CHESS COMPENDIUM

FAMOUS LETTERS ON THE GAME OF CHESS

2005-04-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Lettere di Giambatista Verci academico agiato, ed anistamico alla nob. sig. contessa Francesca Roberti Franco sopra il giuoco degli scacchi.

By: VERCI, Giambatista.

Book Description: Venice, Giovanni Gatti, 1778. Contemporary decorated wrappers. Title in decorated border, engraved vignette and interesting typographical headpiece.

Rare original and only edition of these eight letters by Giambatista Verci (1739-1795) to the Countess Francesca Roberti Franco on the game of chess.

In 1994 the text of these letters was considered interesting enough to publish a modern annoteted edition. Cat. Chess collect. Royal Libr. The Hague 4156; Alessandro Sanvito ed., Le lettere scacchistiche di Giambattista Verci. Venice 1994 (= Scacchio e scienze applicate 12).

STRATEGONON

2005-04-29T03:23:00.000-07:00

Strategonon. Very early game of military strategy employing math, etc.] hand-colored plates

By: Aretin, Wilhelm Freiherrn

Book Description: Ansbach Doll 1830. Rare War Board-Game Book Aretin, Wilhelm, Freiherr von. Strategonon.

Versuch die Kriegführung durch ein Spiel anschaulich darzustellen.

Old stamps on title, Very good copy. First Edition. Very rare, with only one location in NUC (1983 fiche catalog, showing only the Cleveland Public Library copy).

Describes what the author considers the most true-to-life war board-game yet published, which he believes especially appropriate for advanced cadets, who can learn to be good officers from playing it.

Baron von Aretin, a lieutenant in the royal Bavarian light cavalry (second regiment, to be precise), belonged to a family distinguished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for public service (see NBG).

He writes in his introduction that he has based his war game on one devised in 1803 by his uncle Baron Georg von Aretin, which was never published. Von Aretin gives an overview and critique of war board-games from the seventeenth century, especially those of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These games, derived from the rules and playing board of chess, have in recent times come closer to a true-to-life simulation of war situations, but are on account of lack of verisimilitude, or cumbersomeness of the board, or length of time needed to play, inferior to the game he describes in his book.

Von Aretin has factored into his game natural troop movements, considerations of equipment, terrain and time of year, the working of various weapons, supplies, rules, headquarters and commanders, desertion, sieges, destruction of bridges, naval warfare, etc.

The three folding hand-colored plates with approx. fifty figures show the game pieces; the five folding tables give data on the march of troops and the working of weapons in different contexts.

MAGIE

2005-04-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

Magie, oder, Die zauberkräfte der natur....; Fortgesetzte Magie, oder, die Zauberkräfte der Natur....; Neufortgesetzte Magie, oder, die Zauberkräfte der Natur....

By: HALLE, Johann Samuel

Book Description: Berlin Joachim Pauli 1784 - 1802. Seventeen volumes in fourteen. With engraved title vignettes, woodcut head- and tailpieces and 124 folding engraved plates; subject indices complete. Uniformly bound in contemporary half-calf over paste-boards, gilt lettering on spines; First editions of all volumes, an absolutely superb set, complete with the rarely seen 1802 Neufortgesetzte Magie.

This encyclopedia not only covers magic and the history of magic, but documents and illustrates, with beautiful plates, incredible accounts of human knowledge as well as physical science and technology through the eighteenth century.

Halle contributes a huge amount of new material in addition to describing and illustrating the current state of optics, electricity and magnetism, chemistry, mechanics, hydraulics, gunpowder, metallurgy, manufacturing, horology, acoustics, aerostatics (such as those by the Montgolfiers), meteorology (chapters on lightning and lightning conductors), cryptography, paper making, and engraving.

He covers games of amusement, keyboard instructions, fortune-telling devices, magic lanterns, talking machines, Kempelen's automaton chess player, mechanical games, stage props, telegraphy, mouse traps, tobacco and coffee, sign language, swimming, botany, plants and animals, artificial pearls, remedies (different herbs and mixtures), opium, distillation and wine making, etc., and all sorts of curiosities.

Halle (1727-1810), a toxicologist, was professor of history at the Royal Prussian Military Academy in Berlin. Little is known of his life, but he wrote many books on subjects of social, economic, technological, and military history.

I Was Tortured In The Pasadena Jailhouse

2005-03-29T16:43:00.000-08:00

I Was Tortured In The Pasadena Jailhouse

By: Fisher, Bobby

Book Description: 1982, 1st edition, fine, stiff pictorial wraps, published by Bobby Fisher, Pasadena, 14 pages.

An unusual pamplet written by Bobby Fisher, The World Chess Champion, who was arrested as a suspect in a bank robbery in Pasadena, California, and his harrowing experiences in the Pasadena Jail and eventual outcome.

FIDE RATING JANUARY 2005

2005-03-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

FIDE RATING LIST JANUARY 2005

In the January 2005 rating list issued by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), Garry Kasparov of Russia is still on top with a 2804 rating.

Vishy Anand of India is second with 2786; Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov moves to the third spot with 2757.

World champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia has 2754, and his opponent, Peter Leko of Hungary, is fifth with 2749. Russia's Alexander Morozevich and England's Michael Adams share a rating of 2741.

Peter Svidler, a four-time Russian champion, has 2735. The top woman in the world, Judit Polgar of Hungary, has a 2728 rating.

Etienne Bacrot of France closes the Top 10 list with 2715.

A Wicked Trap

Alexei Shirov, soon to be living back in Riga, Latvia, is only two points behind Bacrot. He is still a formidable player who can turn a game around by a single, unsuspected idea. In the Smartfish Masters underway in the Norwegian town of Drammen, Shirov was outplayed in the Advanced variation of the French defense by the legendary Viktor Korchnoi of Switzerland. To get out of an unpleasant position, Shirov set up an uncanny trap sacrificing a pawn. He was rewarded when the
unsuspecting Korchnoi took the bait.

Shirov-Korchnoi

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Be2 Nc6 (The strategic exchange of light bishops 6...Bb5 is successfully met by 7.c4! Bxc4 8.Bxc4 dxc4 9.d5 with white's edge.) 7.0-0 cxd4 8.cxd4 Nge7 9.Na3 Nf5 10.Nc2 h5 (Securing the knight on f5, but weakening the kingside.) 11.b3 (Shirov decides to fortify his pawn on d4. White can also relieve black's pressure on the center with 11.Bd3 since 11...Nfxd4?
12.Nfxd4 Nxd4 13.Be3 Bc5 14.b4 wins a piece for white.) 11...a5 12.Bb2 Be7 13.Ne3 (By sufficiently protecting the pawn on d4, white can now chase the pesky knight on f5.) 13...Nxe3 (After 13...g6 14.Nxf5 gxf5 the black king can't hide on the kingside anymore.) 14.fxe3 a4! (Korchnoi begins his advance on the queenside.)

15.Rb1 axb3 16.axb3 Ra2 17.Kh1 Nb4 18.Bc3 0-0?! (Korchnoi must feel confident that his king is safe.) 19.Ng1 h4 20.Nh3 Nc2 21.Bd2 (After 21.Bd3 Nxe3 22.Qh5 Nf5! 23.Nf4 Nh6 black defends.) 21...Na3 22.Rc1 Rb2 23.b4!? (Shirov is setting up a trap. He can't protect his b-pawn and, chasing away black's active rook with 23.Bc3, leads after 23...Rxe2! 24.Qxe2 Bb5 to black's advantage.) 23...Bxb4? (Even as a young player, Korchnoi loved to snatch pawns no matter how poisonous they might have been. This time he is quickly punished. Black has the edge with 23...Bb5!)

24.Bd3!! (By deflecting the dark bishop from the kingside, Shirov opens a deadly attack against the black king. Suddenly, black can't cope with a double threat: 25.Qh5 and 25.Bh7+! Kxh7 26.Qh5+ Kg8 27.Ng5 with a quick mate.) 24...g6 (The bishop on d2 is untouchable. After either 24...Rxd2 25.Bh7+ Kxh7 26.Qh5+ Kg8 27.Ng5; or after 24...Bxd2 25.Qh5 f5 26.exf6 Rxf6 27.Rc8+! Bxc8 28.Qe8+ black gets mated.) 25.Qg4 (Threatening to blow up black's kingside with 26.Bxg6. Black does not have a good defense, for example 25...Kg7 26.Ng5 Be8 27.Bxb4 Qxb4 28.Qxh4 Rh8 29.Rxf7+!! Bxf7 30.Nxe6+! Bxe6 31.Qf6+ Kg8 32.Qxe6+ Kg7 33.Qf6+ Kg8 34.Rc8+ Qf8 35.Qxg6 is an epaulet mate.) Black resigns.

Ivanov-Figler

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Be7 (A popular waiting move, courtesy of Ukrainian GM Oleg Romanishin.) 4.Ngf3 (4.e5 c5 5.Qg4 is more aggressive.) 4...Nf6 5.e5 Nfd7 6.Bd3 c5 7.c3 Nc6 8.0-0 h5 9.Re1 g5 (Black could have first exchanged pawns in the center 9...cxd4 10.cxd4 before striking on the wing with 10... g5. White can sacrifice a pawn 11.Nb3 g4 12.Nfd2 a5 13.a4 Qb6 14.Nb1! Nxd4 15.Nxd4 Qxd4 16.Nc3 with a promising game.) 10.dxc5!? g4 11.Nd4 Ndxe5 12.N2b3 (A new idea. In the previous games white tried to save his light bishop either with 12.Bb5 or with 12.Nxc6.) 12...Bd7?! (Black should have played here, or on the next move, Ne5xd3.) 13.Bf4 Bf6 14.Nxc6 Nxc6 15.Bd6! (This unpleasant bishop prevents short castling and can't be easily dislodged.) 15...Ne7 (After 15...Be7 white opens up the game with 16.c4!) 16.Nd4 b6 17.b4 Nc8? (Loses at once, but the black king was under pressure, nowhere to go.) 18.Nxe6! (After 18...Bxe6 19.Bb5+ wins the black queen and after 18...fxe6 19.Bg6 mates.) Black resigns.

Linares Tournament 2005:

Kasparov, G
Anand, V
Leko, P
Topalov, V
Adams, M
Vallejo Pons
Kasimdzhanov, R

JORGE LUIS BORGAS

2005-02-23T17:07:00.000-08:00

~ I ~

Each in his corner, the players
Govern their slow pieces. The board
Keeps them till dawn in its severe

Ambit of two-color hate.
Within irradiate magic rigors
Of form: Rook Homeric, light
Knight, armed Queen, final King,
Oblique Bishop and aggressor Pawns.

When the players are done
And time has consumed them,
The rite will not have ceased.

In the East this war caught fire,
The whole world its amphitheater now.
Like that other one, this game is infinite.

~ II ~

Tenuous King, slant Bishop, furious
Queen, direct Rook and crafty Pawn
Upon the black-and-white of the way

Seek and engage their armed battle.
They do not know the signal hand
Of the player governs their destiny,
That an adamantine rigor
Subjects their fancy and their journey.

The player too is a prisoner
(The sentence is Omar's) of another board
Of black nights and white days.

God moves the player, he the piece.
What God-hid god the weft begins
Of dust and time and dream and agonies?

(A slightly different translation, Jorge Luis Borges as quoted in "The Flanders Panel" by Arturo Perez-Reverte)

"The player too is prisoner
Of another board
Of black nights and white days.

God moves the player and the player the piece.
But which god behind God begins the weft
Of dust and time and sleep and dying?"

Another beautiful chess poem by Borges:

And since that day
I have not moved the pieces
On the board.

CENTO GIVOCHI LIBERALI

2005-02-11T23:31:00.000-08:00

CENTO GIVOCHI LIBERALI, ET D'INGEGNO,

By: RINGHIERI, Innocenio.

Book Description: 1551. Nouellamente da M. Innocentio Ringhieri Gentilhuomo Bolognese ritrouati, and in dieci Libri descritti .. In Bologna per Anselmo Giaccarelli, 1551. FIRST EDITION. Dramatic woodcut vignette on title page, historiated woodcut, bound in contemporary flexible vellum boards, covers laced through, spine lettered in ink in a contemporary hand, edges of vellum at sometime repaired, some soiling and marking to vellum; from the library of Giannalisa Feltrinelli.

Famous book on Renaissance courtly intellectual entertainments, detailing 100 games and pastimes, including chess and palmistry, played at Renaissance courts. - Dedicated to the Italian-born queen of France, Catherine de Medici, the work is divided into 100 chapters, describing such courtly amusements as hunting, fishing, card playing, ballads, madrigals, as well as many other diversions including a game of chess in which the participants dress as chess pieces.

Innocentio Ringhieri (fl. 1550) has aimed his book at a young audience, though one that is not too young to think about courtship: each chapter opens with a playful and flattering address to the ladies, and there are often short disquisition's on the power of love.

The games are based on wordplay, vocabulary exercises, and riddles; they include contests that involve identifying islands, gems, virtues, muses, and so on, and they sometimes take up more substantial and enigmatic topics such as time, death, love, chastity, and felicity.

MARSHALL'S CHESS SWINDELS

2005-02-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

Marshall's Chess "Swindles"

Marshall, Frank J., Illustrated By Chess Diagrams

Book Description: New York: The American Chess Bulletin, 1914. First Hardcover Edition.

Comprising over one hundred and twenty-five of his best tournament and match games at chess together with the annotation of the same by himself and other well-known chess authorities.

Also an analysis of the queen's side openings, with several king's gambit novelties and a discussion of the principles of over-the-board chess by Marshall, chess champion of the United States, 1914.

**With a note laid in that reads: With kind remembrances, on the eve of my departure for the front, Frank J. Marshall (signed in pencil), New York, April, 1914** Brick-red cloth with gilt lettering.

ZASHCITA LUZINA

2005-02-09T11:35:00.000-08:00

Zashchita luzhina [translated as: The Defence].

By: NABOKOV, Vladimir Vladimirovich.] SIRIN, Vladimir (pseud.)

Book Description: Berlin, "Slovo", 1930. 1930.

First edition of The Defence, written and published in Berlin under the pseudonym 'Sirin'.

A chess master vainly tries to decipher and counter the chess-like attack of an unknown opponent, who is replaying a sequence of biographical moves that once before led him to insanity.

Nabokov wrote all nine of his Russian novels while resident in Berlin, between 1922 and 1937, and it was initially on these novels that his reputation as the best new writer of the emigration was founded.

He subsequently moved to France in 1937, and to the United States in 1940, from which time all his original fiction was written in English.

SECOND PIATIGORSKY CUP

2005-02-08T11:33:00.000-08:00

SECOND PIATIGORSKY CUP. International Grandmaster Chess Tournament.
Fischer, Bobby].

Book Description: 1966. Textual photos. 1966.

The official program for the Second Piatigorsky Cup, held at The Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California from July 17 to August 15, 1966.

Features photos and brief biographies of the participants, including Robert J. Fischer and Boris Spassky.

Widely considered the best international chess tournament organized during the 1960s, the Second Piatigorsky Cup pitted ten of the most outstanding grandmasters against one another in a double round robin format.

Although Spassky ultimately won, the tournament was highlighted by a remarkable comeback by Fischer, who rallied from ninth place midway in the tournament to finish only a half point behind Spassky.

His first round defeat at the hands of Spassky was the last time Fischer lost to the Russian grandmaster, whom Fischer defeated at the 1972 World Championship when he became the first and only American to attain the title of World Chess Champion.

Signed by Fischer adjacent to his biography. Laid in are some newspaper clippings relating to the tournament and a copy of the typed tournament playing schedule.

Spiral-bound in the original paper wraps, with a design of the Piatigorsky Cup stamped in silver and black on the front.

Ink signature and inscription to the title page, with Fischer's name underlined in red.

LE ROYAL ET NOUVEAU JEU DES ESCHETS

2005-02-06T04:42:00.000-08:00

Le Royal et Nouveau Jeu des Eschets, avec son Invention, Science et Pratique, Ou par un tres-docte & intelligible discours, sont amplement décrits les moyens d'ordonner son Jeu, tant pour l'offensive que defensive.
LOPEZ DE SIGURA, R.R.).

