History Of Chess Research Articles

Teaching Chess History to Students in Natural Sciences: How to Do It and Why

Teaching Chess History to Students in Natural Sciences: How to Do It and Why

«Королевская игра» на «королевской горе»: шахматы в Кёнигсберге

The article explores the history of chess in Königsberg in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The author gives the data on competitions held in the capital of East Prussia, as well as biographical data on players and chess composers who lived there and visited Königsberg. The reconstruction of the history of the chess movement includes the localization of chess clubs in the city. The researcher states, that in the 1850s — 1870s chess clubs with general and specialized membership flourished in the city. The Königsberg Academic Chess Club was the example of the latter. From 1878 until the end of the century chess life in East Prussia was under the umbrella of the East German Chess Union, founded to offset the difficulties of participation of local chess players in all-German tournaments because of geographical remoteness. In the 20th century several world-class players both from among the city’s visitors (Emanuel Lask­er) and local residents (Paul Saladin Leonhardt) appeared in Königsberg. Leonhardt became probably the main figure representing East Prussia at national and international tournaments after the First World War. The years of Nazism witnessed persecution of local chess players of Jewish origin in Königsberg. Chess life of the city itself remained provincial. The chess history of Königsberg ceased with the Red Army storming the city in 1945. Among the participants of the storming there were also Soviet chess players. The article is addressed to chess historians, local historians and tour guides.

Chess as Support

The paper explores the connection between playing chess and the participation in the chess club with affirmation and success of the pupils who need extra support in education. Starting from the history of chess, through the connection of chess and the development of intelligence, and with a turn on implementation of inclusive education the paper deals with showing the examples of good practice of work of the chess club which includes children who need extra support. The paper presents the conclusions from a long-term practice which was continually improved and which in the end resulted with a series of positive effects on pupils who are participants of the chess club. In the end the working materials which were made while working with children who need educationally support are provided.

The indexing of biography as a special genre or as historically documented text

The indexing of biography as a genre, per se, is reconsidered with respect to subject indexing in general and the histories of lives in particular. The index of a biography of the chess player Bobby Fischer is compared with the index of a history of chess at the height of the Cold War conflict in which Bobby Fischer was the central protagonist. Some received theory of the indexing of biographies is critiqued and challenged by practical comparisons. Indexing from a literary perspective is considered and contrasted with back-of-book indexing from an information retrieval standpoint.

Rematch between Robert Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1992 as an Attempt to Break through the Sports Sanctions in Yugoslavia

The article examines the attempt of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to organise a breakthrough of the sports sanctions imposed on the country on 30 May, 1992. As a result of these sanctions, the country’s athletes were forced to participate in sports competitions without national emblems and flags. The next step was to be a complete ban on the participation of Yugoslav sport organisations in international competitions. In order to break through the international information blockade, the leadership of the FR of Yugoslavia tried to organise a commercial match between Robert Fischer and Boris Spassky, two veteran chess players, who played in the 1972 “Match of the Century.” The conference was organised by Jezdimir Vasiljević, a businessman who combined the cigarette and oil trade with the banking business. The results of this costly adventure were dubious. With the complete domination of huge international media corporations, positive results were almost impossible. However, the episode itself remains a bright page not only in the gloomy history of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but also in the history of chess.

О ШАХМАТНЫХ ПРОТОТИПАХ РОМАНА В. В. НАБОКОВА «ЗАЩИТА ЛУЖИНА»

