CHESS HISTORY

Chess History – A Famous Legend

One ancient legend that many children might even find in their maths books is about the tyrannical Indian king, Shahram, and a wise man in his kingdom. The wise man wanted to convince Shihram of the importance of each resident of his kingdom.

So, he invented a game to represent the kingdom consisting of the king himself, his queen, rooks, bishops, knights, and pawns, all of which were important.

The king liked the game very much and understood that the game was just like real life. So, he ordered everybody in his kingdom to play chess! Shahram offered the man all the gold and silver that he wanted, but the wise man didn’t want any treasure.

Together with the king, he went to a chessboard and asked him to put one grain of wheat on the first square, two on the second and to keep doubling it until the chessboard was full.

First of all, the king felt highly offended, but then he ordered his servants to fulfill the man’s wish. Desperately, the servants conveyed that such an enormous amount of wheat did not exist!

The king understood that the wise man had given him a second lesson. Just like the pawns in chess, you should never underestimate the small things in life!