Book Description: Paris, Antoine de Rafflé, 1674. Rare seventeenth century French adaptation of the famous treatise on chess by Ruy Rodrigo Lopez de Sigura, first published in Spain in 1561 under the title "Libro de la Invencion Liberal y Arte del Juego del Axedrez".

The French adaptation was probably made by the publisher, Antoine de Rafflé. In the early days chess was called a "royal game", a game for Kings.

The games are here not set out on the board, but fully written out in text, like: "Le b. iouant le pion du Roy tant qu'il va; si le n. ioue le mesme, etc." (White playing the pawn of his King as far as it goes; if Black does the same, etc.).

The French adaptator assures his readers that when they have played all the games described, they will be accomplished chess-players. Cat. Schaakboekerij Niemeijer 1613; Bibl. Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana 371.

MECHANISMUS DER MENSCHLICHEN SPRACHE

2005-02-05T11:52:00.000-08:00

Mechanismus der menschlichen Sprache nebst der Beschreibung seiner sprechenden Maschine.

KEMPELEN, Wolfgang von, Baron.

Book Description: Vienna: J.B. Degen, 1791. Vienna: J.B. Degen, 1791. First edition of a very remarkable book; it is the first monograph on speech synthesis and contains the description of the first successful talking machine.

This work "stands as a milestone on the way to the phonograph. This talking-machine, invented by de Kempelen, is based on an elaborate study of the human voice, and the first few plates illustrate physiologically how the vowels and consonants are sounded, reference being made to Helmont's Alphabeti naturalis Hebraici delineatio, 1667.

The author then goes on to show how these sounds may be produced mechanically, and so arrives at the full description and illustration (on many plates) of his machine.

It is based on a wind-instrument, the air is supplied by bellows, and he claims in the end that by the use of various stops, etc., he is able to make the machine talk easily in French, Italian and Latin; German, however, is more difficult.

Though his machine differs in principle from the phonograph, in that it does not reproduce the human voice from recorded sound vibrations, yet the inventor's study of the voice and his method of reproducing it based on scientific principle prepared the way for others to follow."Weil, Cat. 2, item 231. Goethe heard the machine perform and reported that it was "able to say some childish words very nicely.

" Kempelen (1734-1804), Hungarian inventor, later built a chess-playing automaton called "the Turk" which won matches against Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon.

THE METAPHYSICS OF CHESS::

2005-02-01T13:05:00.000-08:00

Pawn::

What kind of person or activity is represented by the
concept of the Pawn? "Just a Pawn in someone's
game," we hear, "just being manipulated." The peasant or peon
is also seen as a Pawn's role, and also the unionized
worker. Pawns have the least power on the board, and
by virtue of their numbers, the least individual
reconition--that is the least fame. The association
which comes to mind first is to declare those people
with the least rank or influence in their games to be
the Pawns. The commanding positions are the Queens and
Rooks, the masses of followers the Pawns. This
hierarchy of power and command is easily seen in the
structure of a military organization, which
immediately suggests another concept of alignment. In
an army the individual soldier can be seen as a Pawn
on a team where his company commander is the Queen and
the Lieutenants are the Knights. Likewise, we may see
the company as a Pawn where the Battalions are the
Knights, and the General and his staff are the Queen.
In a major war, Battalions are moved about like Pawns
where Divisions or Fleets are the greater pieces. It
is important to consider the scale of the
game-metaphor being used.

This pyramid-of-command concept is useful in examining
the roles, but it is not actually present in the game
of Chess. There is no element of command of lesser
pieces by the more powerful. Something more is
indicated here.

Another approach to aligning the Chessboard roles to
real life is to disregard the rank and scale and
consider the factor of behavior. In government, for
example, one might see the General as a Knight and the
ambassador as a Bishop. One is more active, more
physical, the other more intellectrual and abstract.
Notice that the distinction here is taken not so much
from the pieces' rules of motion, but rather from
their names and the attributes of those real-life
roles. The Knight is a fighter, highly mobile,
aggressive and direct, and very nimble. He is easily
seen as cocky and adventurous in personailty, in
contrast to his more careful and conservative
counterpart, the contemplative and deliberate Bishop.

I would like to clear up any notion about the pieces
or roles being "more valuable" than others in some
absolute sense. True, within the game, one will
quickly scrifice a Pawn to save the Queen, but that
certainly does not make the Pawn's role something to
be ashamed of. There are times when a player will
sacrifice the Queen to save a Pawn if that Pawn is
critical to the accomplishment of the checkmate. The
Pawn's ability to blunt an opponent's thrust without
severe loss to the team is a valuable asset. It is
impossible for a Knight to accomplish so economical a
sacrifice, if such sacrifice becomes the team's best
option for victory. It is the nature of service that
is valuable, and not the particulars of that service.
The best service provides that which is truly needed
at the time, rather than simply offering some
spectacularly valuable service should it ever be
needed. In the final analysis, the Pawn and the Queen,
though possessed of very different powers and
responsibilities, are both Chessmen, both bound by the
same vision of reality, both obedient to the same
order of play, and both consecrated to promote the
victory of the team to the death. They are therefore
equal in the vision of one whose "selfness" is with
the team, rather than any one of the team members.

We very quickly approach the metaphysical when we
consider human roles like unto the pieces on a
Chessboard, and then try to include in the reality the
concept which parallels the player. There is an idea
going about these days that each of our higher selves
or "oversouls" may create or operate or "live" several
human persons in different parts of time and space
"simultaneously." It is not impossible to consider
then the strange possibility of several human lives
being played out in the world in different times and
places, or perhaps even together and relating to one
another, working toward a common goal--even if one
that none of them may be aware of--and "operated" by
the same single higher self. "Soulmates" may be a far
more accurate word than we suspect.

At least in the early game, the Pawn can be said to be
"apprenticed" to a higher piece, that piece before
whom it stands at commencement. One is a Rook's Pawn,
or a Knight's Pawn. These have very different likely
roles in the game. Rook's Pawn is seldom a flashy
role, and its moves are limited and usually very
similar from game to game. On the other hand, King's
Pawn is almost always a prominant figure in the
opening game's struggle for control of the center of
the board.

Knight and Bishop::

Most Chess authorities rank these two pieces equally,
though they have very different sets of specialties.
Their roles are best understood by viewing them in
contrast together. The most significant distinctions
are their differences in range and the nature of their
motion. The Knight is highly manouverable, but that
motion is always made in an indirect manner. He never
moves in straight lines, but weaves his way back and
forth in what the other pieces must surely see as
unpredictable and roundabout. Contrast this with the
Bishop's long, direct penetrations, slipping through
the narrow "corners" in encounter situations to reach
opponents seemingly shielded by the pieces in front of
them.

In the opening game, where the board is crowded, the
Knight's ability to jump over other pieces to thread
his way through the groups of pieces makes him appear
less vulnerable to limitation than his counterpart,
the Bishop. Since Pawns, Bishops, and Queens all use
diagonals in their motion and capture, diagonally
aligned structures of pieces are common on the board,
and these get in the Bishop's way. However, in the
later stages of the game, where the board is more
open, the Bishop's long range enables it to make the
extended penetrating attacks which are impossible for
the Knight. This gives the Bishop an end-game
advantage, for the Knight then finds its need to
change color and lateral and diagonal alignment with
each move a hindrance in making long-range attacks
against an opponent in an open field.

Among the most significant distinctions in terms of
the metaphysics of the roles is the fact that the
Bishop remains on the same color squares throughout
the entire game, and the Knight changes its square
color with every move. In this regard the Knight is
considered to be of an inconsistent nature by the
Bishop, and the Knight tends to regard the Bishop as
absurdly limited and somewhat narrow-minded and
stuffy. These practices reveal the personality
characteristics of the pieces. Knight-type people can
be seen in life to be constantly changing their
apparent approach to life, taking up new careers and
interests changing their attitudes and values, moving
from place to place and living in many different
cultues and social circles. The people who play
predominantly Bishop roles, on the other hand, are
more likely to be specialists who devote their lives
to the pursuit of a single cause, discipline, or
career, often accomplishing effects which are
far-reaching even if somewhat narrow in scope.

The Knight is the classical warrior, the adventurous
seeker for great causes, the active and enthusiastic
contender for championships, volatile, easily excited,
and aggressive in a flashy way. The Bishop is
conservative, careful and deliberate, methodically
pursuing his objective with a single-minded
seriousness. There is something to be said for the
notion that people may be of a basically "Knightlike"
or "Bishoplike" character. For example, though each of
them held similar posts as top-ranked generals,
Eisenhower's behavior was far more Bishoplike than
Patton's hot-blooded Knightlike actions in World War
II.

Knights and Bishops are not high-ranking pieces on the
Chessboard. For the most part, they look upward into
the mass of the organization of which they are a part.
They are in service to their seniors, the Rooks,
Queen, and King. The Queen, by comparison, for the
most part looks down into the mass of the team.

Rook::

The Rook is senior in power to the Bishop and the
Knight. Its motion demands an open rank or file, an
situation uncommon in the crowded early encounters of
the game. Its opening game liability is furthered by
the difficulty of opening a way for the Rook to get
out of its corner square and into the active center of
the board. It is an end-game piece, and a very
powerful one in that situation. In fact, it is the
only piece besides the Queen with which the King can
checkmate his opponent with one piece only, all other
pieces having been removed from play.

The rook's real-life roles are easily taken from the
shape and "common name' of the piece--the castle--and
from its unique practice of "castling." This move is
the only circumstance in Chess where two pieces are
moved in a single game move. The Rook is moved to a
position beside the King, and then the King is moved
past the Rook to a protected place behind it. That is,
the King can be said to have entered his castle,
which, now moved into the center, becomes a prominent
piece in the action. It is interesting to note that
one of the limiting rules to castling demands that
neither piece can have been previously moved in the
game. A King forced to move his flag is denied
retreat; a castle once breached is no longer a
sanctuary.

The Rook is senior in rank to Knights and Bishops.
What does this imply in terms of life? I see that
distinction to lie in the factors of organization and
establishment. Rook roles demand that one organize
people, or create a base of operations from which a
group of people may conduct their activities. There is
a factor of time involved here. Whereas the Knight can
be a "loner" conducting his part in the game
single-handedly, the Rook is responsible to a group
and may control substantial material holdings, making
it difficult to bring about rapid changes in his
situation. He is a "heavy" so his actions are often
ponderous and slow. (The Queen, also a heavy, does not
find this problem limiting. She merely uses the vast
power available to her to move as she wishes.)

Queen::

The Queen has the most individual power and motion of
any piece on the board. She duplicates the power of
both the Bishop and the Rook. Her role is not subtle;
she has no intriguing "exceptional rule" situations to
add color to her performance. She is straightforward
power.

It seems to me that people in Queen roles must
necessarily be quite visible. They may be presidents,
leaders of great movements, shapers of schools of
thought. One hears frequent grumbling among the ranks
of lesser pieces that the Quen's role is "more free"
than theirs, and blessed with more privileges. It is
true that most Queen roles seem to carry an inordinate
amount of the available wealth in the world. Perhaps
it is an absolute that rank has its privileges, and
wealth is apparently one of them. All things seem to
have their compensations, however. The Queen is no
less bound by the responsibilities of office than the
Pawn. Persons holding Queen roles almost universally
admit to a yearning for even a few moments of privacy,
for someone on whom even for a day they could place
their heavy responsibilities and regard life free of
the game in which they are so significantly involved.
These are the superstars who cannot enjoy a glass of
beer with a friend without dodging hordes of groupies,
or go to a movie with a date without starting
nationwide gossip. They are the generals who cannot
sleep without an ominous red phone crouching beside
their cots, the presidents and prophets who cannot
speak a casual word without it being quoted and acted
upon by their sheep, and the master surgeons besieged
by demands they drop all and run to the aid of
"important" people whose empires would collapse
without their immediate service. More than any other
role in life perhaps, the Queen's is the most
difficult to set aside.

King::

His is the most intriguing role in Chess, and surely
to understand fully its metaphysical implications
would be a great asset to a soul. The King is not
personally powerful. His range of motion is hardly
greater than that of a Pawn. He seldom engages in
actual combat unless severely pressed by his opponent.
The outcome of the game is determined by the trapping
of the King. His is a position of honor in that all of
his pieces will sacrifice themselves to preserve him,
and in the end he is never actually captured. He is
permitted to surrender with dignity, grounding his
crown when forced to a position from which there is no
retreat, no protection--but he is untouched. Yet the
victory he enjoys or the defeat he endures is not so
much a result of his own actions as those of his
teammates.

On the Chessboard he may appear to be only a
figurehead, a symbol for power he does not himself
possess. The "real power" on the board is represented
by the Queen. There are monarchies on earth which
appear to manifest this, where the crown has little
real authority, and merely represents the seat of
power actually held by a parliament or prime minister.

I think there is a more profound message here,
however. Though any other piece--even the powerful
Queen--can be removed from the board and yet the
player is still in the game, when the King is
defeated, the player is defeated. Perhaps then he is a
symbol not of abstract or figurehead power, but of the
metaphysical equivalent of the player. And if we are
to assume that our analogy is complete, then there
must be Kingly roles in life also. The power of the
Queen (board-ly power) is readily observed; it is the
earth-ly power by which the masses are moved. But who
are the Kings? What "above the board" or "above the
world" power do they represent? I am of the opinion
that they are among those whom we call sages, the
often spoken of but seldom seen wise men who are able
to avoid the tumultous life of personal world power,
but whose subtle unseen influences cause great changes
in the whole consciousness of mankind. When I view the
concept of Metachess as a set of progressive classes
through which an entity moves as a learning process,
the King appears to be like a participating
instructor, for the most part unrecognized by the
"students." He is the one who is "in the world, but
not of the world," who is aware of the life each
piece-player has in the world "above" the Chessboard,
and who yet remains on the board as any other player
to provide the focus of the learning situations needed
for the growth of his lesser brethren.

Consider the strange attitude of Solomon in the book
of Ecclesiastes. "I have seen," he said, " the heights
of worldly power. All that can be ruled and owned in
the world of men I have ruled and owned. I have
plumbed the depths of human wisdom, tasted all of the
sins common to man, and shaped the destiny of the
world to come with my actions and words. But I see
that all these things are vain." Queens and Pawns are
likewise Chessmen and their acts equally
important--and equally meaningless. Even from the
viewpoint of a great worldly "Queen," Solomon could
see that the board is incomplete in its worldly power.
He recognized that some "higher" field of activity
must exist, and that the results of his earthly
training were in some way relevant to life in that
higher realm--that the details of the lessons he had
undergone as a man, the subject matter of the classes,
and the various awards and punishments given in the
games/lessons were not in themselves important. The
importance of the lessons was that the entity was
shaped to conformed to a pattern desirable in that
realm beyond the world.

In spite of his reputation, I infer from Ecclesiastes
that Solomon did not have a particularly clear picture
of that higher realm which he postulated must exist if
life is to have meaning. Perhaps that is only because
I see only dimly that higher realm which I am also
persuaded must exist, and I resort to such devices as
Metachess to take "hints" from things about me in the
hope of locating keys through known limitations or
directions to unsuspected new horizons.

The King is the enlightened one, the Buddha, the
Christ, who sees clearly in the higher realm and yet
behaves as one still bound to the Chessboard. His role
is to be the piece-players' reason for the game they
play. That is, his existence imposes upon them the
need to play, in order that they may progress by
learning to accept limitation, understand it, and free
themselves of it. One who is fully able to at will
accept, understand, and exceed limitations is truly
free to choose whatever set of limitations pleases
him. One who is King with respect to the worldly life,
then would be one who could knowingly transcend all of
the limitations of the world, knowing them to be
artificially contrived for training. He would be able
to fully manipulate the physical reality, knowing that
the limitations which define physical reality are
imposed by the higher realm, which is itself not so
limited. He, being aware in that higher realm, would
also be not limited, and could perform "miracles,"
that is, acts which exceed the limitations of those
before whom they are performed.

