Chess in the Press

Back in April 1993, NM Stephen Leary, who has a journalism degree from Akron University and a Masters in Library Science from Kent State, published one of the first internet chess magazines, Chess in the Press.  Several years ago, Mr. Leary, now "an information manager at a research institute in the Wasington D.C. area," gave me permssion to preserve Chess in the Press on my website.
The magazine, although very short-lived (11 issues), had some pretty neat information, all sourced and packaged in the text format common to the early 1990s. 

Here I thought I might post just a few of the more interesting "news" items that Mr. Leary found for us.

I'll start with two related (though 5 years apart) news items:

"Moscow Casts Star Performers as Chess Pieces for Champions." Lipsyte,
Robert. New York Times (Jan 20, 1962), p. 15.
A new type of "living chess" game draws huge crowds in Moscow. The pieces
are Soviet ballerinas, singers, comedians, and athletes. After a piece
is taken, "it" will perform. Among the popular artists involved: Ivan
Kozlovsky--tenor, Olga Lepeshinskaya--ballerina, Klaydia Shulzhenko--
vocalist, and Ilya Nabatov--comic monologist. For the next extravaganza,
World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik and Vassily Smyslov were to play in the
15,000 seat Lenin Stadium. Athletes would substitute for the performers,
since the Botvinnik-Smyslov game would take hours and many "pieces" would
have to stand for a long time. Each athlete had a previously assigned
entertainer who would step out of the wings to perform. "It is all a stunt,
something of no significance, except for fund-raising," said Hans Kmoch.
"I saw Lasker play Rubinstein [in a living chess match] and I have seen
such matches in Vienna and Yugoslavia. They remind me of dancing bears.
The bears, you know, sometimes effect a credible pas de deux, but it is
still not ballet. This is not chess."

"Soviet Calls Producer a Fraud But His Show Great." Anderson, Raymond.
New York Times (Jan 11, 1967), p. 22.
The show was a resounding success. The Soviet audiences loved it.
Luscious young women costumed as chess pieces stood on squares of a large
chessboard placed in a sports hall. When the game began and a girl was
"captured" and removed, a curtain opened on a nearby stage revealing a
popular singer or film star who would entertain the audience before the
next move. The show traveled from Moscow to Leningrad, and other cities,
sometimes appearing on TV. Everyone wanted a ticket to the show, and
everyone bought one without a problem. The chess extravaganza was the
brainchild of showman Eduard Vainer, who was lauded as highly imaginative
by "Izvestia." Unfortunately, Vainer was a fraud and a swindler. He
regularly sold several thousand more tickets than there were seats in a
hall. Even worse, he carried false documents identifying him as an
authorized theatrical producer and most of the rubles from his show went
into his own pockets, and not to the government. A capitalist running dog.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison. Soviet commentators took the
opportunity to scold "real" producers, whose offerings were trite and
boring compared to Vainer's productions.

Always coming up with some intriguing piece of chess history, thanks again Batgirl.

"Chess Village." China Daily (Apr 28, 1992), p. 6.
A special team competed at the Third & Fourth National Farmers Chinese
Chess Tournament. The team hailed from the chess village of Pixian County
in southeast China's Jiangsu Province, and finished a creditable ninth,
surpassing even the Jiangsu Provincial delegate team. About 80 years ago,
the village was poverty-stricken. There were floods every year and the
villagers led extremely hard lives. But they found sustenance in chess.
Older county officials looked down on them as "country bumpkins" and when
the county held tournaments in 1915, officials forced the villagers to hand
over 100 silver coins as a deposit. The king of chess in the village
mobilized everyone to combine resources to come up with the money. "They
had a complete triumph." Nowadays, chess is still an important part of the
village's traditions. Whenever there is a wedding, chess matches must be
included in the festivities. Chess masters from several generations selected
their sons-in-law by competing in chess. In 1984, the villagers built a chess
academy. Now, more than 1,300 people have been trained there.

[The (Chinese) Chess village is Qijia Village in Pí Xiàn (Pixian) County in the Sichuan Province]

See also Schachdorf Ströbeck

And a related news item:

"Games Ancient and Oriental and How to Play Them"
"Chinese Chess" [book chapter].
Falkener, Edward
Longmans, Green & Co., 1892. p. 149.
The author believes that Chinese chess is ideally suited as a
weapon in the hands of women: "This hidden power of the Cannons, and
the character they give to the game, makes them dangerous pieces in the
hands of a lady whose quick eye and ready wit would enable her to take
advantage of their power of sudden and unexpected attack, and of the
means of obviating it. Indeed owing to the lightness and brilliancy which
distinguish this game as compared with the solidity and deep-thinking
of ordinary Chess, it might with great propriety be designated
Ladies' Chess."

"Paul Morphy's Influence on Russian Chess Players." Linder, Isaac. Soviet
Life (Oct 1981), p. 42+.
When Morphy played chess in London and Paris, Russia's first chess master,
Alexander Petroff, was living in Warsaw, having abandoned an active chess
career. He wanted more than anything to see Morphy play. Petroff had
thoroughly analysed Morphy's games printed in "Shakmatny Listok" and
made notes in the margins. Proof are issues of this journal from 1859 and
1860 that belonged to Petroff. An example is the game Morphy-Harrwitz,
Paris, 1858, Philidor's defense, with Petroff's notations. Sergei Urusov,
a prominent player, apparently wrote a letter to Morphy inviting him to
visit Russia and play Petroff--who was considerably older than Morphy.
Petroff replied in Shakmatny Listok: "As far as a match with Morphy is
concerned, why shouldn't we have it? I'm ready to play." But he added,
"I don't regard myself as Morphy's equal in strength." A few years later,
Petroff and Morphy actually met. Petroff went to France in 1863 and Morphy
was also visiting there. Petroff was in Paris for a short time with his
daughters; they were on their way to a health resort, and by that time,
Morphy had abandoned serious competition. Petrov wrote to the editor of
"Shakmatny Listok": "I've called on Morphy twice, and he too has visited me.
[A staff member at Nouvelle Regence] has told me that [Morphy] flatly
refuses to play." There are no reminiscences left by the Russian novelist
Ivan Turgenev about his personal acquaintance with Morphy. Leo Tolstoy,
during a trip to London in 1861, bought a book on Morphy and kept it in
his private library. Russian masters remark on Morphy's importance.