The article is devoted to discussing the likely prototypes of the figure of Luzhin - the protagonist of V. Nabokov's novel The Defense. Studying the biographical and chess contexts, analyzing the plot components of the novel related to the game, and taking into account the psychological aspects of the early XX century chess history, the authors prove that the versions of the main character's prototypes presented in previous studies of Nabokov's works are controversial. Among these prototypes are the chess players famous at different periods of the past, sharing only one thing with Nabokov's hero – a mental disorder at the end of his life. The authors of the article present and summarize new facts, not considered before, which are somehow reflected in the text of the novel, and the circumstances of the chess history and the world around it taking place at that time. This data became the basis for a new version that one of the prototypes of the protagonist's “chess impersonation” in the novel The Defense could be the Russian (and later Danish – by new citizenship) chess grandmaster Alexander Nimtsovich, whose life path crossed Nabokov's more than once. The famous chess opening “The Nimtsovich Defense” finds compositional and motif parallels in the corresponding scenes of the novel, and the narrator's reflection (close to the hero's reflection) on the specifics of playing chess is quite consistent with Grandmaster Nimtsovich's chess ideas, summarized by him in his book My System (1925). One of Nimzowitsch's biggest successes was winning the tournament in Karlovy Vary (Czechoslovakia) in July-August 1929 – at the very time when Nabokov was busy working on the text of his novel The Defense.

Turkish Great Chess and Chinese Whispers: Misadventures of a Chess Variant

Abstract A large chess variant with 52 pieces originally described in a 1800s Ottoman Turkish book as šaṭranǧ-i kabīr, or great chess, appears under various names in a number of subsequent Western sources, including authoritative works on chess history and variants. Game rules as presented in the latter are seriously flawed though, with inaccuracies regarding pieces array and moves. Over a period of more than two centuries, baseless assumptions, misreadings of previous sources and outright errors gradually accumulating in the literature have changed the game almost beyond recognition. With some of the game’s aspects not covered even by the original Turkish source, reconstructed rules are suggested and discussed, as well as a reformed variant.

Tractatus de ludo scachorum

Tractatus de ludo scachorum

On the Discovery of Medieval Mongolian Chess in the Northern Caucasus

The article deals with history of chess spreading from India to the countries of Eurasia. Discovery in the North Caucasus of ancient Mongolian chess crafted in Buddhist style, the author analyzes the possible ways of promoting chess game and factors of their evolutionary development under the influence oflslam and other historical circumstances. The origin of the discovered chess pieces dates back to the middle of the 13 th century, the time of Mongol armies’ campaign of Hulagu Khan (1217-1265) to the Middle East.

A Note On Chess In 19th Century Turkestan

Abstract A note by A. Chernevski in the 1877 Shakhmatny Listok described two chess variants played in Samarkand, present-day Uzbekistan. One, the “Bukharan game”, is a slightly modified version of shatranj, similar to Rumi chess as described in Murray’s History of Chess. The other, the “Persian game with a queen” resembles to some extent the Persian chess described in 1846 in the Chess Player’s Chronicle but differs from it in several important aspects. Chernevski’s information, which includes recorded games by native players, is absent from later sources on chess history. A summary of Chernevski’s report is provided, with a discussion of several other historical chess variants, and various errors that have crept into their description in the literature.

THE PHENOMENON OF POLITICIZATION OF CHESS IN THE SOVIET UNION

В данной статье рассмотрен феномен политизации шахматного спорта в СССР. Разобраны ключевые моменты и исторические периоды из шахматной истории Советского Союза, прямое участие в которых принимало политическое руководство страны. Цель работы – проследить основные этапы развития шахматного спорта в СССР, определить степень вмешательства политической власти в шахматы, обозначить роль данного спорта, в качестве инструмента для управления внешними и внутренними политическими процессами. Область политической и исторической науки, касающейся взаимосвязи политики и спорта является, на сегодняшний день, крайне малоисследованной. В статье разобраны как примеры вмешательства государства в шахматный спорт, с целью политического влияния как во внутренней политике, так и международно-политических отношениях. Особое влияние уделено шахматно-политическому противостоянию СССР и стран Запада в период холодной войны. В качестве одного из основных выводов, отмечаются как негативные стороны политизации шахмат в Советском Союзе, так и позитивные.

Shatra аnd Jurt: The “Return Address” in the Altaian Ritual

This article examines the shatra – ritual votive fi gurines made by Altaian hunters, and their relevance to the history of chess. Based on the fi eld studies in an Altaian village, where the author has been conducting research since 2005, and on the museum and archival data collected in Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Gorno-Altaysk, social relations mirrored by the shatra are examined through the lens of Altaian ethno-cultural history. Proceeding from Edmund Leech’s interpretation of ritual, the study reveals the communicative function of shatra and its relationship to the land and identity claims of people participating in the ritual. The concept of “return address” is introduced and applied to Altaian ritual. The local community is not only an “addressee”; it has agency in communications between human and nonhuman beings. It is concluded that the shatra may be metaphorically interpreted as a knot in the relationship network connecting humans, spirits, landscape, things, and materials.