INTERPLANETARY CHESS CONGRESS::

2005-02-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

From "The 12 Chairs"

by Ilya Ilf & Evgeny Petrov, 1929
(Translated by Eric Konkol)

[Con man Ostap Bender and his unfortunate companion,
Ippolit Matveevich Vorobianinov (a.k.a. K. Michelson,
a.k.a. Kisa) find themselves stranded, hungry, and
broke in the insignificant, backwater town of Vasiuki
on the Volga River]

That morning, wearing a green pince-nez and small,
dirty shoes spattered with paint, the tall, thin
Ippolit Matveevich Vorobianinov walked along the
streets of Vasiuki. He was pasting hand-painted
posters on walls and fences:

JUNE 22, 1927
The Cardboard Factory Club
Announces
a lecture on the topic:
"FRUITFUL OPENING IDEAS"

AND

A PERFORMANCE OF SIMULTANEOUS
CHESS GAMES ON 160 BOARDS

Grandmaster (senior master) O. Bender

Players must provide their own chessboards
Price for playing a game: 50 kopecks
Price for entrance: 20 kopecks

Begins at exactly 6 o'clock P.M.
Administration: K. Michelson.

Bender himself wasn't losing any time. Renting the
meeting hall for 3 rubles, he hurried over to the
local chess club, which, for some reason, was located
in a corridor of the administration building of a stud
farm.

At the chess club sat a one-eyed man, reading an old
novel.

"Grandmaster O. Bender!" Ostap declared, taking a seat
at the table. "I'm arranging a performance of
simultaneous games."

"Just a moment, comrade grandmaster!" the one-eyed man
shouted. "Sit down, please. I'll be right with you."

And the one-eyed man ran out. Ostap looked over the
chess club office. Hanging on the walls were
photographs of racehorses, and on the table was a
dusty ledger book with the title "Achievements of the
Vasiuki Chess Club in 1925".

The one-eyed man returned with a dozen citizens of
various ages. They formed a line and, one by one,
stepped up to greet the grandmaster, announcing their
names and respectfully shaking his hand.

"I'm on my way to Kazan," Ostap said curtly. "And I'm
having a simultaneous exhibition this evening. You
should come. But right now, if you'll excuse me, I'm
not really in shape for a game. I'm exhausted after
the Carlsbad tournament."

The Vasiuki chess enthusiasts gazed at Ostap with
childlike admiration. Ostap couldn't stop himself. He
felt a rush of new strength and chess ideas.

"You won't believe," he said, "how far chess thought
has progressed. You know, Lasker's using vulgar
tactics. It's impossible to play with him. He blows
cigar smoke on his opponents. And he purposely smokes
cheap cigars so the smoke is more disgusting. The
chess world is in an uproar."

The grandmaster moved on to local topics.

"Why, in the provinces, is there no chess thought? For
example, your club. What's it called? `Chess club'.
It's boring, girls! Why don't you name it something
beautiful, something in the spirit of chess? The
nation's masses would beat a path to your club's door.
For example, you could name it "Four Knights Club",
"Beautiful Endgame", or "Loss of Material Compensated
for by Gain of Tempo". That would be good! Sweet
sounding!"

The idea was successful.

"Really", the locals said, "why not rename our club
the `Four Knights Club'?"

Since the executive committee of the chess club was
right there, Ostap organized, under his honorary
chairmanship, a minute-long meeting at which the club
was unanimously renamed "Four Knights Chess Club". The
grandmaster, with his own hand, artistically executed
on a piece of cardboard a design with four knights and
an accompanying inscription.

This important measure augured a dawn of chess thought
in Vasiuki.

"Chess!" Ostap said. "Do you know what chess is? It
advances not only culture, but the economy, too! Do
you know that your Four Knights Chess Club, under the
right circumstances, could completely transform the
city of Vasiuki?"

Ostap had eaten nothing since yesterday. Therefore,
the elegance of his speech was extraordinary.

"Yes!" he shouted. "Chess enriches the nation! If you
agree to my proposal, you'll have a marble staircase
descending from the city to the pier! Vasiuki will
become the center of ten provinces! What had you
previously heard about the town of Zimmering? Nothing!
But now, this little burg is rich and famous only
because it hosted an international tournament.
Therefore, I say: we must organize an international
chess tournament in Vasiuki."

"How?" everyone shouted.

"It's a completely realistic idea," answered the
grandmaster. "My personal connections and your
initiative are all that's needed to ensure the
organization of the international Vasiuki tournament.
Think how beautiful it will sound: "The International
Vasiuki Tournament for 1927". The attendance of Jose
Raul Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker, Alekhine, Nimtzovitz,
Reti, Rubenstein, Marotsi, Tarrasch, Widmar, and
Doctor Grigoriev is assured. Moreover, my
participation is assured."

"But, money," the locals groaned. "You have to pay all
of them money. Thousands of rubles. Where can we get
it?"

"Everything will be taken care of, like in a great
hurricane," said O. Bender. "We'll take up a
collection."

"Who in Vasiuki is gonna give you such insane amounts
of money?"

"What do you mean Vasiuki? The people of Vasiuki won't
give any money. They will collect the money. It's
really very simple. A tournament with the
participation of such world-class masters is sure to
attract chess lovers from around the world. Hundreds
of thousands of people--wealthy people--will rush to
Vasiuki. In the first place, river transport will not
be able to carry such a large number of passengers.
Therefore, the Transportation Ministry will build a
railroad line between Moscow and Vasiuki. That's
number one. Two: hotels and skyscrapers to house all
these guests. Three: improvement of agriculture in a
1,000- kilometer radius. The guests will have to be
provided with vegetables, fruits, caviar, chocolates.
The palace in which the tournament will be played,
that's number four. Five: construction of garages for
the guests' cars. In order to broadcast the results of
such a sensational tournament, they'll have to build a
superpowerful radio station--that's number six. Now,
concerning the Moscow-Vasiuki railroad line.
Undoubtedly, such a line will not have the capacity to
convey to Vasiuki all those desiring to come. From
this will result the "Greater Vasiuki"
airport--regular flights of airplanes and dirigibles
to all corners of the world, including Los Angeles and
Melbourne."

Dazzling prospectives opened up in front of the
Vasiuki amateurs.

The size of the room widened. The rotten walls of the
stud farm building fell away, and in its place arose a
glass, 33-story palace of chess thought, towering into
the blue sky. In each of its halls, in every room,
even in the elevators, speeding by like bullets,
people, deep in thought, sat playing chess on
instructional gameboards made of malachite.

Marble staircases descended to the blue Volga. Ocean
liners sat on the river. Cable cars carried up into
the city fat-faced foreigners, chess ladies,
Australian adherents of the Indian Defense, Indians in
white turbans, supporters of the Ruy Lopez game,
Germans, Frenchmen, New Zealanders, inhabitants of the
Amazon River basin, and--envying the
Vasiukites--people from Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev,
Siberia, and Odessa.

An endless stream of cars flowed past the marble
hotels. And then, everything stopped. From the
fashionable hotel "Passed Pawn" emerged the world
champion, Jose Raul Capablanca. Women surrounded him.
A policeman dressed in a special chess uniform
(checked riding breeches and bishops on the lapels)
politely saluted. With great dignity, the one-eyed
chairman of the Vasiuki "Four Knights Club" stepped up
to the world champion.

"Jose Raul Capablanca frowned."

The conversation of these two luminaries, conducted in
English, was interrupted by the arrival of a plane
bearing Dr. Grigoriev and the future world champion,
Alekhine.

Shouts of greeting shook the city. Jose Raul
Capablanca frowned. The one-eyed one, with a wave of
his hand, caused a marble staircase to be rolled up to
the airplane. Dr. Grigoriev ran down the steps, waving
his new hat in greeting and commenting on a possible
error by Capablanca in his upcoming match with
Alekhine.

Suddenly, on the horizon appeared a black dot. It
quickly approached and grew in size, turning into a
large, emerald-green parachute. Like a large radish, a
man with a suitcase was dangling from the parachute.

"It's him!" shouted the one-eyed one. "Hoorah! Hoorah!
Hoorah! I recognize the great chess philosopher
Lasker. He's the only one in the whole world who wears
such green socks."

Jose Raul Capablanca again frowned.

The marble staircase was quickly put under Lasker and
the bold ex-champion, blowing away some dust which had
settled on his left sleeve during his flight over
Silesia, fell into the embrace of the one-eyed one.
The one-eyed one took Lasker by the waist, lead him up
to the champion, and said:

"Make peace with one another! I beg you, in the name
of the great Vasiuki masses! Make peace!"

Jose Raul audibly sighed and, shaking the hand of the
old veteran, said:

"I have always admired your idea in the Ruy Lopez game
of moving the bishop from b5 to c4."

"Hoorah!" exclaimed the one-eyed one. "Simple and
decisive, in the style of a champion!"

The large, unimaginable crowd took up the cheer.

"Hoorah! Vivat! Banzai! Simple and decisive, in the
style of a champion!!!"

Express trains rolled up to the 12 Vasiuki train
stations, disgorging more and more crowds of chess
lovers.

The sky was starting to blaze with flashing
advertisements when a white horse was led along the
streets of the city. This was the only horse remaining
after the mechanization of Vasiuki's transport. By
special declaration it was renamed a knight, even
though for its whole life it had been called a filly.
Chess worshippers greeted the horse, waving palm
branches and chess boards.

"Don't worry," said Ostap, "my plan guarantees your
city an unheard of blossoming of industrial strength.
Think of what it will be like when the tournament is
over and all the guests leave. The residents of
Moscow, squeezed by the housing crisis, will rush to
your excellent town. The capital will automatically be
transferred to Vasiuki. The government will come here.
Vasiuki will be renamed New Moscow, and Moscow will be
renamed Old Vasiuki. People from Leningrad and Kharkov
will grind their teeth, but there's nothing they can
do about it. New Moscow will become the most elegant
center of Europe, and soon, of the entire world."

"Of the entire world!!!" the stunned Vasiukites
started to stammer.

"Yes! And then, of the universe. Chess thought,
turning a provincial town into the capital of the
planet, shall turn into applied science and create the
methods of interplanetary communication. From Vasiuki
signals will be sent to Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune.
Communication with Venus will become as simple as a
trip from Rybinsk to Yaroslav. And then, who knows,
maybe, after eight years, Vasiuki will host the
first-in-the- history-of-the-universe interplanetary
chess congress!"

Ostap wiped his noble brow. He was so hungry, he would
gladly have eaten a roasted chess horse.

"Yes-s-s," the one-eyed one allowed himself to say,
taking in the dusty room with a frantic glance. "But
how can we take practical measures to bring this
about, to lay the base, as it were?"

The audience intently gazed at the grandmaster.

"I repeat that practically everything depends on your
initiative. All of the organization, I repeat, I will
undertake myself. There's no material expenditure,
except the cost of telegrams."

The one-eyed one nudged his comrades-in-arms.

"Well," he asked. "What do you say?"

"We'll do it! We'll do it!" shouted the locals.

"How much money do you need for...telegrams?"

"A laughable sum," Ostap said. "A hundred rubles."

"We've only got 21 rubles and 16 kopecks in the till.
This, of course you understand, is far from
sufficient...."

But the grandmaster turned out to be an obliging
organizer.

"Okay," he said. "Give me your 20 rubles."

"Will that be enough?" asked the one-eyed one.

"For the initial telegrams it will be enough. Then the
contributions will start pouring in, and we won't have
enough places to put the money."

Putting the money away into his green jacket, the
grandmaster reminded the gathering of his lecture and
demonstration of simultaneous games on 160 boards,
amiably bid farewell until the evening, and set off
for the Cardboard Factory Club to meet Ippolit
Matveevich.

****

"I'm starving", said Vorobianinov with a cracking
voice.

He was already sitting behind the ticket window, but
he had not taken in a single kopeck and couldn't even
buy any bread. In front of him sat a green wire
basket, intended for the receipts. In such baskets,
people in middle-class homes store knives and forks.

"Listen, Vorobianinov", Ostap shouted, "close the
ticket window for an hour and a half! Let's go eat and
drink. I'll describe the situation to you on the way.
Incidentally, you need to shave and get cleaned up.
You look like a tramp. A grandmaster can't have such
suspicious acquaintances."

"I haven't sold a single ticket", Ippolit Matveevich
declared.

"No problem. By this evening they'll come running. The
city has already contributed 20 rubles to me for
organizing an international chess tournament."

"Then why do we have to go on with the demonstration
of simultaneous games?" whispered the administrator.
"They could kill us. And with the 20 rubles we could
buy passage on a steamer out of here. The "Karl
Libknekht" just docked. We could quietly sail down to
Stalingrad."

"It's impossible to say such stupid things on an empty
stomach. It has a harmful effect on the brain. For 20
rubles we might be able to get to Stalingrad. But what
are we gonna buy food with? Vitamins, my dear comrade
district leader of the nobility, aren't given away for
free. However, from the expansive locals, we might be
able to get 30 rubles for the lecture and simultaneous
games."

"They'll kill us!" Vorobianinov bitterly said.

"Of course there is a risk. We could get our faces
smashed. However, I have one little idea which, in any
case, should reassure you. But I'll tell you about it
later. It's time to go sample the local cuisine."

A little before 6 o'clock that evening, well-fed,
shaved, and smelling of eau de cologne, the
grandmaster stepped into the ticket booth at the
Cardboard Factory Club.

One Ruble - 1924

Sated and shaved, Vorobianinov was busily selling
tickets.

"Well?" the grandmaster quietly asked.

"Thirty entrance tickets and 20 tickets to play
against you," the administrator replied.

"That's 16 rubles. Too little, too little."

"Bender, look at the line of people standing here!
They'll kill us for sure."

"Don't even think about it. When they kill us, then
you can cry. Until then, control yourself! Attend to
business!"

An hour later, there were 35 rubles in the ticket
office. The public in the hall was getting restless.

"Close the window! Give me the money!" said Ostap.
"Now here's what we'll do. Here's five rubles for you.
Go down to the pier, rent a boat for two hours, and
wait for me on the shore just below the warehouse.
We'll take an evening outing. Don't worry about me.
I'm in good form today."

The grandmaster stepped into the hall. He felt
invigorated and firmly knew that his first move,
e2-e4, presented him with no complications. The rest
of the moves, it is true, were enshrouded in a fog,
but that in no way disturbed the great artful dodger.
He had prepared a completely unexpected way of escape
from even the most hopeless game.

The grandmaster was met with applause. The small club
hall was decorated with little flags of various
colors.

A week ago there had been a meeting of the "Water
Rescue Society", which was attested to by a slogan
hanging on the wall:

THE TASK OF AIDING THE DROWNING
IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE DROWNING THEMSELVES

Ostap bowed, stretched his hands out forward as if
dismissing undeserved applause, and stepped out onto
the stage.

"Comrades!" he said in a fine voice. "Comrades and
brothers in chess, the subject of my lecture today
will be something I read about--and, I must confess,
not without success--in Nizhni- Novgorod last week.
The topic of my lecture is `A Fruitful Opening Idea'.
What, comrades, is an opening and what, comrades, is
an idea? The opening, comrades, is Quasi una fantasia.
And what, comrades, does an idea mean? An idea,
comrades, is human thought, expressed in logical chess
form. Even with insignificant forces, it's possible to
control the entire board. It all depends on each
individual taken separately. For example, take that
blond man in the third row. Let's suppose that he
plays well...."

The blond man in the third row blushed.

"And that brown-haired man over there, let's say he
plays worse."

Everyone turned around and looked at the brown-haired
man.

"What do we see, comrades? We see that the
blond-haired man plays well and that the brown-haired
man plays poorly. And no lecture will ever change this
balance of power if each individual, taken separately,
does not constantly practice checkers...that is, I
mean to say...chess. And now, comrades, I will relate
to you a few instructive stories from the practice of
our respected hypermodernists Capablanca, Lasker, and
Dr. Grigoriev."

Ostap told the auditorium a few antiquated anecdotes
gleaned in his youth from the "Blue Journal" and then
concluded with an interlude.

Everyone was somewhat surprised by the brevity of the
lecture. And the one-eyed one did not take his single
eye off the grandmaster's footwear.

However, the beginning of the exhibition of
simultaneous games restrained the one-eyed chess
player's growing suspicion. Along with everyone else,
he set up the tables quietly. In total, 30 amateurs
sat ready to play against the grandmaster. Many of
them were complete nervous wrecks and kept glancing
into chess textbooks, refreshing their memories about
complicated variations with the aid of which they
hoped to resign to the grandmaster, although after 22
moves.

