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Date: 18 Jan 2008 20:58:21
From: M Winther
Subject: In defense of chess variants
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"In defense of chess as a party game"
Chess during the medieval era was a very popular parlour game,
especially among the upper classes. But by the turn of the seventeenth
century it was no longer fashionable. ilyn Yalom says:
"Ironically enough, it may be that the elevation of the chess queen
and the bishop to new levels of strength had something to do with the
dwindling numbers of female participants. Once those two pieces
acquired a greater range of mobility, it took fewer moves, on average,
to complete a match. New chess was no longer suited to leisurely
encounters between ladies and gentlemen that could last a day or more,
with interruptions for eating, drinking, dancing, and singing, or, in
more plebian settings, for stirring the pot and nursing the baby. New
chess was fast and fierce. A match could be over in a few hours or
even a few moves if you didn't pay strict attention. Hands had to be
ready to grasp a piece on the board, and not a knee under the table.
Chess would no longer tolerate dalliance of any sort. As chess became
less social and more competitive, the professional chess player
arrived on the scene. Forget the troubadour chess partner or the
attentive lover or even the town Wunderkind who was allowed to take
time off after the harvest to play with the local lord. Now there were
full-time champions earning their living from arranged matches in
princely settings throughout Europe (Yalom, Birth of the Chess Queen,
pp. 228-9).
It is against this backdrop that we must view many chess variants of
later date. For instance, certain big board variants (10x10) fulfil
the criterion of a slower game suitable for the leisurely parlour. I
mention two examples, Paulovits's variant c. 1890 :
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/paulovitsgame.htm
and my own Mastodon Chess:
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/mastodon.htm
To the modern chess players the empty spaces at the flanks must appear
like immense deserts where pieces can squander about without seeing
much sign of enemy opposition. Such a game can never acquire the
"nerve" of standard chess. But this is a good quality because then we
are somehow back at the leisurely parlour game where the technique of
moving pieces needn't be that exacting.
I want to strike a blow for a form of chess which isn't that
competitive. The above two big board variants contain many finesses,
but if played by strong players they are likely to end in a draw, I
suppose. Outside the sporting context this is not disadvantageous. If
we want a still slower game then we can turn to 100 year old Shatranj
Kamil, allegedly invented by Timur Lenk. There are also slow standard
board variants, like Thai Chess (Makruk).
The conclusion is that it's much up to the character of the game and
its rules if a game is to become a popular social occupation. Chess
had acquired an immense romantic status during the medieval era, but
now there is almost nothing left of this. During the 19th century,
people could still be seen playing chess in a lounge, smoking a cigar,
sipping from a glass of cognac. But today chess is merely
professional. Occasional park players also want money.
Mats
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Date: 24 Jan 2008 13:46:11
From: David Richerby
Subject: Re: In defense of chess variants
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> "Ironically enough, it may be that the elevation of the chess queen
> and the bishop to new levels of strength had something to do with
> the dwindling numbers of female participants. Once those two pieces
> acquired a greater range of mobility, it took fewer moves, on
> average, to complete a match. New chess was no longer suited to
> leisurely encounters between ladies and gentlemen that could last a
> day or more, with interruptions for eating, drinking, dancing, and
> singing, or, in more plebian settings, for stirring the pot and
> nursing the baby. New chess was fast and fierce. A match could be
> over in a few hours or even a few moves if you didn't pay strict
> attention. Hands had to be ready to grasp a piece on the board, and
> not a knee under the table. Chess would no longer tolerate
> dalliance of any sort."
> -- ilyn Yalom, _Birth of the Chess Queen_, pp. 228-9.
What nonsense. Yalom implies that the increased movement powers of
the queen and the bishop suddenly caused chess to accelerate from
leisurely multi-day rambles to clock-slapping, piece-flying blitz.
