الحقيقة والخيال .. في رقعة الشطرنج .. مجلة فن التصوير اللبنانية _ ع٢٢

Fact and fiction on the chessboard

Chess is a global game that has spread widely in the middle of this century among all classes after it remained for a period the monopoly of kings, princes and aristocrats...
Some lights on the game, its history and players, along with other angles that are not devoid of a strange, even imaginary character.

In the sixth century AD, the military Indians were conducting exercises for their attacks and military movements on a primitive board, which was later developed to turn into what is known today as the chessboard. Controversy exists, however, about the classification of this game, military, mathematical, intellectual, or other classifications. Amidst the continuous increase of those interested in the game, whether as amateurs or as professionals or even just observers.
According to recent statistics, the number of those who play chess in West Germany alone is estimated at more than ten million players, male and female, and the supervisors confirmed the statistics. The number of young people outnumbers the elderly in this field, and males are more likely to play the game than females.

This is in Germany alone... And if we know that among the ninety-one players who are the best chess players in the world, there are only four German players while there are thirty-eight Soviet players, how many practitioners of this game in the Soviet Union! And then all over the world?

Physical and intellectual energy

Specialist doctors recently announced that the game of chess requires intense intellectual effort in addition to physical effort as well, considering that the period of one match, which ranges from five hours as a normal average, consumes a lot of energy from the players, sometimes equal to the energy expended by the boxer in his matches on the ring .
Chess expert Harold Schoenberg, also a well-known psychologist, mentioned in his book “The Great Chess Players” that tremendous efforts are made during the game just because the player is forced to stare at the chessboard, where he has to move the stones in his imagination .. and then review the future possibilities of his opponent’s moves.
Other than that, the will to win comes among the senior players and their willingness to chase the opponent relentlessly and in a manner that amounts to hatred for the other side. The player also finds himself exposed to a threat from the opposite player, and in view of this process of rotation .. in fear, assault and pursuit, the nerves of the players are constantly stressed, which often makes them tense.
Unlike the rest of the other games such as cards, dice, and other games that depend on chance or luck, chess stands out as a game that is distinguished and far from the possibilities in the cards, where the cards are distributed, so some get bad cards and others get good cards..
In chess, the lines and stones are distributed evenly between the two players, as each of them obtains a similar number of stones, with the same strength, and the game takes place on a board divided into 8 x 8 black and white squares, as the color of the distributed stones is even in terms of color. White or black, especially since the owner of the white stones will open the game according to the rules in this field.

Imaginary numbers

The number of possible moves on these sixty-four squares far exceeds our ability to visualize. Mathematicians counted three hundred and eighteen billion possibilities in the first four moves only...! And within a full game of chess between professional players, which usually consists of forty, there is a possibility of moves that far exceed the number of atoms scattered in the cosmic space and the number presented is out of the question - and whoever wants to try a move to write the command has to add 115 zeros to the right of the number 25 - but during real games, Most of the possible moves are insignificant in terms of these imaginary numbers.

Preliminary principles

Play, as we mentioned, begins with rotation according to the established rules, and with a first move by the owner of the white stones, and it is considered the first attack. As for the main goal, it is always to threaten the king. Officers, and if he fails to do so, he will lose the game.

The game of chess is characterized by an aristocratic character, as the player can hit all the stones except the king, although the goal of the game is to improve. The king is off the board, but the last move that will carry out this task never takes place, rather the player suffices to precede it with the word, checkmate, and with no possibility to protect the king or hide it and remove it from the expected blow, the player (the owner of the uncovered king) loses his game, without being The blow actually hits the king's head.
In terms of the strength of the stones, they vary from one stone to another, and the king is the most important stone in the game, but his movement is limited only to moving to the square next to him from any direction, which makes him weak and in need of protection, while the minister is the one with the greatest possibility to move in all directions .. horizontally vertically, diagonally, and over the entire board.

The beginners in the game try as much as possible to hit the largest number of stones to put pressure on the opponent’s king, while those involved in the game try to exhaust the tactical and strategic capabilities of the other player, and then sacrifice the stones at a time when they bet on the opponent player falling into a bad position so that he gets distracted by hitting their stones to reveal his king who are watching him.

- Kids and geniuses in the game

In the beginning, the game of chess was spread in the courts of kings, princes, and palaces of aristocrats, and it was their favorite game. But now, with the entry of the last half of the twentieth century, the game has become within the reach of everyone who finds pleasure in it, regardless of the class to which he belongs.
Today, we are following international names who are professional in the game that brought their heroes to fame and wealth as well.



In the world championship matches, we hear great names such as:
Lasker, Tarash, Capablanca, Karpov, Reshevsky, Aleshin, Joffa, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Sasiaki, Fischer, Korchnoi and others. .
Among them there are some geniuses who started the game when they were children, including the Cuban José Capablanca, who was six years old when he began to understand the origins of the game, and when he became twelve years old, he beat the chess champion in his country - Cuba - and then he went to New York and there he defeated The heroes of the game one after the other.
Samuel Reshevsky of Poland caused a stir greater than Capablanca. He learned chess before learning to read and write, and he won at the age of six against twenty players at once, which prompted psychologists to examine him to identify his insides, so it turned out that he is very normal and does not have any unusual phenomenon. But without any doubt, both Reshevsky and Capablanca.

They had a creative vision of chess without relying on theoretical knowledge, as they were lightning fast to the most complex combinations in the game.
Another Russian player was exceptional of another kind. He was Alexander Aleshin, the successor of the previous players who smoked more than a hundred cigarettes a day and drank many bottles of alcohol, and then sat in front of the chessboard drunk, moving the stones with trembling hands, but despite that he always won. .

- Psychological war

In addition to all of the aforementioned, Alexander Alichen proved that he is a master of skillful tricks in the game, or rather a master of psychological warfare. After Dutchman Max Joffe removed him from the first rank in 1935, he returned to regain his title two years later, and he was able to do so by the trick. When he learned that his Dutch opponent had a great allergy to cats, he sat on his knees Siamese cat, and kept caressing its hair throughout the game. At a time when his wife was sitting near him, who was working on knitting a woolen sweater full of pictures of cats, in addition to all that, Al-Bashn was sipping his coffee loudly to further irritate his opponent.
Since then, psychological warfare entered the field of the game of chess, so the operations of focusing on the eyes of the opponent and his excitement began. . Either with sarcasm, or in an attempt similar to hypnosis... One of the players once recommended an organist to stand outside the window of the match hall, and start playing noisily whenever his opponent tried to play. He sought the help of a friend of his who would provide the musician with a signal to start his work and to finish it when his turn begins to play.

- they said in chess

The great German philosopher and poet Goethe, who did not learn the game of chess at all, said, “It is a means of testing the brain.” Benjamin Franklin, the inventor of the lightning rod, said: “It is the source of moral culture. As for one of the world champions, the Soviet Boris Spasekby, he simply described the game as just a sport.
German hero Robert Hobbes placed the game of chess in the ranks of art, and well-played matches are. Beauty in itself. !
Analyst psychologist Harold Schoenberg, who is a capable chess player, saw in the game an intellectual struggle between two people!
One last word to mention at the end of this topic is that the game has begun to make fantastic profits for its players, which may exceed five million dollars for one game.