Ostap slid his gaze along the ranks of the "blacks"
who surrounded him on all sides, glanced at the closed
door, and fearlessly set about his work. He stepped up
to the one-eyed one, who was sitting at the first
gameboard, and moved his king's pawn from square e2 to
square e4.

"The grandmaster moved e2-e4!"

Ostap did not indulge his opponents with varied
openings. On the remaining 29 boards he undertook
exactly the same operation: he moved his king's pawn
from e2 to e4. One after another, the amateurs started
pulling out their hair and plunged themselves into
feverish contemplation. The spectators followed the
grandmaster closely with their eyes. The only amateur
photographer in the city was already clambering up
onto a chair and getting ready to set off the flash,
but Ostap angrily waved his hands and, interrupting
his movement along the boards, angrily shouted:

The Ruy Lopez
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bb5
"Get rid of the photographer! He's disturbing my chess
thought!"

"Why should I leave my photograph in this pitiful
village. I have no desire to get involved in police
matters," he thought to himself.

The indignant hissing of the chess lovers forced the
photographer to abandon his attempt. The uproar was so
great that they even shoved the photographer out of
the premises.

By the third move it became clear that the grandmaster
was playing 18 Ruy Lopez games. In the remaining 12
games, black undertook the somewhat old but
sufficiently dependable Philador Defense. If Ostap
knew that he was playing such an intelligent opening
and contending with such a well-tried defense, he
would have been very much surprised. The fact is that
the artful dodger was playing chess for the second
time in his life.

At first, the amateurs--and first among them was the
one-eyed one--were horror-struck. The craftiness of
the grandmaster was undoubted.

Philador's Defense
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6

With incredible ease and, no doubt, laughing
maliciously to himself at the residents of Vasiuki,
the grandmaster sacrificed pawns as well as major and
minor pieces left and right. To the brown-haired man
whom he ridiculed at the lecture he even sacrificed
his queen. The brown-haired man was terrified and
wanted to resign immediately, but he made a great
effort of will and forced himself to continue the
game.

After five minutes, thunder unexpectedly struck.

"Mate," murmured the brown-haired man, who was deathly
afraid. "I have mated you, comrade grandmaster."

Ostap analyzed the position, disgracefully called the
queen the "king's wife", and bombastically
congratulated the brown-haired man on the win. A
rumble moved through the rows of amateurs.

"It's time to get out of here," thought Ostap, pacing
among the tables and carelessly moving pieces.

"You didn't mo your knight correctly, comrade
grandmaster," cringed the one-eyed one. "The knight
doesn't move like that."

"Pardon, pardon, excuse me," answered the grandmaster.
"I'm a little tired after the lecture."

In the course of the next ten minutes, the grandmaster
lost another ten games.

"The `Bender Rook Capture' is a genuis maneuver.
Simple and elegant. I use it whenever I can."

Anatoly Fisharov; Imaginary Chess Champion

Surprised cries resounded in the room of the Cardboard
Factory Club. The conflict was coming to a head. Ostap
lost 15 games in a row, then another three. There
remained only the one-eyed one. At the beginning of
the game, one-eye had made numerous errors out of
fear, but now, with effort, he had brought the game to
a winning position. Ostap, unseen by the crowd, stole
the black rook off the board and hid it in his pocket.

The crowd pressed close around the players.

"My rook was standing right here!" shouted the
one-eyed one. "Look! And now it's gone!"

"Well, that means it wasn't there," Ostap answered
crudely.

"How could it not be there? I remember distinctly!"

"Of course it wasn't there!"

"Where did it go? Did you capture it?"

"I captured it."

"When? On what move?"

"Why are you trying to distract me with this rook?
Resign, and then you can talk to me."

"Excuse me, comrade, I have all the moves written down
here!"

"Bureaucratic nonsense," said Ostap.

"This is scandalous!" the one-eyed one began yelling.
"Give me back my rook!"

"Resign, resign! Stop this cat-and-mouse game!"

"Give me back my rook!"

With these words, the grandmaster, understanding that
death was knocking at the door, scooped up a handful
of pieces and flung them at the head of his one-eyed
opponent.

"Comrades!" squealed the one-eyed one. "Everyone,
look! He's assaulting the amateurs!"

The chess players of Vasiuki were stunned.

Not losing any valuable time, Ostap flung the
chessboard at the lamp and, in the ensuing darkness,
smashing a few jaws and foreheads, dashed out onto the
street. The Vasiuki amateurs, falling over one
another, took off after him.

It was a moonlit night. Ostap darted along the silver
street like an angel, leaving behind the sinful earth.
In view of the unrealized transformation of Vasiuki
into the center of the universe, Ostap had to run, not
past palaces, but past wooden huts with shutters.

Behind him rushed the chess amateurs.

"Get the grandmaster!" roared the one-eyed one.

"Scoundrel!" the rest shouted in support.

"Twits!" snapped back the grandmaster, picking up
speed.

"Police!" shouted the insulted chess players.

Ostap jumped down along the staircase leading to the
pier. He had 400 more steps to go. On the sixth
landing there were two amateurs already waiting for
him. They had come by a short-cut along the slope.
Ostap looked around. Bearing down on him from above,
like a pack of dogs, came the thick crowd of enraged
adherents of the Philador Defense. There was no
retreat. Therefore, Ostap rushed forward.

"I'll get you now, you swine!" he yelped out at the
warrior- scouts, leaping at them from the fifth
landing. The frightened, dismounted Cossacks cried
out, fell over the railings, and rolled off somewhere
into the darkness over the knolls and slopes. Ostap's
way was open.

"Get the grandmaster!" came rolling down from above.

The pursuers ran on, knocking against the wooden
staircase like falling bowling balls.

Coming out onto the shore, Ostap darted to the left,
looking for the boat with his trusty administrator.

Ippolit Matveevich was sitting idyllically in the
boat. Ostap leapt onto the seat and feverishly started
rowing away from the shore. After a minute, rocks
started flying toward the boat. Ippolit Matveevich was
hit by one of them. A dark, twitching knot of muscle
arose just above the volcanolike pimple on his face.
Ippolit Matveevich pulled his head down and started
whimpering.

"What a wimp! They nearly ripped my head off, and I'm
just fine. Bold and happy. And if you take into
consideration the 50 rubles of pure profit, for one
little scratch on your head, the royalties are decent
enough."

Meanwhile, the pursuers, who only now understood that
the plan for transforming Vasiuki into New Moscow had
collapsed and that the grandmaster was leaving town
with 50 of their hard-earned rubles, piled into a
large boat and, shouting, rowed out to the center of
the river. Thirty people were crowded in the boat. All
of them wanted to take part personally in the rematch
against the grandmaster. The expeditionary force was
being commanded by the one-eyed one. His one eye shone
in the night like a lighthouse beacon.

"Get the grandmaster!" they wailed in the overcrowded
barge.

"Row, Kisa!" Ostap said. "If they catch up, I can't
guarantee the safety of your pince-nez."

Both boats followed the current. The distance between
them kept shrinking and shrinking. Ostap was rowing as
hard as he could.

"You're not going anywhere, swine!" they shouted from
the barge.

Ostap didn't answer. There was no time. The oars shot
up out of the water. Streams of water flew up from
under the raging oars and landed in the boat.

"Keep going," Ostap whispered to himself.

For more hijinks on
the Volga, read:

"The Volga Falls
To the Caspian Sea"

at

Tell 'em Ostap sent you!
Ippolit Matveevich sniveled. The barge was
celebrating. Its high hull was overtaking the
concessionaires on the left side in order to force the
grandmaster to the shore. A woeful fate awaited the
concessionaires. The joy in the barge was so great
that all the chess players moved to the starboard side
so that, once they were even with the boat, they might
rain down on the evil-doer/grandmaster with
overpowering force.

"Hold onto your pince-nez, Kisa!" Ostap shouted out in
despair, throwing away the oars. "Now it begins."

"Good Lord!" Ippolit Matveevich suddenly exclaimed
like a rooster. "Are you really going to beat us?"

"And how!" the Vasiuki amateurs thundered, getting
ready to jump into the boat.

But at that moment, something highly offensive to all
honest chess players of the world occurred. The barge
suddenly began to list and take in water on the
starboard side.

"Careful!" squealed the one-eyed captain.

But it was too late. Too many chess amateurs had
gathered on the starboard side of the Vasiuki
dreadnought. Changing its center of gravity, the barge
did not hesitate, but, in complete compliance with the
laws of physics, overturned.

A joint yelp broke the tranquility of the river.

"Oo-ah-oo!" was the long, drawn-out groan of the chess
players.

All thirty amateurs found themselves under the water.
They quickly swam to the surface and, one after
another, latched onto the overturned barge. The last
to moor himself was the one-eyed one.

"Twits!" Ostap shouted in delight. "What, you're not
going to beat your grandmaster? You, if I'm not
mistaken, wanted to beat me?"

Ostap made a circle around the disaster victims.

"You understand, my Vasiuki individuals, that I could
drown you one by one. But I give you your lives. Live,
citizens! Only, please God, don't play chess! You
simply don't know how to play! You twits,
twits....Let's go, Ippolit Matveevich. Good-bye, you
one-eyed amateurs! I'm afraid that Vasiuki will not
become the center of the universe. I don't think any
chess masters would come to such fools like you even
if I were to ask them. Good- bye, lovers of great
chess sensations! Long live the `Four Knights Club'!"

THE END

COMBINATORIAL GAMES

2005-02-01T06:26:00.000-08:00

Selected Bibliography

With A Succinct Gourmet Introduction

by: A. S. Fraenkel Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science
Weizmann Institute of Science

1. What are Combinatorial Games?

Roughly speaking, the family of combinatorial games consists of two-player games with perfect information (no hidden information as in some card games), no chance moves (no dice) and outcome restricted to (lose, win), (tie, tie) and (draw, draw) for the two players who move alternately. Tie is an end position such as in tic-tac-toe, where no player wins, whereas draw is a dynamic tie: any position from which a player has a nonlosing move, but cannot force a win. Both the easy game of Nim and the seemingly diAEcult chess are examples of combinatorial games. And so is go. The shorter terminology game, games is used below to designate combinatorial games.

2. Why are Games Intriguing and Tempting?

Amusing oneself with games may sound like a frivolous occupation. But the fact is that the bulk of interesting and natural mathematical problems that are hardest in complexity classes beyond NP , such as Pspace, Exptime and Expspace, are two-player games; occasionally even one-player games (puzzles) or even zero-player games (Conway's "Life"). Some of the reasons for the high complexity of two-player games are outlined in the next section. Before that we note that in addition to a natural appeal of the subject, there are applications or connections to various areas, including complexity, logic, graph and matroid theory, networks, error-correcting codes, surreal numbers, on-line algorithms and biology.

1
the electronic journal of combinatorics #DS2 2

But when the chips are down, it is this "natural appeal" that compels both amateurs and professionals to become addicted to the subject. What is the essence of this appeal? Perhaps the urge to play games is rooted in our primal beastly instincts; the desire to corner, torture, or at least dominate our peers. An intellectually refined version of these dark desires, well hidden under the fa,cade of scientific research, or passions for local, national or international tour- naments, is the consuming strive "to beat them all", to be more clever than the most clever, in short -- to create the tools to Math-master them all in hot combinatorial combat! Reaching this goal is particularly satisfying and sweet in the context of combinatorial games, in view of their inherent high complexity.

With a slant towards artificial intelligence, Pearl wrote that games "offer a perfect laboratory for studying complex problem-solving methodologies. With a few parismonious rules, one can create complex situations that require no less insight, creativity, and expertise than problems actually encountered in areas such as business, government, scientific, legal, and others. Moreover, unlike these applied areas, games offer an arena in which computerized decisions can be evaluated by absolute standards of performance and in which proven human experts are both available and willing to work towards the goal of seeing their expertise emulated by a machine. Last, but not least, games possess addictive entertaining qualities of a very general appeal. That helps maintain a steady influx of research talents into the field and renders games a convenient media for communicating powerful ideas about general methods of strategic planning."

To further explore the nature of games, we consider, informally, two sub- classes.

(i) Games People Play (PlayGames): games that are challenging to the point

that people will purchase them and play them.

(ii) Games Mathematicians Play (MathGames): games that are challenging

to mathematicians or other scientists to play with and ponder about, but not necessarily to "the man in the street".

Examples of PlayGames are chess, go, hex, reversi; of MathGames: Nim- type games, Wythoff games, annihilation games, octal games.

Some "rule of thumb" properties, which seem to hold for the majority of PlayGames and MathGames are listed below.

I. Complexity. Both PlayGames and MathGames tend to be computationally

intractable. There are a few tractable MathGames, such as Nim, but most games still live in Wonderland: we are wondering about their as yet unknown complexity. Roughly speaking, however, NP-hardness is a necessary but not a suAEcient condition for being a PlayGame! (Some games on Boolean formulas are Exptime-complete, yet none of them seems to have the potential of commercial marketability.)

the electronic journal of combinatorics #DS2 3

II. Boardfeel. None of us may know an exact strategy from a midgame position of chess, but even a novice gets some feel who of the two players is in a stronger position, merely by looking at the board. This is what we loosely call boardfeel. Our informal definition of PlayGames and MathGames suggests that the former do have a boardfeel, whereas the latter don't. For many MathGames, such as Nim, a player without prior knowledge of the strategy has no inkling whether any given position is "strong" or "weak" for a player. Even two positions before ultimate defeat, the player sustaining it may be in the dark about the outcome, which will stump him. The player has no boardfeel. (Even many MathGames, including Nim-type games, can be played, equivalently, on a board.)

Thus, in the boardfeel sense, simple games are complex and complex games are simple! This paradoxical property also doesn't seem to have an analog in the realm of decision problems. The boardfeel is the main ingredient which makes PlayGames interesting to play.

III. Math Appeal. PlayGames, in addition to being interesting to play, also

have considerable mathematical appeal. This has been exposed recently by the theory of partizan games established by Conway and applied to endgames of go by Berlekamp, students and associates. On the other hand, MathGames have their own special combinatorial appeal, of a some- what different flavor. They appeal to and are created by mathematicians of various disciplines, who find special intellectual challenges in analyzing them. As Peter Winkler called a subset of them: "games people don't play". We might also call them, in a more positive vein, "games mathe- maticians play". Both classes of games have applications to areas outside game theory. Examples: surreal numbers (PlayGames), error correcting codes (MathGames). Both provide enlightenment through bewilderment, as David Wolfe and Tom Rodgers put it.

IV. Existence. There are relatively few PlayGames around. It seems to be hard

to invent a PlayGame that catches the masses. In contrast, MathGames abound. They appeal to a large subclass of mathematicians and other scientists, who cherish producing them and pondering about them. The large proportion of MathGames-papers in the games bibliography below reflects this phenomenon.

We conclude, inter alia, that for PlayGames, high complexity is desirable. Whereas in all respectable walks of life we strive towards solutions or at least approximate solutions which are polynomial, there are two less respectable hu- man activities in which high complexity is appreciated. These are cryptography (covert warfare) and games (overt warfare). The desirability of high complexity in cryptography -- at least for the encryptor! -- is clear. We claim that it is also desirable for PlayGames.

It's no accident that games and cryptography team up: in both there are adversaries, who pit their wits against each other! But games are, in general,

the electronic journal of combinatorics #DS2 4 considerably harder than cryptography. For the latter, the problem whether the designer of a cryptosystem has a safe system can be expressed with two quantifiers only: 9 a cryptosystem such that 8 attacks on it, the cryptosystem remains unbroken? In contrast, the decision problem whether White can win if White moves first in a chess game, has the form: "9898 \Delta \Delta \Delta move: White wins?", expressing the question whether White has an opening winning move--with an unbounded number of alternating quantifiers. See also the next section.

Thus, it's no surprise that the skill of playing games, such as checkers, chess, or go has long been regarded as a distinctive mark of human intelligence.

