Please list various true pieces of trivia about chess that not everyone may know. For instance, did you know that rooks used to be elephants? Fact.

You may want to inform the people at Wikipedia who have the bishop as formerly being an elephant ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(chess) ). There is no mention of an elephant on the page for rooks. I don't know who is right or missing information, but there is one reference. Do you have a reference that says otherwise?

I thought I read somewhere that the rook was an elephant and that it was simplified to the rook, which was a piece that rode on top of the elephant during battle. I don't know. I thought that was a true piece of trivia. I'll research it, then repost.

You might be right. I honestly don't know. I have a friend who is a strong player, been playing for a long time, met and talked to a lot of chess people, and he often will refer to the rook as an elephant. Unfortunately "I have a friend" isn't a very reliable source. :-). I'm also serious about contributing the fact to Wikipedia if you have a source for it.

For what it's worth, I thought that the bishop used to be an elephant as well.

For what it's worth, I have a chess set from China, circa 1940s, that has the rooks as elephants with little towers on their backs.

For what it's worth, I happen to know an elephant and he's currently studying at the seminary and hopes to become a bishop someday. Well, his cousin is a brick mason who builds stone towers, so who knows.

LOL!

Talk about chess myths?

Sure. That's intersting, too. Just let us know MYTH or FACT.

Loomis wrote: For what it's worth, I happen to know an elephant and he's currently studying at the seminary and hopes to become a bishop someday. Well, his cousin is a brick mason who builds stone towers, so who knows.

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This why I say I love you guys, your sense of humour is brill, and you make me laugh a lot. Thanks you brighten my days.

Loomis wrote: For what it's worth, I happen to know an elephant and he's currently studying at the seminary and hopes to become a bishop someday. Well, his cousin is a brick mason who builds stone towers, so who knows.

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whaaaaa ha ha ha!  Damn Chess players be funnie!

So, how many of you prodigies, as progenies, beat your paternal parents?

Or

How old were you when you beat your father at Chess for the first time.  I beat my dad at chess when I was 14, and he never played the game with me again.

The bishop was originally an elephant.  As sets got less intricate, the tusks were represented by simply splitting the top of the piece.  As chess spread across europe, players there likened the appearance to a bishops mitre.  Hence bishops.

Originally, black moved first, or first move was selected by drawing lots whether black or white.

The origin of the name of the bishop is obscure. It was introduced in the 15th century, taking the move of the courier and placed where the alfil used to be at the set up of the chess pieces on a chessboard.

The appearance of the Muslim fil was formless but with two protuberances said to symbolize the elephant from which the piece derives its name. Perhaps these suggested the bishop's mitre, hence bishop, the name used in English-speaking countries since the new game gained acceptance.

The fil or al-fil (elephant) was also known as the sage or old man in Italy, a Count in the oldest German references, and a fool (fou) in France.

The Spanish players knew that al-fil meant the elephant, but this was not known in other European countries. The elephant was only known to most Europeans through literature, and its use in war was hardly known at all.

The perversions of the world alfil led to alphicus (leper), alpinus (the Alpine), africus (the African), Alpheus (a man's name), and alfiere (the standard-bearer). At a later date in Southern Europe, the name became delphinus, with its associations with the Dauphin of France.

In other countries the bishop was known as the archer, the runner (laufer), the counsel-keeper, the secretary, the soldier, the monk, the spy (senex), the thief, and the administrator.

The original name aufin, once the ordinary name for the Bishop in France and England, was replaced by the bishop.

The original move of the bishop (fil) was only three squares diagonally. By 1500 it could move to any open square diagonal.

There are more books about chess than any other subject.  Over 200 are written every year

 

The queen used to be one of the least powerful pieces, moving one square in any direction, like the king

I found this on-line. Don't know if it's real, but it's cool:

 

After Alekhine had taken the championship title from Capablanca, Capa apparently spent quite a bit of his spare time hanging out in a specific cafe in Paris. Friends, acquaintances, and others would often drop by, participating in games and libations with the former, charismatic, champion.

One day, while Capa was having coffee and reading a newspaper, a stranger stopped at his table, motioned at the chess set and indicated he would like to play if Capa was interested. Capa's face lit up, he folded the newspaper away, reached for the board and proceeded to pocket his own queen. The opponent (who apparently had no idea who Capablanca was) reacted with slight anger. "Hey! You don't know me! I might beat you!", he said.

Capablanca, smiling gently, said quietly, "Sir, if you could beat me, I would know you."

 

If you liked that last post, here's the source to a BUNCH like that:

 

http://chess.eusa.ed.ac.uk/Chess/Trivia/ 

David Shenk's excellent book, The Immortal Game: A History of Chess, has a chapter on Shtranj, the Arabian predecessor of modern chess. In this he explains that the word rook is derived from the Arabic Ruhk, meaning chariot, while the bishops were al-fil, elephants. Also, for those who may want to know more, the queen was the firzan, or minister, the knight was called the faras, or horse, and the pawns were baidaq: foot soldier.