Шатра и jурт: «обратный адрес» в ритуале у алтайцев

This article examines the shatra – ritual votive fi gurines made by Altaian hunters, and their relevance to the history of chess. Based on the fi eld studies in an Altaian village, where the author has been conducting research since 2005, and on the museum and archival data collected in Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Gorno-Altaysk, social relations mirrored by the shatra are examined through the lens of Altaian ethno-cultural history. Proceeding from Edmund Leech’s interpretation of ritual, the study reveals the communicative function of shatra and its relationship to the land and identity claims of people participating in the ritual. The concept of “return address” is introduced and applied to Altaian ritual. The local community is not only an “addressee”; it has agency in communications between human and nonhuman beings. It is concluded that the shatra may be metaphorically interpreted as a knot in the relationship network connecting humans, spirits, landscape, things, and materials.

Faulkner’s Gambit: Chess and Literature by Michael Wainwright (review)

Reviewed by: Faulkner’s Gambit: Chess and Literature by Michael Wainwright Patrick Samway S. J. Michael Wainwright. Faulkner’s Gambit: Chess and Literature. New York: Palgrave, 2011. 222pp. Chess, which has a mathematical component rooted in logic and computational thinking, is an intellectual game that promotes at the very least concentration, competition, creativity, reasoning, problem-solving, and memory—distinctive human traits that appealed to William Faulkner’s creative imagination. Moreover, a chess player takes responsibility for his or her moves and learns to make commitments, thus developing a deep sense of strategy. Along the way, he or she acquires a sense of discipline, knowing that the ultimate goal is victory, not defeat. If the game ends in a checkmate, one can profit from knowing the thought processes of one’s opponent, and armed with this knowledge, one can begin the game anew. Finally, since chess pieces have names and can move in certain, specified ways, one normally develops an active visual imagination that can deal with possibles and probables that are often intuited and cannot be programmed completely in advance for the very reason that one’s opponent is engaged in similar processes of observation and analysis. As Michael Wainwright acknowledges, no explicit evidence exists that Faulkner’s father ever taught him to play chess, though “the ambience of chess and the symbolism commonly associated with the game exerted an osmotic pressure on him as he settled into the Vieux Carré in 1925” (43). Faulkner’s knowledge of chess or perhaps lack of it, as he mentioned in a letter to Malcolm Cowley written in early June 1949, should always be kept in mind, though he sometimes played chess in the summer of 1934 with his stepson Malcolm and Malcolm’s friend, Arthur Guyton. Wainwright suggests that Faulkner could have become more knowledgeable about chess in off-hour games with Humphrey Bogart, a known chess aficionado, during the filming in 1944 of To Have and Have Not. While Faulkner’s awareness of chess might be seen to a certain extent in The Marionettes, chess imagery is clearly demonstrable in Flags in the Dust and Light in August, particularly in the gruesome scenes depicting Percy Grimm’s murder of Joe Christmas. Though “Knight’s Gambit” has a few explicit references to chess, the chess maneuvers of Chick Mallison and his uncle Gavin Stevens provide the story’s controlling metaphor centering on Captain Sebastian Gualdres’s relationship with the daughter of Mrs. Melisandre Backus Harriss and Gavin’s long-suppressed desire to marry the widow Harriss once her daughter and unruly son Max, a latent homosexual according to Wainwright, are no longer at home. In referring to himself, Gavin notes that a knight can move two squares at once and even in two directions at once, but he cannot move twice. During the course of the story, Gavin checks [End Page 880] the queen (Mrs. Harriss) and her castle (her immense Sutpen-like house and property) all in the same move. When the Harriss children interrupt the chess game between Chick and Gavin, Gavin is given the chance to defeat the Argentinian knight, Gualdres, and move to take his long-lost queen in marriage. In effect, the story transitions from a detective story to Gavin’s personal history of romance, an aspect of Gavin’s character never suspected by Chick. Not really having known his uncle until now, Chick has tended all along to view his uncle as a glib lawyer and district attorney, translating assiduously—almost monk like—the Bible back into classical Greek. Faulkner’s Gambit: Chess and Literature focuses not only on the story “Knight’s Gambit” (named for the king’s knight’s gambit), which Faulkner likewise used as the title of his 1949 collection of stories, but also on the sociology of play and sport as developed by Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois; on the history of chess and important chess theoreticians, especially the English strategist Howard Staunton, author of Chess: Theory and Practice, and Paul Morphy of New Orleans, who might have influenced Faulkner’s friend William Spratling; on Ernest Jones’s three-volume biography of Morphy; and on Vladimir Nabokov’s The Defense: A Novel...

