Chess hasn’t changed much in its 1,500 year history. Puzzles published in the 800s, back when the game was called chatrang, make perfect sense to modern eyes, and were it possible to match players from the 1500s with those of today, everyone would agree on the board, pieces and rules of the game, even if none of them could speak the same language. English has evolved more dramatically in those 500 years than chess.
How this ancient board game has remained so relevant and immutable is the subject of some quirky theories, one being that chess, with its 32 pieces and 64 squares, pairs so neatly with the human brain that we’ve never found (or needed) a suitable substitute, even in the age of digital gaming. Chess scratches some mysterious itch deep in our psyche, and has been banned several dozen times by churches and states for its quasi-addictive alure.
“Chess has almost entirely replaced video games for me now,” a friend once told me. “It’s ridiculous that I have a new Zelda game, that’s really good, and I haven’t touched it in weeks because I’m playing an ancient board game too much.”
This isn’t to say chess is for everyone. You need to win in order to enjoy it, and you need practice in order to win. And study. In spite of this, chess remains maddeningly popular, and has more than likely influenced its share of world history.
“Would the intellectuals of the Middle Ages have been able to understand themselves without chess as social mirror?” asked writer David Shenk. “Undoubtedly. But in chess’s absence, something like chess would have had to be invented – something universal that could symbolize the dynamic rudiments of society.”
For me, chess began with 30 consecutive losses against people who knew what they were doing. It was a marathon of games played in a tight seven days in Kingston, Ontario, and was the first time I understood the unique power of chess. Unlike Monopoly or Risk, there is no chance involved in victory. The outcome of every game is entirely the result of players making decisions, without rolling dice or flipping coins, and these decisions take them to a dizzying number of places.
It’s an oft repeated fact that in chess, the number of possible positions (distinct arrangements of pieces) is 400 after both players have completed their first move. After their second moves, the number of possible positions jumps to 71,852. After the third, there are roughly 7 million possible board positions, and after the fourth, over 315 billion. This is the principle of geometric progression, and is the reason every game of chess, even between players thoroughly acquainted with each other’s style, will assume a unique, exciting and unpredictable position after only a few moves.
I could never enjoy a game like Gin Rummy, because players make no decisions whatsoever, and the ultimate exchange of money is preordained when the cards are finished being shuffled, but in chess, it is the players who decide the final position, each maneuvering for one of the trillions possible futures in which they checkmated their opponent. I lost those 30 games in Kingston because my adversaries understood more principles, more techniques, for steering the fate of any given game. They weren’t luckier, just better. The rabbit hole of chess is so deep that there’s such a thing as chess theory, alive and well, even with the final word of artificial intelligence.
What better game, then, to carry in your pack to strange places? Chess lights the brain on fire and broadens one’s awareness, a I can think of no more perfect elixir to pair with interesting locales. Not everywhere we play will be all that “strange,” and some opponents will come up more than others, especially my wife Pamela, but I’ll endeavour to keep photos engaging, and the chess good.
The Wandering Rook 