry, as the knowledge of wielding his sword, or managing his good steed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fancy what a game at chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning: if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, in disgust at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. ”

“ Thus it is that while every Chesspiece represents a perfectly appointed and equally powerful body of troops, these corps d’armee in Chessplay as in scientific warfare are not duplicates, except to others of their own class. Each of these corps d’armee is made up of Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery in correct proportion to the service they are to perform and such proportions are determined not by simple arithmetic, but by those deployments, developments, evolutions, and manoeuvres, which such corps d’armee is constructed promptly and efficiently to execute. ”