3. Why are Combinatorial Games Hard?

Existential decision problems, such as graph hamiltonicity and Traveling Sales- person (Is there a round tour through specified cities of cost ^ C?), involve a single existential quantifier ("Is there. . . ?"). In mathematical terms an exis- tential problem boils down to finding a path--sometimes even just verifying its existence--in a large "decision-tree" of all possibilities, that satisfies specified properties. The above two problems, as well as thousands of other interesting and important combinatorial-type problems are NP-complete. This means that they are conditionally intractable, i.e., the best way to solve them seems to re- quire traversal of most if not all of the decision tree, whose size is exponential in the input size of the problem. No essentially better method is known to date at any rate, and, roughly speaking, if an eAEcient solution will ever be found for any NP-complete problem, then all NP-complete problems will be solvable eAEciently.

The decision problem whether White can win if White moves first in a chess game, on the other hand, has the form: Is there a move of White such that for every move of Black there is a move of White such that for every move of Black there is a move of White : : : such that White can win? Here we have a large number of alternating existential and universal quantifiers rather than a single existential one. We are looking for an entire subtree rather than just a path in the decision tree. Because of this, most nonpolynomial games are at least Pspace-hard. The problem for generalized chess on an n \Theta n board, and even for a number of seemingly simpler MathGames, is, in fact, Exptime-complete, which is a provable intractability.

Put in simple language, in analyzing an instance of Traveling Salesperson, the problem itself is passive: it does not resist your attempt to attack it, yet it is diAEcult. In a game, in contrast, there is your opponent, who, at every step, attempts to foil your effort to win. It's similar to the difference between an autopsy and surgery. Einstein, contemplating the nature of physics said, "Der Allm"achtige ist nicht boshaft; Er ist raAEniert" (The Almighty is not mean; He is sophisticated). NP-complete existential problems are perhaps sophisticated. But your opponent in a game can be very mean!

Another reason for the high complexity of games is associated with a most

the electronic journal of combinatorics #DS2 5 basic tool of a game : its game-graph. It is a directed graph G whose vertices are the positions of the game, and (u; v) is an edge if and only if there is a move from position u to position v. Since every combination of tokens in the given game is a single vertex in G, the latter has normally exponential size. This holds, in particular, for both Nim and chess. Analyzing a game means reasoning about its game-graph. We are thus faced with a problem that is a priori exponential, quite unlike many present-day interesting existential problems.

A fundamental notion is the sum (disjunctive compound) of games. A sum is a finite collection of disjoint games; often very basic, simple games. Each of the two players, at every turn, selects one of the games and makes a move in it. If the outcome is not a draw, the sum-game ends when there is no move left in any of the component games. If the outcome is not a tie either, then in normal play, the player first unable to move loses and the opponent wins. The outcome is reversed in mis`ere play.

If a game decomposes into a disjoint sum of its components, either from the beginning (Nim) or after a while (domineering), the potential for its tractability increases despite the exponential size of the game graph. As Elwyn Berlekamp remarked, the situation is similar to that in other scientific endeavors, where we often attempt to decompose a given system into its functional components. This approach may yield improved insights into hardware, software or biolog- ical systems, human organizations, and abstract mathematical objects such as groups. In most cases, there are interesting issues concerning the interactions between subsystems and their neighbors.

If a game doesn't decompose into a sum of disjoint components, it is more likely to be intractable (Geography or Poset Games). Intermediate cases happen when the components are not quite fixed (which explains why mis`ere play of sums of games is much harder than normal play) or not quite disjoint (Welter).

4. Breaking the Rules

As the experts know, some of the most exciting games are obtained by breaking some of the rules for combinatorial games, such as permitting a player to pass a bounded or unbounded number of times, i.e., relaxing the requirement that players play alternately; or permitting a number of players other than two.

But permitting a payoff function other than (0,1) for the outcome (lose, win) and a payoff of ( 1 2 ; 1 2 ) for either (tie, tie) or (draw, draw) usually, but not always, leads to games that are not considered to be combinatorial games; or to borderline cases.

5. Why Is the Bibliography Vast?
In the realm of existential problems, such as sorting or Traveling Salesperson, most present-day interesting decision problems can be classified into tractable, conditionally intractable, and provably intractable ones. There are exceptions,

the electronic journal of combinatorics #DS2 6 to be sure, such as graph isomorphism, whose complexity is still unknown. But the exceptions are few. In contrast, most games are still in Wonderland, as pointed out in x2(I) above. Only a few games have been classified into the complexity classes they belong to. Despite recent impressive progress, the tools for reducing Wonderland are still few and inadequate.

To give an example, many interesting games have a very succinct input size, so a polynomial strategy is often more diAEcult to come by (Richard Guy and Cedric Smith' octal games; Grundy's game). Succinctness and non-disjointness of games in a sum may be present simultaneously (Poset games). In general, the alternating quantifiers, and, to a smaller measure, "breaking the rules", add to the volume of Wonderland. We suspect that the large size of Wonderland, a fact of independent interest, is the main contributing factor to the bulk of the bibliography on games.

6. Why Isn't it Larger?

The bibliography below is a partial list of books and articles on combinatorial games and related material. It is partial not only because I constantly learn of additional relevant material I did not know about previously, but also because of certain self-imposed restrictions. The most important of these is that only papers with some original and nontrivial mathematical content are considered. This excludes most historical reviews of games and most, but not all, of the work on heuristic or artificial intelligence approaches to games, especially the large literature concerning computer chess. I have, however, included the com- pendium Levy [1988], which, with its 50 articles and extensive bibliography, can serve as a first guide to this world. Also some papers on chess-endgames and clever exhaustive computer searches of some games have been included.

On the other hand, papers on games that break some of the rules of combi- natorial games are included liberally, as long as they are interesting and retain a combinatorial flavor. These are vague and hard to define criteria, yet combi- natorialists usually recognize a combinatorial game when they see it. Besides, it is interesting to break also this rule sometimes! We have included some ref- erences to one-player games, e.g., towers of Hanoi, n-queen problems, 15-puzzle and peg-solitaire, but only few zero-player games (such as Life and games on "sand piles"). We have also included papers on various applications of games, especially when the connection to games is substantial or the application is interesting or important.

During 1990-2001, Theoretical Computer Science ran a special Mathematical Games Section whose main purpose was to publish papers on combinatorial games. TCS still solicits papers on games. In 2001, INTEGERS--Electronic J. of Combinatorial Number Theory has started a Combinatorial Games Section. Lately, Internat. J. Game Theory has begun an effort to publish more papers on combinatorial games. It remains to be seen whether any of these forums, or others, will become focal points for high-class research results in the field of combinatorial games.

the electronic journal of combinatorics #DS2 7 7 The Dynamics of the Literature The game bibliography below is very dynamic in nature. Previous versions have been circulated to colleagues, intermittently, since the early 1980's. Prior to every mailing updates were prepared, and usually also afterwards, as a result of the comments received from several correspondents. The listing can never be "complete". Thus also the present form of the bibliography is by no means complete.

Because of its dynamic nature, it is natural that the bibliography became a "Dynamic Survey" in the Dynamic Surveys (DS) section of the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (ElJC) and The World Combinatorics Exchange (WCE). The ElJC and WCE are on the World Wide Web (WWW), and the DS can be accessed.(click on "Surveys").

The ElJC has mirrors at various locations. Furthermore, the European Mathematical Information Service (EMIS) mirrors this Journal, as do all of its mirror sites (currently over forty of them). See

8. An Appeal

Hereby I ask the readers to continue sending to me corrections and comments; and inform me of significant omissions, remembering, however, that it is a se- lected bibliography. I prefer to get reprints, preprints or URLs, rather than only titles -- whenever possible.

Material on games is mushrooming on the Web. The URLs can be located using a standard searcher, such as Google.

9. Idiosyncrasies

A year or so after the bibliography became available electronically, I stopped snailmailing hard copies to potential readers.

Most of the bibliographic entries refer to items written in English, though there is a sprinkling of Danish, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Slovakian and Russian, as well as some English translations from Russian. The predominance of English may be due to certain prejudices, but it also reflects the fact that nowadays the lingua franca of science is English. In any case, I'm soliciting also papers in languages other than English, especially if accompanied by an abstract in English.

On the administrative side, Technical Reports, submitted papers and un- published theses have normally been excluded; but some exceptions have been made. Abbreviations of book series and journal names follow the Math Reviews conventions. Another convention is that de Bruijn appears under D, not B; von Neumann under V, not N, McIntyre under M not I, etc.

the electronic journal of combinatorics #DS2 8

Earlier versions of this bibliography have appeared, under the title "Selected bibliography on combinatorial games and some related material", as the master bibliography for the book Combinatorial Games, AMS Short Course Lecture Notes, Summer 1990, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, Proc. Symp. Appl. Math. 43 (R. K. Guy, ed.), AMS 1991, pp. 191-226 with 400 items, and in the Dynamic Surveys section of the Electronic J. of Combinatorics in November 1994 with 542 items (updated there at odd times). It also appeared as the master bibliography in Games of No Chance, Proc. MSRI Workshop on Combinatorial Games, July, 1994, Berkeley, CA (R. J. Nowakowski, ed.), MSRI Publ. Vol. 29, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 493-537, under the present title, containing 666 items. The version published in the palindromic year 2002 contained the palindromic number 919 of references. It constituted a growth of 38%. It appeared in ElJC and as the master bibliography in More Games of No Chance, Proc. MSRI Workshop on Combinatorial Games, July, 2000, Berkeley, CA (R. J. Nowakowski, ed.), MSRI Publ. Vol. 42, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 475-535. The current update (mid-2003), in ElJC, contains 1001 items, another palindrome.

10. Acknowledgments

Many people have suggested additions to the bibliography, or contributed to it in other ways. Among those that contributed more than two or three items are: Akeo Adachi, Ingo Alth"ofer, Thomas Andreae, Eli Bachmupsky, Adriano Bar- lotti, J'ozsef Beck, Claude Berge, Gerald E. Bergum, H. S. MacDonald Coxeter, Thomas S. Ferguson, James A. Flanigan, Fred Galvin, Martin Gardner, Alan J. Goldman, Solomon W. Golomb, Richard K. Guy, Shigeki Iwata, David S. John- son, Victor Klee, Donald E. Knuth, Anton Kotzig, Jeff C. Lagarias, Michel Las Vergnas, Hendrik W. Lenstra, Hermann Loimer, F. Lockwood Morris, Richard J. Nowakowski, Judea Pearl, J. Michael Robson, David Singmaster, Wolfgang Slany, Cedric A. B. Smith, Rastislaw Telg'arsky, Y_ohei Yamasaki and others. Thanks to all and keep up the game! Special thanks are due to various helpers who assisted with the initial T E X file, to Silvio Levy, who has edited and transformed it into L A T E X2e in 1996, and to Wolfgang Slany, who has transformed it into a BIBTeX file at the end of the previous millenium, and solved a "new millenium" problem encountered when the bibliography grew beyond 999 items.

11. The Bibliography

OLDEST CHESS-MAN FOUND IN JULY 2002

2005-01-23T14:15:00.000-08:00

Ancient Chess Piece Discovered

If the Albanian artifact is a chess piece, chess history as we know it is wrong.

If you've ever searched for chess items on eBay, you've come across the many listings for 'chess horse table lamps', 'chess tower salt & pepper shakers', and similar. For the sellers of these items, the horse-head shape makes the item a knight, and anything resembling a tower or castle must be a rook. Listings on eBay are as transitory as a blitz game, and the only thing that really matters is whether the winning bidder is happy with the item.

A recent archaeological find of an early chess piece, widely reported by major news services, is now suspected to be misidentified. At the end of July 2002, an ivory piece 4 centimeters high (a little more than 1 1/2 inches) was discovered in Butrint, an ancient Mediterranean city in southern Albania. The piece was found in a Roman mansion by members of the Institute of World Archaeology, which is affiliated with the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England.

Members of the team identified the find as a small chess piece dating from the 5th or 6th century AD. This would make it the oldest chess piece found in Europe. The mansion where it was found has been dated to 465, which could make the piece the oldest found anywhere in the world.

Professor Richard Hodges said, 'We are wondering if it is the king or queen because it has a little cross, but we are not sure.' The remark raised eyebrows because the generally accepted history is that chess was invented in the 6th century in northern India. Some historians believe chess was invented in China. If true, it does not change the accepted path of its later migration.

From India chess went to Persia (Iran today) and from there to Arabia. The Arabs are credited with bringing the game to Europe in the 9th or 10th century.

The earliest European chess pieces are adorned neither with crowns nor with crosses. The Burint piece is certainly not a Queen, which revolutionized the game when it was introduced by an unknown genius in the late-15th century.

The oldest known European pieces belong to the Venafro set, named after the central Italian town where they were discovered in a Roman tomb in 1932. The pieces, made of bone topped with ivory, are from the late-10th century and are housed in the Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Another early European set is the Charlemagne set, made of elephant ivory. Probably made near Naples, Italy, the set dates from the late-11th century. The 16 surviving pieces are housed at the National Library, Paris. Others were lost during the French Revolution.

The best known medieval pieces belong to the Lewis set. They were discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, northwest Scotland. The pieces, dated from the mid-12th century, were carved mostly from walrus tusk, with a few from whale teeth. Coming from at least four different sets, they are now in the British Museum, London, and the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Getting back to eBay, how do you know if the designer intended the object to model a real chess piece? You don't, unless there are at least two different pieces in the design, like a 'horse' *and* a 'tower'. Then you can be sure. Although the Burint piece fails this simple test, it may still prove to be a chess piece.

----------------------------------------

Maybe archaeologists too nowadays feel forced to put on a false nose for jollity. At the end of last July many media reported that a British team had found during excavations in the city Butrint. The South of what now is Albania, a small ivory chess piece that was dated from the fifth or sixth century (accounts differ) and thereby would be by far the oldest chess piece found in Europe. According to members of the archaeological team, chess in Europe turns out to have a much longer history than we assumed until now.

The history of chess will have to be re-written. Can this be true? About the early history of chess there are few hard facts known and consequently the field provides rich opportunities for controversy and speculation.
Most historians consider India to be the birthplace of chess, others point to China and an intrepid adventurer has even indicated Babylon in the second millennium BC as the cradle of chess.
Nevertheless there exists something that can be called "mainstream chess history". In Whyld and Hooper's The Oxford Companion to Chess it is summed up thus: “The earliest evidence of a recognizable form of chess, chaturanga, is around AD 600. Before that, all is speculation.” This firm statement, not present in the first edition, was added to the second edition of 1992, probably as a warning against too adventurous historians.

From India the game goes to Persia and from there to the Arabs, who bring it to Europe during the ninth century. Around the same time there is a Northern route by which chess is brought to Europe via Russia. This is the familiar tale that indeed will have to be strongly revised if the British archaeologists are right, for not only do they claim to have found the earliest European chess piece, they date it from a period (in one account the year 465 is mentioned) of which no firm evidence exists that chess was played anywhere in the world at all.

As far as I know, dating a man-made object is not an easy task. It is not enough to date the material (ivory in this case) but what needs to be fixed is the period when the artisan made it into the thing it is now. Not only the established history of chess, but also methods of dating provide room for controversy. But even more difficult, I think, is to decide if the object is really a chess piece.

It would be nice if we found 32 little objects of different sizes, reflecting the hierarchy of the pieces, but this is not the case here. Only one "piece" has been found. I look at the picture. What can it tell us?

A piece of ivory, four centimeters high, that looks a bit like a miniature Eastern-European church tower, with a little crown or cross on top. Yes, it has some resemblance to European chess pieces of a much later age, but chess pieces have come in many forms.

It might have been a chess piece and it might have been a lot of other things. To name only one possibility, it might have been made for purely decorative reasons, with no function at all except to be pretty. The English archaeologist John Mitchell declared that the team had excluded the possibility that the object had anything to do with other board games such as backgammon or the Roman game tabula. It would have to be a chess King or Queen, because of the crown on top.

A Queen? That would force us to re-write the history of chess even more drastically, as until now we had been convinced that the Queen was invented in Western Europe during the 15th century.
Maybe what Mitchell meant was the Firzan, the Queen's early precursor, but that doesn't sound logical either, for why would a mere councilor of the King wear a crown? I doubt if the team of archaeologists had a detailed knowledge of the history of chess.
But they knew enough to realise that their find, if it were really a chess piece, would force a re-writing of a small but substantial part of cultural history. Quite a big consequence of the find of a tiny piece of ivory.

