The Chess Pieces

What do the chess pieces mean? Is there some sort of symbolism?
There are thirty-two pieces in a chess set; eight pawns, two castles or “rooks,” two knights, two bishops, one queen and one king of each color. Their meanings refer back to the Middle Ages when the game was brought into Europe by the Muslim Moors.
The king and queen are the monarchy, exactly as they appear. The bishops were the representatives of the Church, very much a part of everyone’s life in the Middle Ages. The knights were mounted warriors, thus the use of the horse’s head to represent this piece. These are the only professional soldiers in the game. The castles refer to the king’s home. The pawns are the peasants, the foot soldiers, and like every society there are more of them than any of the other pieces.
Interestingly, the term “freelance” comes from this same period. Originally, the term referred to any knight who was not sworn to any army, but was “free” to carry his own “lance” (weapon) for anyone who would pay him.

If the chess pieces came from the Moors, why is there a cross on top of the king? And why would the queen be so powerful in a Muslim game?
The Europeans put the cross on the king’s head as something of a modification in defiance of their Moorish neighbors. It was their way of taking this game and making it their own. But relations between Christians and Muslims in the Moorish occupation of Spain were not as hostile as this may sound. See our new poster on our website for an historic chess game in the Spanish court. (www.ChessRight.com  Books, etc.  POSTER: King Alfonse X)
As for the queen, when the game first came into Spain, that piece was originally the king’s vizier, his most trusted counselor. Many scholars believe that the powerful queen that served as the inspiration for the modern chess piece was Queen Isabella of Spain, although in those days the piece did not move quite like the modern game piece.

Chess Duel

More on the Benefits of Chess

http://www.blinklearning.com/Cursos/c26_c225_Benefits_of_Chess.php

More about Chess and Kids

This article suggests that kindergarten is not too soon to begin reaping the benefits of learning to play chess:

Summertime!

Summertime is every school kid's favorite time of year. The days grow longer and the pace of life slows down.

Some folks believe that school should stay in session year-round claiming that students forget their lessons during this break. Others defend summer vacation as a necessary time to relax and recharge. Rather than let your brain get lazy, there are chess camps to build your game during the summer. Another choice might be to take some online chess classes such as those offered at Anatoly Karpov's International Chess School.

Many families make the most of this time to travel on their summer vacations. This was always my favorite part of summer, whether my destination was a beach, a mountain or a museum. I like getting away for a while, seeing the scenery and visiting new places.

If you are lucky enough to have travel plans this summer, don't leave your chess game behind. At www.ChessRight.com, we have several inexpensive travel kits to help pass the extra hours waiting for your connection. Or buy one to keep your kids quiet in the back seat of the car!

Whatever your summer plans, your travel chess game can go with you. No batteries required!


Pegged Travel Set -- $24.95 plus shipping




Magnetic Chess Set -- $32.95 plus shipping

So come visit our store at www.ChessRight.com and take a look at the beautiful travel chess combos we have to offer. At these great prices, you are assured of being able to find something just right for your summer game.

Keep playing chess!

www.ChessRight.com

Two Totally Excellent Chess Videos

Chess Players are the Villains!

A friend of mine offered me several books this past week. I have a lot of books but there always seems to be room for more. So I took a look -- these were detective novels. Generally, I don't read a lot of detective stories although I admit to a great weakness for Stacy Keach's portrayal of TV detective Mike Hammer, and of course Sherlock Holmes. Nevertheless, I took one along for some potential summer reading.

Edgar Allen Poe is reputed to have written the first detective story in the modern genre with The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841). Poe uses the chess motif in some of his works, but clearly with little technical expertise and not much liking. He referred to the game as "frivolous" and compared it unfavorably with checkers. It was Edgar Allen Poe who began the image of the chess aficionado as the nearly-machine-like semi-human villain with many schemes and few emotions.

The first Grandmaster of modern detective fiction would have to be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writing his famous Sherlock Holmes stories some fifty years after Poe's works. While Doyle's personal opinion of the game of chess is not known, he plays to his readers' prejudices and confines his chess references to his villains and scoundrels. In "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman" (around 1898), the title hero is an avid chess player who murders his chess partner. While Doyle uses the moves of the chess matches in the story to foreshadow the action in the story, Holmes also uses the chess games as a clue to solving the murders. Holmes declares that an interest in chess is "[a] mark, Watson, of a scheming mind."

One of the more technically proficient recountings of a game of chess in a detective novel was penned by Agatha Christie in The Big Four (1927). In this story, a chess master was murdered by a strong electrical shock dealt him in the third move of his Ruy Lopez opening. In anticipation of his opening, the electical connection was rigged to the square on the board through the floor from the apartment below. Unlike the other two stories mentioned here, Agatha Christie's chess player is the victim, not the scheming villain.

Ian Fleming portrays one of his villains in From Russia with Love (1957) as a Russian Grandmaster but the description of the actual chess play is nonsense and incidental to the story.

So it appears that chess players have a negative image in modern detective novels. Chess players are the villains, more often than otherwise. It remains curious to me that Sherlock Holmes was not portrayed as a chess player, given his penchant for logical thinking. Holmes remains a popular figure among chess players -- who apparently admire him more than he admired chess players.

This popular decorative chess set captures the characters of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective stories of the many adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is accompanied on his adventures by his faithful companion Doctor Watson, while the rest of the set features other leading characters from the famous stories including Mrs. Hudson and Inspector Lestrade, others. These carefully designed pieces are based on the original drawings that appeared in the Strand Magazine to accompany the Sherlock Holmes stories. Enhance your own reasoning skills through playing chess .... whenever a worthy opponent can be found. You will find this set on sale today at our website. Please purchase your set from www.ChessRight.com while this sale lasts!

Keep playing chess!