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Chess Chats 22 Nov 1959, Sun The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, California) Newspapers.com
Chess Chats by George Koltanowski
International Chess Master
The Press Democrat Chess Chats by George Koltanowski, Sunday, November 22, 1959, Santa Rosa, California Problem...
Posted by Bobby Fischer's True History on Thursday, April 28, 2022
Problem 207
White to play and mate in two moves.
FEN 8/4N3/3np2R/4k2b/3np1p1/4N1P1/8/3K4 w - - 0 1
Solution: 1. Rg6 Bxg6 2. Nxg4#
WHO INVENTED CHESS?
An encyclopedia would be needed to trace all the reference to chess in the world's literature, since the chessboard has been a stage-property storytellers for the last 1000 years.
Only recently, I was reading a murder mystery whose solution depended on whether the murderer had time to do the moves of a public game of chess. But on the whole, I prefer the lighter-hearted love matches of the Thousand and One Nights, Prince Sharkan Abriza or Anis Mawasif, which in Powys Mather's rare and beautiful translation:
“The game began; but Anis paid more attention to the beauty of his opponents' hands than to the pieces. ‘How can I play against such fingers?’ he cried; but she answered: ‘Check to your King, your king, Anis! You will lose!”
Then, seeing that he still paid little attention, she added: “Let us have a bet of 100 dinars; that will make you play more seriously.’
‘All right.’ he said, and he rearranged the pieces.
Lifts Silk Veil
“Zayn Al-Mawasif chose that to lift the silk veil which covered her hair, and thereafter Anis did not know what he was doing. He moved all the wrong pieces, and in the end lost five games with 100 dinars upon each…
“Then said the girl: ‘Let us play all your money against all mine.’ Anis accepted and lost. Finally, he played away his shops, gardens and slaves, until remained to him at all.’
Chess' Birthplace
In the jasmin—scented garden of Zayn Al-Mawasif, we are not far away from the birthplace of chess. More than 13 centuries ago, a game with pieces corresponding man for man with the modern pieces was played on a board of 64 squares in Persia and Northwest India. Some people have wished to carry the pedigree of the game still further back.
Certainly games played pieces on a board are as old as history. What was the Homeric game which Athene suitors playing, seated on rugs outside Odysseus' palace? An English scholar of the Middle Ages declared that Odysseus invented chess.
The Mohammedan conquerors found the game in Persia and carried it, with their advancing armies, across the African continent into Spain. But chess conquered many more countries than the Arabian Caliphs. It over Christian Europe faster than an epidemic. It was Europe which, towards the end of the 15 Century, gave the game its rules of play.
From Europe, the game fanned out over the five continents: Colonists planted it in the Amerisae; the Russians took it across Asia; the British re-exported to India, where it had arisen. Modern chess is a composite achievement of practically every country in the world.
E. Shafer (white) Menlo Park vs. George Koltanowski (black)
King's Gambit Declined: Falkbeer Countergambit, Milner-Barry Variation