Checkmate to deliberate practice: the case of Magnus Carlsen.

Checkmate to deliberate practice: the case of Magnus Carlsen.

North by Midwest: Moving the World Chess Hall of Fame and Museum from Miami to St. Louis

After seven years of commendably representing the rich history of chess in Miami, Florida, the World Chess Hall of Fame and Museum is scheduled to re-open its doors in St. Louis, Missouri in September 2011. The road to St. Louis has been a long and winding one for this young institution, which counts its new home as the fourth in its relatively brief twenty-seven year history. From its modest beginnings in a basement in New Windsor, New York to a new multimillion-dollar facility in St. Louis’ upscale shopping and dining district, the hall of fame has had to adapt to a number of different spaces and environments, all the while maintaining its mission to commemorate the game's greatest players, as well as to educate visitors about the long and remarkable history of the game and the impact it has had on cultures worldwide. After a brief look at the origins of the World Chess Hall of Fame and Museum, this essay will explore how the museum came to move from Miami to St. Louis, the procedures used to make this transition as organized and efficient as possible, and the obstacles the organizers have faced-and will face-in the months leading up to and following the opening in fall 2011.

More on anti‐spam, history of chess, Russ Ackoff

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review a recent electronic publication on the menace of spam and, related to previous work, look at the dangers the internet holds for children. A valuable source of information on history of chess is reviewed and the death of Prof. Russell Ackoff in Philadelphia is reported, with links to sources of obituaries and further details.Design/methodology/approachThe aim is to review developments on the internet, especially those of general cybernetic interest.FindingsThe data on spam indicate, the nature and extent of the problem it presents. Chess is shown to have deeper historical roots than is widely known. With the death of Russ Ackoff another major figure has disappeared from the scene.Practical implicationsThe review of means of combating spam is of undoubted value, as is the mention of a means of seeking police help over internet abuse affecting children. The review of history of chess should be a valuable reference where the game is discussed in an AI context.Originality/valueIt is hoped this is a valuable periodic review.

