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for the changes was that in the old form of the game it took too long to get through the opening period. The new form, which dates from about 1500 A.D. and the characteristic feature of which is the enlarged power of Queen and Bishop, is our modern Chess, the rules of which are uniform throughout the civilized world.

In the Seventeenth Century Chess flourished mostly in Italy, which consequently produced the strongest players. Some of them traveled throughout Europe, challenging the best players of the other countries and for the most part emerging victorious. At that time Chess was in high esteem, especially at the courts of the kings who followed the example of Philip the Second of Spain in honoring the traveling masters and rewarding them liberally for their exhibition matches.

Towards the beginning of the Eighteenth Century the game reached a high stage of development in France, England and Germany. The most famous master of the time was the Frenchman, Andre Philidor, who for more than forty years easily maintained his supremacy over all players with whom he came in contact, and whose fame has since been equaled only by the American Champion, Paul Morphy, and by the German, Emanuel Lasker.

During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries the number of players who obtained international fame increased rapidly, and in 1851, due to the efforts of the English Champion Staunton, an international tournament was held in London to determine the championship of Europe. It was won by the German master Anderssen, who maintained his leading place for the following fifteen years, until he was beaten by the youthful Morphy. The latter, at twenty years of age, was the first American master to visit Europe and defeated in brilliant style all European masters whom he met.

Morphy withdrew from the game after his return to America and did not try to match himself with the Bohemian Steinitz, who in the meantime had beaten Anderssen, too, and who had come to America. Steinitz assumed the title of the World’s Champion and defended it successfully against all competitors until 1894, when he was beaten by Emanuel Lasker, who is still World’s Champion, having never lost a match.

The next aspirant for the World’s Championship is the young Cuban, Jose Raoul Capablanca, who has proved to be superior to all masters except Lasker. He entered the arena of international tournaments at the age of twenty-two in San Sebastian, Spain, in 1911, and won the first prize in spite of the competition of nearly all of Europe’s masters. In the last international tournament, which was held in Petrograd in 1914, he finished second, Emanuel Lasker winning first prize.

The present ranking of the professional Chess masters is about the following:

 

1. Emanuel Lasker, Berlin, World’s Champion.

2. J. R. Capablanca, Havana, Pan-American Champion.

3. A. Rubinstein, Warsaw, Russian Champion.

4. K. Schlechter, Vienna, Austrian Champion.

5. Frank Marshall, New York, United States Champion.

6. R. Teichmann, Berlin.

7. A. Aljechin, Moscow.

Other players of international fame are the Germans, Tarrasch and Spielmann, the Austrians, Duras, Marocy and Vidmar, the Russians, Bernstein and Niemzowitsch, the Frenchman, Janowski and the Englishman, Burn. Up to the time of the outbreak of the war the leading Chess Clubs of the different countries arranged, as an annual feature, national and international tournaments, thus bringing the Chess players of all nationalities into close contact.

This internationalism of Chess is of great advantage to the Chess player who happens to be traveling in a foreign country. There are innumerable Chess Clubs spread all over the globe and the knowledge of the game is the only introduction a man needs to be hospitably received and to form desirable social and business connections.

It would be going beyond the limit of this summary of the history of Chess if I tried to give even an outline of the extremely interesting part Chess has played in French, English and German literature from the Middle Ages up to the present time. Suffice it to mention that Chess literature by far exceeds that of all other games combined. More than five thousand volumes on Chess have been written, and weekly or monthly magazines solely devoted to Chess are published in all countries, so that Chess has, so to speak, become an international, universal language.

 

The History of Checkers

 

The literature on the game of Checkers (English: Draughts) is very limited and there are no certain references to prove that the game was known before the Sixteenth Century. Two theories are current as to its origin; one of them claiming it to be a simplified Chess, the other explaining it as the result of transferring the Spanish game Alquerque de doze to the Chess board.

H. J. R. Murray, the greatest authority on the history of games, considers it most likely that the game has been evolved from both Chess and Alquerque. The method of capturing men and the rule concerning the huffing of a man unquestionably point to the Spanish game, while the board, the diagonal move of the men and the idea of crowning a man are taken from Chess.

In France, Germany, Italy and Spain the name of the game is still that of the Queen of Chess (Dame, Dama) whose move in the Middle Ages was identical with the move of the Checkermen.

Checkers has never been able to attain more than national uniformity, and it is played with different rules in different countries. In the United States it is more popular than in any other country and a number of players have obtained national fame. The best players at present are considered to be Newell Banks and Alfred Jordan.

