An Averbakh Bookh

This is the next installment of my reviews of books I've personally read dealing with the history of chess.

Here are the first 4 installments:

History and Old Lace

"Chess: A History" —a Short Critique
The History of a Game
295 Pictures

Yuri Averbakh, at the time of this posting, is the oldest living grandmaster (he'll become a centenarian come February 2022).  Below is Averbakh's entry in Anne Sunnuck's 1970 "The Encyclopedia of Chess."

Yuri Averbakh

I was really wanting to love this book, published in 2012, knowing Averbahk's reputation and some of his previous writings but I ended up a bit disappointed on several fronts.

First: The title is a complete misnomer. This book starts in India and ends during the Middle Ages.  In his epilogue (which utilizes 4 valuable pages, not in any summation but rather in what he plans to discuss in his next book- which never materialized, as far as I know) he discussed bring the history to the present day (or at least to the last century) but the title of this book gives no indication that it's a volume 1 and every suggestion that it's the complete work.

Second: The book, at 88 pages, is barely a pamphlet. Even those pages, 14 of which are taken up by the title pages, table of contents, introduction, preface and epilogue, are 60-70% white space.

Here i a typical page:

Third:  Averbakh makes numerous claims, or semi-claims, but offers little actual proof beyond his assertions and some circumstantial evidence. I wouldn't say his claims are wrong or even unlikely and, in fact some are quite fascinating, but not as convincing, at least by his presentation, as he seems to want to believe.  An example is his assertion that because Alexander the Great invaded and conquered India (actually, only the areas up to the Indus River, mainly Pakistan and Afghanistan) in 326 BC and the Greeks  occupied much of that area for 2 centuries, that the Greeks had something to do with the creation of chess:

Ok, those are my misgivings. Let's proceed on a more positive note.

Interesting enough, Averbakh's book and Fred Wilson's "A Picture History of Chess" open with the same image, only Wilson's is B&W and of higher quality while Averbahk's is in color but of lower quality:

This book requires a careful reading. Averbakh had done his homework and presents some interesting facts particularly when talking about the development of chess equipment. 

Most interesting was the Rukh.  Most places say that Rukh is Persian for chariot but this is patently wrong. Where the term Rukh/Rook came from is uncertain, but that it doesn't mean chariot is most certain. According to a scholarly paper ("Of Rukhs and Rooks, Camels and Castles" by Remke Kruk) the association with chariots was accidental, as the chariot or arâba,  an Indian piece, was known in Medieval times, as was the term "Rukh," which has had various fantastical manifestations, most acutely, that of a camel with tusks (and early rooks had two humps, go figure).

The term and the chariot somehow became attached during this period.   Averbakh, on the other hand, asserts than the chess Rukh derived from the large mythological bird of the same name, also called Roc, from Sinbad in "One Thousand and One Nights."

I think one of his more interesting discussions is that of the Checkered board:

There are relatively few images in this book, most of which are well known but there are a handful that are unique, for example:

My epilogue will be a traditional summation.

This book is very short on text (maybe a blessing in the current TL-DR culture?) but long on ideas.  It puts me in mind of the Wright brother's flight at Kitty Hawk -- it's very significant even if it didn't get too high off the ground. 

Would I recommend it? 

I'm not sure. If someone has a particular interest in the earliest developments of chess from older games, it would provide a good bit of insight.  I think the more casual audience would find it tedious and uninspiring, even as short as it is.  Caveat Emptor.

I love Yuri Averbakh - done a couple of posts on him. Not seen the book in question, but looked at ( as in not speaking Russian!!) his historical work in magazines. Chess history in the USSR has always suffered from the lack of outside sources, but then again, soviet historians have had access to material on chess in their own country that is not available outside of the USSR. So it is always interesting to read what their historians put out. I mentioned two Russian language ( plus Ukrainian) in my recent offering, and both do great work. Thanks for a thought provoking post!!

I know there are books written only in Russian, as well as books written only in other languages, I wish I could read.

Perhaps when I retire I will learn russian.

I considering doing the same thing but with English.

I always look forward to your posts on chess history. One thing I was investigating before, is the possibility that Kind Richard the Lionheart played chess. Or Leonhard Euler playing chess. Euler at least knowing how to play chess is quite probable, given his work done on the Knight's Tour in mathematics. Althought, suppose Euler did play chess, he started going blind at an early age, so he would have had to play chess blindfolded had he did. Thanks for the inspiration to look into chess and history.

Thank you @batgirl!

According to a post on chessbase, this is Yuri at 95!

Your post awoke my curiosity about Euler.  I know of him from mathematics but was surprised at the breadth of his entry in Wikipedia.  An amazing person.  Turns out his eyesight failed in one eye when he was 37, after a fever, then his other eye lost sight due to a failed cataract surgery when he was 59.  Quite amazing that much of his work in math and physics was visual in nature.  Seems likely that he was able to study and/or play chess, with at least partial vision for much of his life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler

Interesting article.  Thanks for posting.  Given the information contained therein, "caveat emptor" is likely a touch harsh.  Tax collectors on the other hand?  Sic semper tyrannis: live free or die.

Achilles and Aiantas (Ajax) playing the "pillars" ("pessi" (πεσσοί) in Greek)

Thanks.

Averbakh calls this game "petteia."
That's it's for two players, doesn't involve dice (not a game of chance) and is a war game (he claims when the Romans adopted it, they called it "Soldiers," then "Bandits.") whose goal was to capture the opponent's pieces, makes it analogous to chess.  He says all this is "for certain," but doesn't reveal how he knows this, only saying that it's a logical game and classical logic was born with Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander.  Earlier he said the Plato mentioned 2 games, one with dice and one without.  Finding this very limited insertion necessary tends to make me think not all that much is really known about this game and the "for certain" is a great stretch.  I could be wrong in how I look at it, but I feel it was Averbakh's job to provide the evidence.
Intriguing? Yes.
Circumstantial? Yes 
Conclusive? Not in the least. 
Leaps of logic can lead to the right conclusions... or to the wrong ones.  

I wonder who won, Achilles or Ajax? Ajax was stronger but Achilles was mostly invincible.

Hi! Could not resist...sent away for the Averbach book. I will die poor and destitute, with a huge chess library!

Well, at least Ajax got a detergent named after him!

Yep!!🤣. Know that feeling.👍

I hope you enjoy it.

Achilles, on the other hand (foot?) has a tendon named after him. 
Paris had an entire city named after him while Odysseus (Ulysses) was the title of an Irish book.
Other warriors such as Agamemnon, Aeneas, Hektor, Menalaus and Patroclus were left out in the cold.  

In can get pretty cold in North Central Washington State, USA.  Here's a pic across the Aeneas Valley, in Okanogan County, WA.

Thankh you, batgirl!

In Aeneas' post-war travels, ending in Italy where he married the daughter of Latinus (the son of Aeneas and Lavinia founded Alba Longa, home of Romulus and Remus), who would have thought he'd have found time to sightsee in what would become Washington state. 

Chief Aeneas Paul's story is rather compelling. Thanks for bringing him to my attention (http://www.swanrange.org/documents/Lineage_of_Chief_Aeneas.pdf)

You're welkhome.