B. R. with an Anchor

Depends on the sharpness of the wit that wields them.

I have a strong suspicion that changing quotes, harmless or not, will ultimately result in unexpected and unwanted consequences.

It was too easy to do that. 

It also seems that there was kibitzing next to the board. Nowadays, the finger being pointed to the board would not be allowed. 

Could someone post the position of the board?

The position on the board may not even be significant since we don't know whether the game was el viejo or de la dama.

e6? I think you're challenging my masculinity.

You're the one turned on by the French.  Accent grave.

Giorgio Tsoukalos would say "Look at the 'angel' holding some kind of recording devise in her left hand, and the other figure, in some kind of helmat, is holding something in his hands that looks like an antenna, so they were broadcasting this game back then?  Clearly evidence for ancient aliens."

Or cheating. 

I don't know Giorgio Tsoukalos, but the angel reminds me of Steven Stills for some reason.

This is another image of someone playing Death at chess. This one is also c.1480. The artist is Albertus Pictor of Sweden.

According to Wiki:

Albertus's illustration of Death playing chess from Täby kyrka inspired the famous scene in Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film The Seventh Seal, in which a knight (Antonius Block) plays chess with personified Death. Albertus Pictor himself appears as a character in the film (played by Gunnar Olsson), in a dialog with Jöns, Antonius Block's squire, while working on a church mural.

Barthes' S/Z is a marvelous text. It gives life.

This is another image of death.

Oh, the humanity.

Those engravings were made by the thousands in pre-Renaissance France and Low Countries. They were meant to remind all that Death is always the Winner, be its ''adversary'' (chess game) the King, the Pope, aristocrats, or peasants, however powerful, however good or bad. Time only (central figure holding hourglass) decides.

WHat are 'Low Countries'?

Today they would be Belgium and Holland

Could the game of chess be an attempt to snatch away Death's victory, just as it's sometimes used as a means of saving one's soul from Satan?

No, not in those Death the Reaper engravings... Here Death is shown playing chess, meaning it will outwit the fittest, the most powerful, the poorest...(all allegorical figures surrounding the table). Man before Death: the only occasion when all are equal and when earthly riches or successes will count for nothing when the Time comes...

The message was: you can't win against Death.

Those engravings were sold everywhere, and were mainly bought by poorer people, who found some consolation in them.