Yet one can clearly play modern chess just as slowly (measured in
terms of time between moves) as any other version of the game: the
longer range pieces mean that more can be accomplished (or lost) in
fewer moves but it has absolutely no bearing on the physical speed at
which the game is played or the amount of under-table fondling that
can be performed.
Surely, the greater range of the pieces and any increase in the
physical speed at which chess was played were both a result of a
general desire to have the games not take so long. Both were caused
by an external pressure on the game; neither caused the other.
And I note that Yalom can't even distinguish between a game and a
match, which is the sort of error that makes me wonder why she feels
qualified to write anything about chess at all.
M Winther <[email protected] > wrote:
> But today chess is merely professional.
No it isn't: the vast majority of players have never received a penny
from their chess activities, let alone made their living from them.
That said, the main point of your post -- that many chess variants
could better be considered as parlour games than as competitive
undertakings -- is interesting and, I think, valid.
Dave.
--
David Richerby Voodoo Painting (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ Renaissance masterpiece that has
mystical powers!
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Date: 18 Jan 2008 21:19:42
From: M Winther
Subject: Re: In defense of chess variants
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Correction: Shatranj Kamil is 1000 years old.
Mats
Den 2008-01-18 20:58:21 skrev M Winther <[email protected] >:
> "In defense of chess as a party game"
>
> Chess during the medieval era was a very popular parlour game,
> especially among the upper classes. But by the turn of the seventeenth
> century it was no longer fashionable. ilyn Yalom says:
>
> "Ironically enough, it may be that the elevation of the chess queen
> and the bishop to new levels of strength had something to do with the
> dwindling numbers of female participants. Once those two pieces
> acquired a greater range of mobility, it took fewer moves, on average,
> to complete a match. New chess was no longer suited to leisurely
> encounters between ladies and gentlemen that could last a day or more,
> with interruptions for eating, drinking, dancing, and singing, or, in
> more plebian settings, for stirring the pot and nursing the baby. New
> chess was fast and fierce. A match could be over in a few hours or
> even a few moves if you didn't pay strict attention. Hands had to be
> ready to grasp a piece on the board, and not a knee under the table.
> Chess would no longer tolerate dalliance of any sort. As chess became
> less social and more competitive, the professional chess player
> arrived on the scene. Forget the troubadour chess partner or the
> attentive lover or even the town Wunderkind who was allowed to take
> time off after the harvest to play with the local lord. Now there were
> full-time champions earning their living from arranged matches in
> princely settings throughout Europe (Yalom, Birth of the Chess Queen,
> pp. 228-9).
>
> It is against this backdrop that we must view many chess variants of
> later date. For instance, certain big board variants (10x10) fulfil
> the criterion of a slower game suitable for the leisurely parlour. I
> mention two examples, Paulovits's variant c. 1890 :
> http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/paulovitsgame.htm
> and my own Mastodon Chess:
> http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/mastodon.htm
>
> To the modern chess players the empty spaces at the flanks must appear
> like immense deserts where pieces can squander about without seeing
> much sign of enemy opposition. Such a game can never acquire the
> "nerve" of standard chess. But this is a good quality because then we
> are somehow back at the leisurely parlour game where the technique of
> moving pieces needn't be that exacting.
>
> I want to strike a blow for a form of chess which isn't that
> competitive. The above two big board variants contain many finesses,
> but if played by strong players they are likely to end in a draw, I
> suppose. Outside the sporting context this is not disadvantageous. If
> we want a still slower game then we can turn to 100 year old Shatranj
> Kamil, allegedly invented by Timur Lenk. There are also slow standard
> board variants, like Thai Chess (Makruk).
>
> The conclusion is that it's much up to the character of the game and
> its rules if a game is to become a popular social occupation. Chess
> had acquired an immense romantic status during the medieval era, but
> now there is almost nothing left of this. During the 19th century,
> people could still be seen playing chess in a lounge, smoking a cigar,
> sipping from a glass of cognac. But today chess is merely
> professional. Occasional park players also want money.
>
> Mats
>
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