Sometimes it happens indeed that history has to be re-written, but for that the new facts have to be at least as firmly based as old theory. You can never be sure, of course. But to me it seems that the British archaeologists found an object that could have been anything. Only if it were a chess piece would it have such an impact on general history.

So a chess piece it had to be. Not only chess champions but also scientists and cultural scholars have to jump through hoops to get the media attention that nowadays is indispensable to the funding of their work. The team that did the excavations in Butrint got plenty of media attention after finding their "chess piece".

As I said, you cannot be sure. The thing might be what they claim it to be. I certainly do not want to pass as an expert on chess history, but it seems to me that chess has been taken for a ride.

FIDE RATING JANUARY 2005

2005-01-20T16:27:00.002-08:00

Linares Tournament 2005:

Kasparov, G
Anand, V
Leko, P
Topalov, V
Adams, M
Vallejo Pons
Kasimdzhanov, R

FIDE RATING JANUARY 2005

2005-01-20T16:27:00.001-08:00

Linares Tournament 2005:

Kasparov, G
Anand, V
Leko, P
Topalov, V
Adams, M
Vallejo Pons
Kasimdzhanov, R

FIDE RATING JANUARY 2005

2005-01-20T16:27:00.000-08:00

Linares Tournament 2005:

Kasparov, G
Anand, V
Leko, P
Topalov, V
Adams, M
Vallejo Pons
Kasimdzhanov, R

OPENING REPORTAIRE ELITE CHESS PLAYERS

2005-01-17T13:28:00.000-08:00

Open Systems

1.) Caro-Cann
2.) Sicilian Defence (b)
3.) Frence Defence
4.) Petroff (b)
5.) Ruy Lopez (b)
6.) Scandinavian Defence
7.) Pirc-Robatch (b)
8.) Vienna Game
9.) King's Gambit
10.) Philido Defence
11.) Scotch Game (b)
12.) Four Knight's Game

Closed Systems

1.) English Opening
2.) Benoni Defence
3.) Queen's Gambit
4.) Slav Defence
5.) Queen's Gambit Accepted
6.) Grunfeld Defence
7.) Catalan System
8.) Queen's Indian Defence
9.) Nimzo-Indian Defence
10.) King's Indian Defence
11.) Dutch Defence
12.) Reti Opening (b)
13.) Queen's Pawn Game (b)

OTHER GM

2005-01-17T08:16:00.002-08:00

TO DO

GM Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900)
GM Kramnik, Vladimir
GM Kasparow, Garry
GM TARKAKOWER X.
GM Anatoly;Ê Vasily Karpov
GM Bobby Fischer
GM Kotov, Alexander

GM Aljechin, Alexander
GM Boris Spassky
GM Tigran Petrosian
GM Tal, Mikhail
GM Reti, Richard
GM Smyslov, Vasily V.
GM Botvinnik, Mikhail M,
GM ALEKHINE, ALEXANDER
GM Euwe, Max
GM Nimzowitch, Aron
GM Capablanca, Jose R.
GM Dr. Siegber Tarrash
GM Lasker Emanuel
GM Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900)
GM PHILIDOR, Andre Dunican

GM PHILIDOR, Andre Dunican

2005-01-17T07:11:00.000-08:00

Studies of Chess: Containing a Systematic Introduction to the Game; and the Analysis of Chess

By: Philidor, [A]ndre [D]anican

Book Description: Printed for Samuel Bagster 1817 London. Better than very good lissued without dust jacket 5th Hardbound Rare item first published in 1749.

By: PHILIDOR, A.D.

Analyse du Jeu des Échecs. Avec une nouvelle Notation abrégée et des Planches ou se trouve figurée la situation de jeu pour les Renvois et les Fins de parties. Par l'Auteur des Stratagèmes des échecs (= Montigny).

Paris, Chez Causette, 1820. Nouvelle Édition. 12mo. Contemp. half morocco, spine gilt. With stipple-engraved frontispiece-portrait of the author. New edition of the analysis of the game of chess by the famous French composer and chess-player François André Danican, called Philidor (1727-1795), first published at London in 1749. In 1803.

Philidor's book was renewed by Montigny, who introduced a new and shorter chess-notation. The present edition contains a large number of plates with chess-positions, also by Montigny. The chess playing boards on the charming plates are printed in green and white, and the chess pieces are printed in capitals in black and red. Philidor's book, a practical manual to easyly learn the game, became very popular and was many times republished and translated into almost every European language. Bibl. Van der Linden-Niermeijeriana 456; Cat. Schaakboekerij Niemeijer 1799; Coll. Rimington-Wilson 1085 NL.

By: Philidor, Francois Andre Danican

Chess Analysed: or Instructions by which a Perfect Knowledge of this
1791 (CHESS).

Philidor, Francois Andre Danican. Chess Analysed: or Instructions by which a Perfect Knowledge of this Noble Game may in a Short Time be Acquir'd. London: For F. Wingrave, 1791. viii, 144 p. Untrimmed in original gray paper wrappers, as issued. Spine covering largely worn away, stitching loose, slightly dust-soiled and a trifle dog-eared. A "new edition" of the most important chess book of the eighteenth century. Francois Philidor (1726- 1795) was a French musician and composer who devoted much of his time to the game of chess.

He traveled widely in Europe and England, meeting and defeating the most noted players of the time. In London in 1749 his L'Analyze des Echecs was first published, and the next year it was translated into English. In 1787 Richard Twiss called it ". the best book of the kind, and almost the only one from which any thing relative to the practical part of the game may be learnt."

Several editions had been printed by the end of the century.

By: Philidor
Origin of the Game of Chess

Bood description: Cheltenham: Ruff, Printer, 1804 Quarter leather. Good. 314pp. Contemporary, if not original, leather back / paper boards.

???

By: ALLEN, George

THE LIFE OF PHILIDOR MUSICIAN AND CHESS-PLAYER

Book description: Philadelphia E. H. Butler Co. 1863. Despite the rubbing, a nice copy in a very attractive binding. Bound by Pawson & Nicholson in full brown morocco with an elaborate gilt design on both covers incorporating a chess board with red and black morocco onlays and gilt chess pieces on the spine, all edges gilt, dentelles, and marbled endpapers. xii, 156 pages.

Two copies of this book were printed on vellum, self-proclaimed as the first book printed on vellum in America. Alas, this is not one of those two, but it appears, however, to be one of a few large-paper copies printed on French vellum paper. Signature of Edwin Dimock dated New York 1919 on the first blank. First Edition.

By: DUBREUIL, Jean
Dictionnaire lyrique portatif

1766 DUBREUIL, Jean. Dictionnaire Lyrique Portatif, ou Choix des Plus Jolies Ariettes de Tous Les Genres, Disposees pous la Voix & les Instrumens, avec les paroles Francoises sous la Musique. Le tout recueilli & mis en ordre par M. Dubreuil, Maitre de Clavecin. Paris: Dubreuil et Lacombe, 1766. Two volumes. Octavo. Contemporary mottled calf. Music engraved throughout. From the collection of Henry Prunieres, with his bookplate to front pastedown of Volume II. Second Edition. RISM Recueils BII p. 153.

A collection of French and Italian airs, many from contemporary operas, arranged alphabetically by opening lines, with a table of airs at the beginning of each volume.

Includes works by Alexandre, Blaise, Clement, Cocchi, Colin de Blamont, Dauvergne, Desbrosses, Duni, Gavinies, Gibert, La Borde, La Garde, Laruette, La Salle d'Offemont, Lully, Mondonville, Monsigny, Mouret, Naude, Pergolese, Philidor, Rameau, Rebel et Francoeur, Rinaldo da Capua, Rousseau, Royer, Sellitti and Sodi.

Volgarizzamento Del Libro

2005-01-17T07:03:00.000-08:00

By: CESSOLIS, Jacobus de

Volgarizzamento Del Libro de' Costumi e Degli Offizii de'Nobili Sopra il Giuoco Degli Scacchi di Frate Jacopo da Cessole Tratto Nuovamente da un Codice Magliabechiano.

Book description: Milan Dalla Tipografia del Dottore Giulio Ferrario 1829 [CESSOLIS, Jacobus de]. Volgarizzamento. Del Libro de' Costumi e Degli Offizii de'Nobili Sopra il Giuoco Degli Scacchi di Frate Jacopo da Cessole Tratto Nuovamente da un Codice Magliabechiano. Milan: Dalla Tipografia del Dottore Giulio Ferrario, 1829. Octavo. xx, 162 [163 errata] pages. Fine mounted engraving of chess match (after engraving from the Florence 1493 edition) on front cover, with thirteen additional mounted engravings in text.

The 1829 edition of Jacobus de Cessolis' Liber de Moribus hominum et officiis nobilium, an enormously popular medieval work translated into many other European languages. The Italian translation was printed in Florence (1493) Venice (1534) and Milan (1829). Considered "the most amibitious, and from the literary point of view, the most important of all the chess moralities.." (H.J.R. Murray, A History of Chess, Oxford: 1913.

Price: U$ 450.00

THE GAME OF CHESS: JACOBUS de CESSOLIS TRANSL & PRINTED BY WILLIAM CAXTON C1483

CAXTON WILLIAM

Price: U$ 411.71

Book Description: THE SCOLAR PRESS 1976 FACSIMILE REPROD. LTD EDIT 448/500.

Bekwaame Handleiding Tot Het Edele Schaakspel of Beredeneerde Verhandelingen (etc. Etc.)

2005-01-17T06:59:00.000-08:00

By: Philidor, A.D.

Den Haag: Drecht, H.H. Van, 1786 Later Boards. No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Bekwaame handleiding tot het edele schaakspel, of beredeneerde verhandelingen om dit spel niet alleen op een gemakkelijke wijze zonder onderrichting, in den grond te leeren, maar zelf tot een rigtsnoer te dienen voor degeenen die reeds verre daarin gevorderd zijnde, binnen korte tijd tot meerdere volkomenheid zouden willen geraken; als mede , om het met elkander door briefwisseling en zelfs met levendige menschen, te kunnen spelen. Gevolgt naar het Fransch van den Heer A.D.Philidor, zijnde dit werkje onder anderen ten hoogsten nuttig voor ingenieurs en alle klassen van militaire persoonen en vermeerder met een noodzakelijke inleiding, noodige aanmerkingen, voorbeelden, en stelregelige betogingen en aanwijzingen, die men van de leerling tot het meesterschap, benoodigt heeft te weten. Door Petrus Lievens Kersteman.

ILL PUTTINO ATERAMENTE DETTO,

2005-01-17T06:41:00.000-08:00

Il puttino altramente detto, il cavaliero errante del Salvio, sopra il gioco de scacchi

By: SALVIO, Allesandro

Book Description: Naples Gio. Domenico Montanaro 1634 First edition.

From the Chess Library of George Walker SALVIO, Allesandro. Il puttino altramente detto, il cavaliero errante del Salvio, sopra il gioco de scacchi. Naples: Gio. Domenico Montanaro, 1634. First edition. Quarto (8 x 5 3/4 inches; 202 x 145 mm.). [viii].

Title with woodcut coat-of-arms, woodcut initial and decorations. small divet to outer margin of H2 (not affecting any lettering [Bound with} SALVIO, Allesandro. Trattado dell' inventione et arte liberale del gioco di scacchi. Naples: Gio. Domenico Montanaro, 1634. Second edition. Title page with (different) woodcut coat-of-arms. Contemporary flexible vellum, covers with gilt fillet borders with gilt corner floral devices and gilt central armorial shields with crowns on top, spine with gilt rules and devices, contemporary black ink spine lettering in holograph, all edges gilt An excellent copy.

Provenance: "G. Walker copy from his Chess Library." George Walker (1803-1879) was the author of the first chess column to appear in a magazine, the Lancet, in 1823. He was also the editor of England's first magazine devoted soley to chess, The Philidorian, in 1837.

Established the custom of recording games. On the front endpaper as well is the signature of Mr. Remington Wilson. Il Puttino, dedicated to Pietro Giordano Ursino, contains an account of the career of Leonardo, extracts from Cessolis, thirteen chapters on gambitti, seven on giochi piani (games that were not gambits), and thirteen on problems. The Trattato, dedicated to Mario de Bologna, is described by Murray as "practically a reprint of the games and problems of the 1604 edition" though the third book is devoted "to a bitter attack on Carrera" whose Gioco degli Scacchi (1717) had made an isolated criticism of a move in a Queen's Gambit in the 1604 edition of the Trattato. Van der Linde Library NL I, 369

LEHR-UND HANDBUCH DER ENDSPIELE (HANDBOOK OF ENDGAME).

2005-01-17T06:39:00.000-08:00

By: Cheron, Andre [Bobby Fischer signed]

Price: U$ 10000.00

Book Description: Berlin Siegfried Engelhardt Verlag 1952. fine; An utmost rarity. 3-volume set from the personal library of world chess champion Bobby Fischer who signed all 3 books.

LIBER CHRONICARUM

2005-01-17T06:32:00.000-08:00

By: SCHEDEL, Hartmann.

Price: U$ 116,132.49 excl. valvelle

Book Description: [Nuremberg: Anton Koberger for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 12 July, 1493].

Includes the five additional unnumbered leaves containing the description of Poland, 'De Sarmacia regione', and the laudatory verse on Maximilian. Gothic type, sixty-four lines plus headline.
Table and parts of the text in double columns. Woodcut title and 1809 woodcut illustrations, of which ,164 are repeats, from 645 blocks (Sydney Cockerell's count in Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century, Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1897, pp. 35-36) by Michael Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, and their workshop, including supposedly the young Albrecht Dürer, including double-page maps of the world and of Europe.
The portrait of Pope Joan ('Johannes Septimus,' verso of leaf CLXIX), often missing, is present and unmutilated. 2- and 3-line initials, 7- to 14-line capital spaces. Table with large manuscript initials in red and blue, first text-leaf, register and a few other leaves rublicated, traces of colour on a few woodcuts.
Contemporary blind-tooled pigskin,birds and floral motifs in panels to sides, metal corner- and centre-pieces over red painted background.

Early annotation this copy, washed; bookplate and stamps of Muri Benedectine monastery, Switzerland, Abbot Hieronymus, inscription 'bought at Sir J. Swinburne's sale, Capheaton Hall, Newcastle, 26 July 1915'; bookplate of E. P. Goldschmidt. A wonderful copy in a handsome contemporary binding.

First edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, preceding the German language edition (23 Dec. 1493) by just over five months. The artists, Michael Wolgemut, the well-known teacher of Albrecht Dürer, and his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, are mentioned in the colophon.

The woodcuts comprise religious subjects from the Old and New Testament, classical and medieval history, and a large series of city views (including Augsburg, Bamberg, Basel, Cologne, Nuremberg, Rome, Ulm, Vienna), as well as a double-page map of Europe (fols. CCXCIX-[CCC]) and a large Ptolemaic world map (fols. XII-XIII). The text is a year-by-year account of notable events in world history from the creation down to the year of publication, including the invention of printing at Mainz, the exploration of the Atlantic and of Africa, as well as references to the game of chess, and to medical curiosities, including what is believed to be the first depiction of Siamese twins.

The passage relating to the alleged discovery of America in 1483 by Martin Behaim and Jacobus Canus appears on the verso of leaf CCXC.

DE ARTE POETICA , etc

2005-01-10T13:00:00.020-08:00

De Arte Poetica Lib. IIIÃ‰de Bombyce Lib. IIÃ‰de Ludo ScacchorumÃ‰HymniÃ‰Bucolica. [bound with:] Christiados Libri Sex

By: Vida, Marcus Hieronymus

Book Description: Rome and Cremona: Lodovico Vicentino [degli Arrighi] (first book); and Lodovicus Britannicus (second book), 1527 and 1535 respectively.

First editions of these works of the poet theologian, and Bishop of Alba, Marcus Hieronymus Vida (1485-1566).

Brunet writes that these two volumes should be"reunis," as they comprise together the first edition of his poetic works. As well as the beautiful typeface designed by the printer and calligrapherArrighi, it is worth noting that Vida's poem, De Ludo Scacchorum (On the Game of Chess) is one of the earliest works on the game (translated into English in 1726)

First Edition of each book. 8vo. 2 books bound in one, the first printed in Arrighi's italic type. First title: A-O8, [112] leaves, including final blank O8; second title: a-t8u4, [155] leaves, including final blank u4.