Contingency, Necessity, Teleology, and Progress: Reply to Mazlish

30 Historically Speaking May/June 2006 Contingency, Necessity, Teleology, and Progress: Reply to Mazlish Aviezer Tucker Bruce Mazlish notes correctly that there is enormous conceptual confusion over contingency, necessity, teleology, and progress in history. I hope to clarify some of these confusions. The related concepts of contingency and necessity are independent of teleology, and teleology and progress are independent of each other as well. Teleology and Contingency Mazlish seems to assume that historical teleology is inconsistent with historical contingency . Since historical teleology implies that history or some historical processes have an end or a purpose, historical contingency , the possibility that things could have turned out otherwise, precludes a predestined end. Historical necessity seems to be a necessary condition for a predestined telos, but it ain't necessarily so. In book two of his Physics Aristotle distinguished four types ofcauses: material, formal, moving, and teleological. The moving cause is the primary source of change or coming to rest, as the sculpture is to a statue. The teleological cause is the end for the sake ofwhich an event happens, such as the finished statue for its making. In his Timaeus and Philebus Plato suggested that necessity, the moving cause (ananke in Greek or causa efficiens in Latin), may be in conflict with telos, the final cause that permeates the universe. Plato considered the moving cause to be a blind, brute, necessary force that the etiologic "Mind"— "Divine Mind," "Divine Intelligence," "Reason," "Wisdom," or plain "Zeus"—needs to "get the better of or to "persuade" to move in the correct meaningful direction, "perfection ." With the exception of the Atomists, Greek philosophers felt that the necessary, moving cause was insufficient for explaining the order of the universe and the place of humanity in it. Plato and Aristotle added teleology for this purpose. Teleology is distinct from necessity, and the two may affect events in contradictory directions. Plato's idea that teleology can use necessity as a tool was developed later in the theistic philosophies of history of Vico and Hegel, where cunning divine reason uses human motivations in the service of a historical plan designed to lead to the end of history. It also appears in less metaphysically presumptuous philosophies that uphold the heterogenesis of ends—the "private vices, public virtues" social theories that Malebranche and Vico shared with Adam Smith. Likewise, Marx One may write about the history of chess or electrical engineering and notice steady progress . ... Yet that does not imply that there is a telos of chessplaying or engineering. combined necessity with teleology in arguing that inevitable economic processes would lead to a classless society, thereby eliminating the class antagonisms he saw as the necessary engine of world history. Individual voluntary action can "lengthen the birth pangs" of the end ofhistory but not prevent it. Conversely, historical contingency can be consistent with historical teleology. If we interpret contingency probabilistically, we may suggest that at given junctures in history (social or natural) there was a certain distribution of probabilities across several options. The fact that one of these low-probability, contingent potentials actualized whereas the others did not may be consistent with either a teleological or purposeless interpretations of history. For example, in a fair lottery, there is an equal distribution ofvery low probabilities for each ticket to be the winning ticket. It is necessary that some ticket should win, but it is contingent that this ticket will. When one ticket —say, yours—wins, it is consistent with a teleological interpretation that you were meant or destined to win. Since both historical contingency and necessity are equally consistent with both a teleological and non-teleological interpretation of history, the concepts of teleology and contingency/necessity are independent ofeach other. Teleology and Progress Obviously, not all teleological interpretations ofhistory are progressive, since the end ofhistory may be a return to barbarism or even the annihilation of the human race in universal entropy. Progressive interpretations of history may be a subset of teleological interpretations. However, progressive interpretations are not necessarily teleological. It may be argued that, from our value-laden perspective, history progressed for a while toward a greater fulfillment of our values, without assuming that there is any grander final cause or design...

Jeu des échecs, société politique et art de la guerre. Les révolutions du XVIIIe siècle

Chess, Political Society and Art of War. Revolutions of the XVIIIth Century Didier Renard The publication in 1749, in London, of L'analyze des échecs by François-André Danican Philidor is a milestone in the history of chess. Through the book and subsequent practice a divide is drawn between the game of chess as played on the board, endowed within these limits with its own rules and logic on the one hand, and the previously all-encompassing social experience and conventions of the game on the other. Meanwhile, the idea of chess as a political game remains unaffected. At the end of the 18th century, chess still is recognized as aptly representing the polity and the battlefield alike. Loosening its ties although as a symbol from the boardgame itself, it tends to initiate an independent history as such.

The Kasparov-World Match

The Kasparov-World match was initiated by Microsoft with sponsorship from the bank First USA. The concept was that Garry Kasparov as White would play the rest of the world on the Web: one ply would be played per day and the World Team was to vote for its move. The Kasparov-World game was a success from many points of view. It certainly gave thousands the feeling of facing the world’s best player across the board and did much for the future of the game. Described by Kasparov as “phenomenal ... the most complex in chess history”, it is probably a worthy ‘Greatest Game’ candidate. Computer technology has given chess a new mode of play and taken it to new heights: the experiment deserves to be repeated. We look forward to another game and experience of this quality although it will be difficult to surpass the event we have just enjoyed. We salute and thank all those who contributed - sponsors, moderator, coaches, unofficial analysts, organisers, technologists, voters and our new friends.