PART I: 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; one King, one Queen, two Rooks (or Castles), two Bishops, two Knights and eight Pawns. The Generals of the two armies are the two players themselves. The men of one side are of light color and are called White, those of the other side are of dark color and are called Black.

The object of the game is to capture the opposing King. When this is done the battle is ended, the side losing whose King is captured. To understand what is meant by the capture of the King it is first necessary to become acquainted with the laws according to which the different men move on the board.

To start with, the board must be placed so that the players have a white square at their right. Then the men take the positions shown in Diagram 1.

The Rooks occupy the corner squares; next to them stand the Knights; then the Bishops and in the center the King and the Queen.

+–––––––––––––+

8 | #R | #Kt| #B | #Q | #K | #B | #K | #R |

|–––––––––––––|

7 | #P | #P | #P | #P | #P | #P | #P | #P |

|–––––––––––––|

6 | | | | | | | | |

|–––––––––––––|

5 | | | | | | | | |

|–––––––––––––|

4 | | | | | | | | |

|–––––––––––––|

3 | | | | | | | | |

|–––––––––––––|

2 | ^P | ^P | ^P | ^P | ^P | ^P | ^P | ^P |

|–––––––––––––|

1 | ^R | ^Kt| ^B | ^Q | ^K | ^B | ^Kt| ^R |

+–––––––––––––+

a b c d e f g h

DIAGRAM 1

The white Queen must be on the white square and the black Queen on the black square. These eight, men are commonly known as β€œpieces” in distinction from the Pawns. The latter occupy the line of squares immediately in front of the Pieces.

The lines of squares now occupied by the men and the other four vacant horizontal lines between them are called RANKS. The vertical lines of squares running perpendicularly to the ranks are called FILES. The oblique lines of squares, that is, lines which connect squares of the same color, are called DIAGONALS.

To describe the moves of the men on the board in a simple way it is necessary to indicate every square and every man by a short symbol. For this purpose different systems have been suggested at different times, but only two of them have been generally adopted. The older one, called the β€œdescriptive notation,” still predominates in the English, French and Spanish speaking countries, but as leading English and American writers have lately used the newer β€œalgebraic notation” which is much more simple, the latter will be employed in this book. Later the former method will be explained for the sake of completeness.

In the algebraic notation the files are lettered from a to h, starting from the file on White’s left. The ranks are numbered from 1 to 8, starting from the rank on which White’s pieces stand at the beginning of the game. Each square is now easily indicated by naming the file and rank at which it forms the intersection. The Rook in Diagram 2, for instance, stands on e4, the Bishop on C4, the Pawns on h4 and g7, the Knight on f7, the Queen on d6 and the Kings on c1 and g3.

+–––––––––––––+

8 | | | | | | | | |

|–––––––––––––|

7 | | | | | | ^Kt| #P | |

|–––––––––––––|

6 | | | | #Q | | | | |

|–––––––––––––|

5 | | | | | | | | |

|–––––––––––––|

4 | | | #B | | ^R | | | ^P |

|–––––––––––––|

3 | | | | | | | #K | |

|–––––––––––––|

2 | | | | | | | | |

|–––––––––––––|

1 | | | ^K | | | | | |

+–––––––––––––+

a b c d e f g h

DIAGRAM 2

As symbols for the men the first letters of their names are used. Thus K stands for King, Q for Queen, R for Rook, B for Bishop, Kt or N for Knight and P for Pawn.

 

THE MOVES OF THE MEN

 

Each of the six kinds of men moves in a different way. To remember the six varieties of moves naturally requires a little more effort than to remember just the one way of moving as in most other board games. But it takes only very little practice to become familiar with the various moves of the Chessmen and it is soon revealed to the learner that the variety of the moves enables a surprising depth and wealth of combinations which give keener and greater pleasure to this game than to any other.

 

The Rook

 

The Rook may move forward, backward or sideways in a straight line along a path not obstructed by a man of the same color. In other words, he may move to any square of the rank or file on which he stands unless another man of his own color is in the way. If there is a hostile man in the way he may capture him by occupying his square and removing him from the board.

In Diagram 2, for instance, the Rook could move to e5, e6, e7, e8, e3, e2, e1, f4, g4, d4 and c4. In making the latter move he would capture the black Bishop. The Rook may not go to h4 because a man of his own color stands there nor may he go to b4 or e4 because he is not allowed to jump over the Bishop. He could, of course, move to either of these squares on his next move after capturing the Bishop.

 

The Bishop

 

The Bishop

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