Bound together in contemporary vellum. Discreet stamp from seminary on first title-page, small stain at lower margin in mid-volume, overall a very attractive copy. Brunet V:1180; Adams V703 (2nd title).

Pope Leo X . The author, Marco Girolamo Vida, Bishop of Alba (c.1489-1566) was considered one of the best neo-latin poets of his time. He is best known for his poem on the game of chess.

OPERA. Quorum Catalogum Sequens Pagella Continet.

By: Vida, Marcus Hieronymus.

Book Description: Antwerp: Ex Officina Christophori Plantini, 1578. The collected writings of Vida (d. 1566), the Italian author of many Latin poems, the most famous being the "Christias" and his "De Arte Poetica."

He is also remembered for his ingenious poem on the game of chess, "De Ludo Sacchorum" or "Sacchia Ludus" which was translated into many languages.

Christiados libri sex.

By VIDA, Marco Girolamo.

Book Description: Lyons, Seb. Gryphius, 1536. 8vo. 220pp + (2)ff. Italic. Printer's device on title and at end. 1 historiated initial. Antiqued sheep.

An epic poem of the story of Christ in elegant Latin verse composed at the instigation of Pope Leo X with the idea of popularizing a subject traditionally shrouded in legend and mystery. The poem was a great success, although it was later criticised for containing too many pagan inspirations.

It was translated into Spanish in 1554, into Italian in 1792, and into German as late as 1811. The author, Marco Girolamo Vida, Bishop of Alba (c.1489-1566) was considered one of the best neo-latin poets of his time.

He is best known for his poem on the game of chess. Adams records no copy in Cambridge libraries.

OPPOSITION ET CASES CONJUGUATES

2005-01-10T13:00:00.019-08:00

Opposition et Cases ConjuguÃ©es; Opposition und Schwesterfelder; Opposition and Sister Squares.

By: Duchamp, Marcel, & V. Halberstadt.

Book Description: 1932. A rare treatise, conceived of and designed by Duchamp, devoted to a complex endgame problem.

Duchamp's profound interest in chess has been widely documented; this publication appeared after he had participated in international chess tournaments during the preceeding five years.

Sont RÃ©conciliÃ©es par; Sind Durch Versohnt; Are Reconiled by. 112 pp. compilation of chessboard diagrams (printed in red and black, some printed on glassine), with introd. and commentary in French, German, and English. 4to. Orig. wrpps, typography and design by Duchamp. Paris/Brussels (Editions de l'Echiquier) 1932.

GAMES ANCIENT AND ORIENTAL AND HOW TO PLAY THEM

2005-01-10T13:00:00.018-08:00

Games ancient and Oriental and how to play them. Being the games of the Ancient Egyptians, the Hiera Gramme of the Greeks, the Ludus Latrunculorum of the Romans and the Oriental games of chess, draughts, backgammon and magis squares. London & New York 1892.

By: FALKENER, EDWARD:

Book Description: 1892. With photographic portrait frontispiece, 10 original albumen photographs, 6 more plates, of which one double page and 3 coloured lithographed plates. Many illustrations in the text. Publisher's cloth, decorated and lettered in gilt on covers and spine. A nice and tight copy. Treats games, their history and rules, in Poland, Turkey, India, Burma, Siam, China and Japan.

The illustrations include fine examples of game-boards and their respective pieces. Falkener was an architect with a deep interest in classical archeology.

PROGRAMMING A COMPUTER FOR PLAYING CHESS

2005-01-10T13:00:00.017-08:00

Programming a Computer for Playing Chess. (In); The Philosophical Magazine, vol. 41 number 314, March (1950) Entire issue, pp. 209-312.

By: SHANNON, Claude E.:

Book Description: London, Taylor & Francis, (1950). First edition. The first technical paper on computer chess. Hook & Norman: Origins of Cyberspace 882.

A fine copy. edition. Binding is 8vo, three-quarter calf over marbled boards, orig. stiff printed wrapps. bound in, pp. 256-275, Several diagrams in text.

THE STORY OF CHESS PIECES FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERN TIMES

2005-01-10T13:00:00.016-08:00

By: YARDLEY, DESMOND, binder. WICKHAM, HANS & SIEGFRIED.

Book Description: Translated by Cornelia Brookfield and Claudia Rosoux. London, Paul Hamlyn, 1964. First English edition. Folio, 328pp., 196 color and black and white plates. Bound in full black morocco, with square recessed onlays of white 'velbex'.

'The Story of Chess Pieces' tooled in platinum on the spine, reading in such a manner as to be evocative of moving chess pieces along a board. Quarter black morocco chemise, with lettering as on spine, over black and white geometrically patterned paper.

Sturdy felt-lined slipcase covered in black and white geometrically pattered paper with black 'velbex' plates screwed into head and foot. Desmond Yardley (1905-1972) studied at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts. His bindings are in the permanent collections of the British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Library and Museum, van het Boek, The Hague, Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique, Brussels, and many other public and private collections.

COPTOGRAPHISCHE GROEPEN

2005-01-10T13:00:00.015-08:00

bevattende 1. De Schaakspelers. 2. De Musiceerende Bedelaars. 3. Een Schoolmeester met zijne leerlingen. 4. Don Quichot & Sancho Pansa. 5. Een Dames-Gezelschap aan de theetafel. 6. Een Huisgezin.

Book Description: Amsterdam, Wed. G.A. Diederichs & Zoon, Mindermann & Co., (ca. 1820). Oblong sm.8vo. Contemp. pink paper portfolio, with title and list of contents on front cover. With 6 engraved plates designed in outlines only with parts cross-hatched for papercutting, showing the silhouettes of heads of chess players, street musicians, a school teacher with his class, a family, a company of ladies drinking tea, and Don Quichot and Sancho Pansa. Rare complete set in original portfolio of plates with silhouettes intended for paper-cutting and use in the popular children's game of presenting a shadow-show, here with the heads of a larger group of people, much more difficult for the children to prepare for the game.

CENTO GIVOCHI LIBERALI, ET D'INGEGNO

2005-01-10T13:00:00.014-08:00

Book Description: 1551. Nouellamente da M. Innocentio Ringhieri Gentilhuomo Bolognese ritrouati, & in dieci Libri descritti .. In Bologna per Anselmo Giaccarelli, 1551.

By: RINGHIERI, Innocenio.

FIRST EDITION. Dramatic woodcut vignette on title page, historiated woodcut initials; faint dampstain at top inner margin, minor dust-soiling in places, but generally clean and crisp throughout; bound in contemporary flexible vellum boards, covers laced through, spine lettered in ink in a contemporary hand, edges of vellum at sometime repaired, some soiling and marking to vellum; from the library of Giannalisa Feltrinelli, with his bookplate on front pastedown; a very good copy.

First edition of this famous book on Renaissance courtly intellectual entertainments, detailing 100 games and pastimes, including chess and palmistry, played at Renaissance courts. - Dedicated to the Italian-born queen of France, Catherine de Medici.

The work is divided into 100 chapters, describing such courtly amusements as hunting, fishing, card playing, ballads, madrigals, as well as many other diversions including a game of chess in which the participants dress as chess pieces.

Innocentio Ringhieri (fl. 1550) has aimed his book at a young audience, though one that is not too young to think about courtship: each chapter opens with a playful and flattering address to the ladies, and there are often short disquisition's on the power of love.

The games are based on wordplay, vocabulary exercises, and riddles; they include contests that involve identifying islands, gems, virtues, muses, and so on, and they sometimes take up more substantial and enigmatic topics such as time, death, love, chastity, and felicity.

A HISTORY OF CHESS

2005-01-10T13:00:00.013-08:00

By: Murray, H. J. R., Illustrated; A History of Chess::

London: Oxford University Press, 1913 Near Fine/No Jacket. Hardcover First Edition. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Dark grayish-blue cloth with blind-stamped decoration on front cover. Gilt lettering on spine. Spine is slightly sunned. 900 pages including index; with many illustrations.

This is generally considered to be the finest book on chess ever written.

Part I: Chess in Asia;
Part II: Chess in Europe. Chapters include: Chess in India (3 chapters); Chess in the Malay Lands, Chess in China, Corea, and Japan, The Invention of Chess in Muslim Legend, The Game of Shatranj: Its Theory and Practice, Chess in the Middle Ages, The Early Didactic Literature, The Mediaeval Problem (3 chapters), Chessboards and Chessmen, The Nineteenth Century, and many others.

LA MECANISME DE LA PAROLE

2005-01-10T13:00:00.012-08:00

By: KEMPELEN, Wolfgang von::

Le mécanisme de la parole, suivi de la description d'une machine parlante et enrichie de XXVII planches.

Vienne, Bauer & se trouve chez J. V. Degen, 1791. In-8de Portrait, XII, 464, (4) pp., 26 planches hors-texte. Veau marbré, dos à nerfs orné, filets et dentelles d'encadrement sur les plats. (Reliure de l'époque.) Edition originale, très rare. Le livre a été publié dans le même temps en français et en allemand. Illustré d'un portrait et de 26 planches hors-texte. Kempelen (1734-1804) établit la première monographie sur la synthèse du langage et décrit par le menu la première machine parlante basée sur une étude élaborée de la voix humaine. Cette version française semble beaucoup plus rare que celle en allemand. 2 exemplaires dans RLIN : NLM, Harvard.

" While the Turk the Chess-player was constructed in six months since Kempelen promised it to Her Majesty Maria Theresa, the construction of the speaking machine demanded more than twenty years and still he could not consider it to be finished.

This machine had to produce the letters and syllables, even the words and short sentences almost in every European language.

Related to the work a treatise was published by J. V. Degen in Vienna in 1791 in German and French titled Le Méchanisme de la parole, suivi de la description d'une machine parlante (Mechanism of Human Speech with the Description of a Speaking Machine), which proves, that Kempelen's speaking machine was neither a mystification nor a mechanical toy, while the principle, which underlied a construction of a chess automaton still remained unknown. In any case the book Mechanism of Human Speech confirmed outstanding Kempelen's capacities to reason profoundly in abstract philosophical concepts and to affiliate them with exact technological and constructional thinking. (.)

Nonetheless, the extensive treatise Mechanism of Human Speech by W. von Kempelen represents a unique work in the history of phonetics, which profoundly influenced later development of the science of sonic aspect of language and which thus deserves as great publicity as possible. (.)

Kempelen's machine was not in fact a " speaking machine " in a real sense of the word, but a mechanism for production of speech sounds, words even sentences. An accurate hearing was needed to operate the machine, because vocals and many consonants had to be continually controlled.

A degree of openess of a mouth cavity and the period of oscillations of a sound with consonants were not mechanically determined. (.) Kempelen's speaking machine may be interpreted as a cognitive model. Disregarding purely psychical components following parts (stages) may be identified in a communicative process: neurophysiological, organogenetical (articulative), auditorial (external, middle and internal ear) and again neurophysiological (competent sections of central nervous system) in perception.

Kempelen's machine serves as a model for articulatory and partly acoustic stage, and his significance resides especially in this double modelling. A pure articulatory modelling would not possess a genuine scientific value, it would be simply only an imitation of observed articulatory processes. Acoustic modelling uncovered a relevance of properties of cavities and provided a scientific information on speech processes." Slavomir Ondrejovic.

Bel exemplaire. "Mechanism of Human Speech with the Description of a Speaking Machine". First edition. The book as been published in the mean time in French and in German. Illustrated by one portrait and 26 engraved plates. Contemporary marbled calf.

BATTLE SYMPHONY

2005-01-10T13:00:00.011-08:00

By: BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van::

1816 BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van.
Beethoven's Grand Battle Sinfonia, Performed last Season 2003 with the greatest Applause at the Oratorios, Drury Lane, Descriptive of the Battle & Victory at Vittoria. [Op. 91].

London: Rt. Birchall, [1816]. Folio, contemporary three-quarter red morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, all edges gilt. $9500. First edition of the piano arrangement of Beethoven's "Battle Symphony," fully engraved, commemorating a victory of Wellington over Napoleon, published one month before the publication of the full score in Vienna.

In 1813, Johann Maelzel (the inventor of the ear trumpet, the mechanical chess player and the metronome) persuaded Beethoven to embark on a large-scale work, a "battle symphony" commemorating and "depicting" the Duke of Wellington's victory over Napoleon at Vittoria on June 21. The symphony was meant to showcase Maelzel's "Panharmonikon," a massive mechanical orchestra featuring automated flutes, clarinets, trumpets, violins, cellos, drums, cymbals and triangle. But Beethoven, quarrelling with Maelzel, abandoned the idea and began to turn the piece into a full symphony for conventional orchestra.

The finished work, which incorporates "Rule Britannia" and a fugal treatment of "God Save the King," "was thunderously acclaimed at two charity concerts on 8 and 12 December 1813-together with the Seventh Symphony, which had not been heard before. The Battle Symphony had to be repeated three weeks later, and again on 24 February 1814" (New Grove, 368). Beethoven arranged this version for piano himself. He actively courted the English market for his music, and was liberal in accepting terms from English publishers for his music, generally aiming for simultaneous publication in England and on the continent (the alternative being to see his music flourish through pirated editions).

Due to delays in Vienna, this English edition (published in January of 1816) precedes the first edition of the full score by about one month. Tyson, Authentic English Editions of Beethoven, 87-88. Kinsky-Halm, 253.

Contemporary binding lovely, interior clean and fine. Very scarce.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

2005-01-10T13:00:00.010-08:00

By: ROWLING, J.K::

London Bloomsbury 1999 First Deluxe Edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, with an Original Watercolor by the Artist ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Philosopher s Stone. [London]: Bloomsbury, [1999].

First publisher s deluxe edition (original published in 1997). Octavo. 223, [1, blank] pp. With an original watercolor drawing on the dedication page, signed by Thomas Taylor, the cover artist for this, the first volume in the series.

Original red cloth stamped and lettered in gilt on front cover and spine, with gilt fascimile signature of the author and color pictorial label on front cover.

All edges gilt on the rough. A fine copy. This wonderful and highly colorful watercolor depicts Harry Potter playing the chess match, which ultimately leads him to the final episode where he beats the dragon. The chess pieces are larger than Harry. Harry is peeking out behind the black knight with his wand in hand ready to win, with the help of his dear friend Ron. With the creation of Harry Potter, Hermione, Hagrid, Dumbledore, and the Dursleys, J.K. Rowling has won the hearts of children and adults around the world.

This is the first book in her enormously popular continuing tale, chronicling the orphaned Harry s adventures as he fulfills his destiny, does his homework, plays Quidditch for Hogwarts, and defends the world against the evil wizard Voldemort.

A unique and spectacular copy of this modern classic.

YOKO AT INDICA

2005-01-10T13:00:00.009-08:00

Book Description: Indica Gallery. London. 1966. Tall 8vo. pp. 40. Illustrated with 16 pages of perforated monochrome illustrations, each page with adhesive backing. Original publisher's printed wrappers.

Scarce exhibition catalogue of Yoko Ono's infamous show at the Indica Gallery.

The show was attended by John Lennon and has since become legendary for the subsequent events and eventual marriage of Lennon and Ono.

The catalogue is notable for the inclusion of many of Ono's most famous works, the Chess Set (with all-white pieces) 'for playing as long as you can remember where all your pieces are', the 'Apple', which Lennon is supposed to have eaten (as an apparently artistic statement), the 'Ceiling Painting' and so on.

The catalogue is divided into upper and lower sections, with pictures of the objects tipped-in to the upper section and a collection of Ono's famously gnomic utterances and a catalogue below.

THE COURT GAME-MASTER

2005-01-10T13:00:00.008-08:00

or, full and easy instructions for playing the games now in vogue, after the best method, as they are played at court and in the assembles; viz. ombre, picquet, and the royal game of chess.

Wherein the frauds in play are detected, and the laws of each game annexed, to prevent disputes. Written for the use of the young princesses.

BY: SEYMOUR, Richard.

