It's known around the world as both.
Ruy Lopez/Spanish Game
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Sep 24, 2008
0
#3
It must be called the 'ruy lopeth' in the states as well sometimes, because that is the named used by at least one famous American author.
i have long been a massive raymond chandler fan, and when his character phillip marlowe (the quintessential noir / hard boiled detective from the 1940s, along with daschell hammett's 'sam spade') was faced with a truly terrifying and (typically) depressing case, he is described as going home, drinking whisky, and playing a "lazy ruy lopeth" against himself.
i loved the books for years but had no real idea what marlowe was doing in his evenings (i admit i understood the whisky drinking part) until i joined this site earlier this year - apparently, he was playing one person chess! i like chandler even more now.
Sep 24, 2008
0
#4
I always meant to read some Chandler but never have.
Interesting that Marlowe played chess - so did Humphrey Bogart - http://www.chessgames.com/player/humphrey_bogart.html there's a game of his (supposedly) against Lauren Bacall here where they played Ruy Lopez !
Sep 24, 2008
0
#5
Yes, Bogart also played correspondence chess. I read somewhere that one of the chess games in Casablanca (more than one are featured) was set up in the position of a correspondence game Bogart was part way through at the time.
According to the following (and, I thought, very interesting) article by Bill Wall, Bogart made money from chess for a while and it was Bogart's idea to include the game in Casablanca.
As with Marlowe's Lopez and whisky, apparently Bogart consciously wanted the movie to include the motif of a 'chess player who drank too much' (I wonder what the connection is). Mr Wall also identifies a continuity error involving a dissapearing horse in one of the games.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/bogart.htm
In Sapin it´s called apertura española (spanish opening)...surelly; this is the name that is written in famous book of Ludeck Packman
Sep 25, 2008
0
#8
Seems enough people use the 2 different names to make it worth using both in Game Explorer.
The Ruy Lopez as far as I know is a variant of the Spanish game where in the 18th century the famous man himself Ruy Lopez was beig futuristic with,3.Bishop b5 until then never even thought about,let alone respected and against the creed of the upper class eventually Lopez under severe pressure from the elite proved his theory to be a very strongly founded one!
Hence the name Ruy Lopez!
The Ruy Lopez opening must be known as the Spanish Game in the States? I know that because I was trying to find a reference to Ruy Lopez in the Book Openings search & I was a bit surprised when no results were returned. But when I play the opening in Game Explorer it comes up with the Spanish Game.
Maybe it would be possible to add secondary names for openings where other parts of the world have different names to that used in the US? Then again if I was that bothered I get myself organised & build a UK based version of chess.com & become a billionaire like Erik will be soon when Google buys chess.com ... *sigh*
[Late news - just had a look on Wikipedia & it says there that it's known as the Spanish Game outside English speaking contries - so maybe chess.com's being internationalist - if so then I hang my head in shame. It would still be useful to store secondary names against openings though]