Book Description: London: printed for E. Curll, 1720. Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked. Not to be confused with Seymour's Compleat gamester, which is considerably more common.

Pope's description of the game of ombre from Rape of the lock is reprinted on pages 67-70. Straus, Unspeakable Curll.

TREVANGADACHARYA

2005-01-10T13:00:00.007-08:00

TREVANGADACHARYA,

By: Shastree.

Essays on Chess adapted to the European Mode of Play: consisting principally of Positions or critical Situations calculated to improve the Learner and exercise the Memory ... Translated from the original Sanscrit.

Bombay: Printed for the Author, by M. D. Cruz .. 1814. 1814 Small 4to., pp. [2], [8], iii-xiii, 178, [1], a very good copy in contemporary half-calf (a little worn). First edition of the first chess book to be printed in India, and one of the earliest printed treatises devoted to the endgame.

The idea for a translation of 'Vilas Muni Munjuri or the Diamond Flower Bud of amusement' was mooted by 'the generous Mr. Warden, who holds an exalted place under the Bombay Government, & whose fame is spread in his own country and in foreign lands, sitting one day in his beautiful dwelling, along with his consort'.

The generous Mr. Warden subscribed for ten copies, of which this is one, with his signature on the title-page Also among the subscribers are Mountstuart Elphinstone, the future Governor of Bombay, and a large number of Parsee names.The preface records intriguing differences between the game of chess played in India and the European mode of play ('No pawn can be pushed up to the last square of the board nor take any piece on that line so long as the master piece of that file remains'; 'The king does not castle, but is allowed the move of a knight once in the game; not however to take a piece--nor can he exercise this privilege after having been once checked'). T

The book has ninety-six endgame problems of increasing complexity (with solutions at the back of the book), and analysis of four openings, each with several variations.

Biblioteca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana 2164 The Netherlands.

CHESS ARCHIVES: 1952-1959

2005-01-10T13:00:00.006-08:00

By: Euwe, Dr. M.
Price: US$ 625.00

Book Description: The Hague/Hamburg: Het Netherlandse Schaakcentrum/F. L. Rattmann 1952-59. 3 volumes, VG, gilt spine titles, f/o bp on fep. Fortnightly small paper, mainly German, some English although the many chess board illustrations and strategies need no commentary and are reasonably easy to follow, considerable broken dates, 5 3/4" tall, unpaginated but large number of pages and examples.

NIEUWE PROEVE VAN HANDLEIDING TOT HET SCHAAKSPEL

2005-01-10T13:00:00.005-08:00

Nieuwe Proeve van Handleiding tot het Schaakspel. Naar het Fransch door D. Broedelet, Dz.

By: STEIN, E.

Dutch Language / The Netherlands (NL/NED)

Book Description: Purmerend, Broedelet & Rijkenberg, 1834. Orig. boards. With 96 illustrations of chess-positions on the playing board on 3 folding engraved plates. (4), VIII, 197, (1) pp. First Dutch edition of "Nouvel essai sur le jeu des Echecs, avec des reflections militaire sur ce jeu", first published in 1789, by Elias Stein (1748-1821), a world famous chess player of his day, and chess teacher to the sons of the Dutch Stadtholder Prince Willem V, the later King Willem I. The first French edition had been especially written for his royal pupils, and had been published privately for his pupils and friends only.

Good uncut copy. Bibl. Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana 555; Coll. Rimington-Wilson 1420; not in Cat. Schaakboekerij Niemeijer, The Netherlands.

POST = ADOLESCENE

2005-01-10T13:00:00.004-08:00

By: McAlmon Robert

Book Description: First edition. Coffee coloured wrappers with dark havana coloured lettering, untrimmed, a presentation copy from the author to Pierre de Massot. Dijon: Contact Publishing Co, Published by Maurice Darantiere. 1922-1924

A rare signed example. It seems that McAlmon`s peripatetic approach to publishing and his cryptic date of publication i.e '

Written previously to A Hasty Bunch in 1920.' has made 'Post=Adolescence' into something of a bibliographic duck shoot.

However, proper libraries, such as Die Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin' plump for 1920 though others such as Cornell drop in on 1923 and to add to the confusion SUNY cite 1924. A date that is contradicted by Kay Boyle in 'Being Geniuses Together' and again by Robert E. Knoll in 'Robert McAlmon Expatriate Publisher and Writer' who cites 1923. The historical confusion is only added to by Ford in 'Published in Paris' who suggests that McAlmon`s 'ramblings' and his 'notoriously sloppy and impatient' editing and prooofreading and byzantine forwardings of manuscripts and proofs to Darantiere in Dijon from the cities of Europe suggest only that this book and the 'A Companion Volume' were the first two Contact publications with no hint as to a date.

More interestingly perhaps, Ford also says that W.C. Williams was very taken with it as a factual investigation into sexual and romantic mores in the bohemian milieu of New York`s Greenwich Village calling it 'a journal intime'. pp-42-3 Ford 'Published In Paris'] What is certain is that the recipient of this copy was definitely in Paris in 1923 as a postcard exists, found on the Satie internet pages of the The Academic Society of Sweden, from the great composer to Pierre De Massot requesting a Monday meeting near to the "Hotel Terminus" at "17 1/2 hours" on a Monday. Pierre De Massot was an intimate of Satie apparently working with Picabia on the typography for 'Relache' and playing chess and corresponding with and writing on Rrose Selavy the feminine alter ego of the bohemian`s bohemian Marcel Duchamp. Indeed, this was just the sort of artistic cabal that McAlmon and the vanguardist Yank expats aspired to even if they did not admire the form of their artistic work.

For, as Kay Boyle notes in 'Being Geniuses Together' Duchamp, Tzara et al had made the likes of Man Ray very welcome in Paris by helping them and accompanying them to Hilaire Hiler`s Jockey club to add to the spirit of art '.gigoloing, whoring, pimping.' etc.

THE SPORT OF CRIME

2005-01-10T13:00:00.003-08:00

By: Waugh, Carol-Lynn Rossel; Greenberg, Martin H.; Asimov, Isaac (editors) (Jon L Breen; Robert Barr; Anthony Boucher; Leo R. Ellis; David Ely; Joyce Harrington; Clark Howard; John Lutz; Ed McBain; John D. MacDonald; Arthur Morrison; Stuart Palmer)

Diamond Dick; A Game of Chess; Coffin Corner; The Great Rodeo Fix; The Sailing Club; The Season Ticket Holder; The Last Downhill; The Other Runner; Storm; Dead on the Pin; The Affair of the Avalanche Bicycle and Tyre Co. Limited

New York: Lynx Books, 1989 Soft Cover. Good Only. First Paperback Printing. (xii) 386 pp.

This contains: Diamond Dick by Jon L. Breen;

A Game of Chess by Robert Barr; Coffin Corner by Anthony Boucher;
The Great Rodeo Fix by Leo R. Ellis;

The Sailing Club by David Ely; The Season Ticket Holder by Joyce Harrington;
The Last Downhill by Clark Howard;

The Other Runner by John Lutz; Storm by Ed McBain;
Dead on the Pin by John D. MacDonald;

The Affair of the Avalanche Bicycle and Tyre Co. Limited by Arthur Morrison;
Tomorrow's Murder by Stuart Palmer;

Trojan Horse by Ellery Queen; The Return of Cardula by Jack Ritchie;
This Won't Kill You by Rex Stout;

Murder on the Race Course by Julian Symons;
The Hustler by Walter S. Tevis;

Without the Option by P. G. Wodehouse; and The Man Who Pretended to Like Baseball by Isaac Asimov.

ISBN: 1558022481

CHESS ANALYSED

2005-01-10T13:00:00.002-08:00

By: Philidor, Francois Andre Danican

Chess Analysed: or Instructions by which a Perfect Knowledge of this Noble Game may in a Short Time be Acquir'd. London:

For J. Nourse, and P. Vaillant, 1750. xi, [1], 77, 80- 146 p. Contemporary vellum-backed marbled paper covered boards.

An eighteenth- century owner has neatly penned in his own moves in the margins adjacent to the printed moves. Bookplate of Albert Parsons Sachs. First edition in English of the most important chess book of the eighteenth century.

Francois Philidor (1726-1795) was a French musician and composer who devoted much of his time to the game of chess. He traveled widely in Europe and England, meeting and defeating the most noted players of the time. In London in 1749 his L'Analyze des Echecs was first published, and the next year it was translated into English. In 1787 Richard Twiss called it ".

The best book of the kind, and almost the only one from which any thing relative to the practical part of the game may be learnt." The English text was reprinted numerous times over the next century, but the 1750 edition remains a scarce book.

INTERROGATORIUM SIVE CONFESSIONALE

2005-01-10T13:00:00.001-08:00

Book Description: [Colophon:] Milan: Christophorus Valdarfer, 29 September 1474.

By: BARTHOLOMAEUS DE CHAIMIS [c. 1476].

27 lines gothic type. 5-line heading on first page printed in red. capitals, initial-strokes, & paragraph marks supplied in red. full modern period-style blind & gilt-stamped morocco over wooden bds. by Courtland Benson, vellum endleaves (4 small holes in margins of first leaf filled in). early annotations in margins, on verso of last leaf & on vellum endleaves. the Bergendal copy.

First Edition of this popular confessor's guide, by Bartholomaeus de Chaimis, a Franciscan friar of Milan. The work contains interesting references to temporal affairs, including gaming (dicing, card-playing, and chess, this last apparently allowable for clerics to play because it is not a game of chance), and the frauds and transgressions committed in various trades and professions. Goldsmiths are declared to be sinful if they engage in alchemy, tailors if they make dresses which are too provocatively cut, winesellers if they allow prostitutes on their premises, permit dicing and card-playing, sell one wine for another, or dilute wine with water, The book ends with Valdarfer's famous twenty-four line Latin-verse colophon, which later printers used in their own editions of the work.

Since these verses contain praise of Valdarfer, their use by other printers has puzzled and confused some bibliographers. Not only is this the second book printed at Milan by Valdarfer, but it is also an early example of printing in that city, which began in 1471.

ARS ORATORIA. ARS EPISTOLANDA. ARS MEMORATIVA

2005-01-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

[Ars oratoria. Ars epistolandi. Ars memorativa.] Oratoriae artis epitomata: Sive quae ad consumatum spectant oratorem: ex antiquo rhetorum gymnatio dicendi: scibendique breves rationes: nec non et aptus optimo cuique viro titulus: in super et perquam facilis memorie artis modus Jacobi Publicii Florentinin lucubratione in lucem editus: foelici numine inchoat. Oratoriae institutiones: ex veterum institutio...

Publicius, Jacobus.

Book Description: Venice: 4to. 218 x 151mm. Erhard Ratdolt, 30 November 1482. Ars oratoria: author's prefatory letter to Cyrillus Caesar. Ars epistolandi: prefatory letter to Frederick I of Aragon, panegyric of Frederick of Aragon, b1r Suprascriptiones epistolarum; Ars memorativa, key to the woodcuts, woodcut mnemonic aids, woodcut of chess board with colophon.]

19th c. vellum, small piece out of upper margin from being roughly cut (piece cut off adhering to next leaf). Good thick, crisp paper. 31 lines. Full-page diagram of the tree of oratory; 30 (of 42) roundels conatining a pictorial alphabet (two images for most letters), plus two roundels of a ship and a town, and a nearly full-page woodcut of a chess board with pieces in opening position. This copy lacks the full-page mnemonic device of animals and the astronomical diagram.

The lacking images of the roundels has been laid in in facsimile to comple the alphabet. Contemporary yellow wash to roundels, chess board, and part of the tree. First Edition. This is the first edition of this epitome of the rhetorical arts. It is also the first treatise on memory to appear in print. "Far from introducing us to a modern world of revived classical rheoric, Publicius' memory section seems rather to transport us back into a Dantesque world in which Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise are remembered on the spheres of the universe..In short, this first printed memory treatise..comes straight out of the medieval tradition." [Frances Yates, The Art of Memory.]

Little is known of the author who says he is Florentine but may come from Spain. He lectured at Basel, Leipzig, and Urfurt in the 1460's. It has been suggested that Johannes Lucillius Santritter edited this edition for Ratdolt. The Ars memorativa survives in single copies of 1475-76 Toulouse & Paris editions, as does the Ars epistolandi (C4978). The last copy to appear at auction was at the Sotheby's Friedlander sale (April 23,2001,lot 102) which brought $38,000 plus commisons (lacking volvelle). This is also said to be the first illustration of a chess board!

CYBERNETICS

2005-01-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

Cybernetics. First American ed. Sgd copy

By: Wiener, Norbert

Book Description: New York Wiley 1948. Wiener, Norbert (1894-1964). Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine. 8vo. [2], 194pp. New York: John Wiley & Sons; Paris: Hermann et Cie., 1948. 229 x 152 mm. Original red cloth, red and gray printed dust-jacket (spine darkened, a few chips). Light toning, otherwise very good.

Signed by Wiener on the title. First American Edition, following a few months after the French edition that appeared the same year.

Wiener's classic treatise on feedback was the first conventionally published book, as opposed to technical report, to include a serious discussion of electronic digital computing.

Wiener, independently of Claude Shannon, conceived of communications engineering as a brand of statistical physics, and applied this viewpoint to the concept of information.

However, while Shannon concentrated mainly on applications of information theory to communications, Wiener stressed its application to control problems involving other physical and complicated biological phenomena-indeed, what made Cybernetics so significant was Wiener's synthesis under his name of a vast variety of new developments that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s in modern technology and science.

These were the times when there were rapid advances in computers, new findings in neurophysiology, tremendous progress in the development of communication systems, servomechanisms and other automation, new predictive methods connected with antiaircraft artillery.

Wiener conceived all this rightly as a progress of a single science of "control" (Watanabe, p. 215). Wiener's chapter on "Time series, information, and communication" contained the first publication of his formula describing the probability density of continuous information.

This is remarkably close to Shannon's formula dealing with discrete time published in "A mathematical theory of communication" (1948).

Cybernetics also contained a chapter on "Computing machines and the nervous system." This was a theoretical discussion, influenced by McCulloch and Pitts, of differences and similarities between information processing in the electronic computer and the human brain.

It contains a discussion of the difference between human memory and the different computer memories then available. Tacked on at the end of Cybernetics were speculations by Wiener about building a chess-playing computer, predating Shannon's first paper on the topic.

Cybernetics is a peculiar, rambling blend of popular and highly technical writing, ranging from history to philosophy, to mathematics, to information and communication theory, to computer science, to biology. Reflecting the amazingly wide range of the author's interests, it represented an interdisciplinary approach to information systems both in biology and machines.

It influenced a generation of scientists working in a wide range of disciplines. In it were the roots of various elements of computer science, which by the mid-1950s had broken off from cybernetics to form their own specialties. Among these separate disciplines were information theory, computer learning, and artificial intelligence.

The American edition of Cybernetics appeared a few months after the French edition published by Hermann et Cie. It was printed offset from the typesetting of the French edition, reproducing that edition's numerous mistakes.

Minsky, "A selected descriptor-indexed bibliography to the literature on artificial intelligence," in Feigenbaum, E. A. and Feldman, J., eds., Computers and Thought, pp. 453-523; citation on p. 519. Origins of Cyberspace 992. Watanabe, "Wiener on cybernetics, information theory and entropy," in Wiener, N., Norbert Wiener.

ELEMENTS OF CHESS

2005-01-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

By: Blagrove, William

Elements of Chess; a Treatise combining Theory with Practice, and
1805 (CHESS). [Blagrove, William, ed.].

The Elements of Chess; a Treatise combining Theory with Practice, and comprising the whole of Philidor's Games, and Explanatory Notes, new modelled; and arranged upon an Original Plan.

The first chess book by an American. Fisk's classic American chess bibliography attributes the editorship to William Blagrove, a nephew of the publisher, and "an enthusiastic amateur."

In his appendix the editor proposes a new and entirely American system of nomenclature, calling the pieces Governor (K), General (Q), First Colonel (B), Second Captain (N), Pioneer (Pi), etc.

Large armorial bookplate without a name on front pastedown with smaller bookplates of A. R. Pendleton and Avis & D. L. Vaughan above it.

ASK A CHESS EXPERT

2005-01-01T13:00:00.000-08:00