"Chess as an Art Form." Humble, P.N. British Journal of Aesthetics
(Jan 1993), p. 59-66.
An analysis of some thoughts on aesthetics in "Chess in the Eighties" by
David Bronstein and G. Smolyan. They expound upon 4 factors important in
chess creativity:
1) the joy a player takes in creating `artistic riches' which are imperishable
(works of art which are recorded);
2) the pleasure the audience receives from watching an entertaining game--"the
artistic chess player uses his skill to extract from the material at his
disposal the beauty of a chess idea. Without an audience, there is no
creative intensity";
3) the `powerful attractive factor' of the game's `mysterious beauty'--Bronstein
suggests attaching importance to qualities of daring, imagination, and fantasy;
4) the medium. Chess is said to afford "the deep intellectual pleasure of working
in a fantastically varied and flexible medium."
Humble presents his own thoughts on these ideas: "Chess is first and foremost
an art form whose games are to be enjoyed as works of art....I doubt whether we would wish to describe them as *great* works of art....chess cannot comment
upon the deep human themes characteristic of great art."

The Aesthetics of Chess

"Notes on the Aesthetics of Chess and the Concept of Intellectual Beauty."
Osborne, Harold. British Journal of Aesthetics (Apr 1964), p. 160-163.
Discusses an idea mentioned in the book Chess Problems: Introduction
to an Art by Michael Lipton. The idea is that chess problems are an art
form in the same kind of way that great music & poetry are works of art;
they are not only amusing, but also beautiful and, in some senses,
important. The author recounts F. Le Lionais' 7 criteria by which prizes
for beauty have been awarded in chess tournaments. He contrasts these
with the thesis in Lipton's book, which reduces the beauty of the chess
problem to a single principle of economy in the adaptation of means to
end. Lipton suggests the aesthetic experience in any of the arts involves
two things: first, "one must fully understand--follow with the brain, and
feel with the stomach--what the artist is expressing; second, there is
joy...associated with this kind of understanding. This process is the
appreciation of economy."



"Principles of Beauty." Margulies, Stuart.
Psychological Reports (Aug 1977), pp.3-11.
Thirty expert chess players examined pairs of chess positions to select
the more beautiful solution of each pair. Eight principles of beauty were
derived from these judgements:
1) successfully violate common strategies-- most moves which do this are ineffective,
but the few which are both contrary to usual strategy and also effective are beautiful;
2) use the weakest possible piece-- if checkmate can be accomplished with a bishop rather than a queen, that is more beautiful;
3) use all the piece's power-- moving a queen across the board to checkmate is more aesthetically pleasing than moving it just a few squares;
4) give more aesthetic weight to the critical pieces;
5) use one giant piece in place of several minor pieces-- a hypothetical white piece on b6 controls a7, b7, c7, a8, b8, c8 and mates the black king on b8, this is preferable to 3 hypothetical pieces on a6, b6, and c6, each of which controls 2 spaces in front of it;
6) employ themes;
7) avoid stereotypes--Rd1-d8 mates the king on g8, as he has pawns on f7, g7, and h7. This is a stereotype. Preferable is the black setup Kg8, pf7,pg7, ph6, Bh7;
8) neither strangeness nor difficulty produce beauty. The most difficult move is not usually associated with the most beautiful.
The author suggests an explanation for the connection between beauty and
effectiveness and also the enduring appeal of chess: as chess rules have
evolved, those forms of the game in which logic and beauty predicted
effectiveness won out--chess developed to meet the need for both.

"Comment on the Paper, `Principles of Beauty,' by Stuart Margulies."
Fine, Reuben. Psychological Reports (Aug 1978), p. 62.
Fine argues that Margulies used the standard approach in experimental
aesthetics, which has the disadvantage of ignoring unconscious determinants.
Fine asserts that a reference to psychodynamics is not only important, but
necessary, to obtain a complete psychology of something even as seemingly
trivial as chess. The standard psychoanalytic approach to chess motivation
is defined as the theories contained in his own book, The Psychology of the
Chess Player, and in the article "The Problem of Paul Morphy," by Ernest
Jones.  Fine theorizes that beauty can be attributed to those
solutions where there is the greatest concealment of aggression, and asserts
that in Margulies' study, in every case, what is considered most beautiful
is the move which uses the least force. But this isn't true. In one example,
black has Ka8; white has Kc6, pc5, pc2, Q either at b1 or b5. 28 of 30
experts chose Qb1-b7 as more beautiful than Qb5-b7. Therefore the queen has
used more of its power. Fine calls this example "rather dubious, since the
differences between the two queen moves do not seem too important," yet he
is willing to accept the judgment of the experts in the other cases. Fine
seems to question this example because it serves to refute his own theory
that concealment of aggression/least amount of force is beautiful.

EXCELLANT !! i love reading your posts

"Chess--An Arab Gift to the World." Qaisi, Zuhair Ahmad. Ur (Mar-Apr 1979),
p. 45-50.
The Iraqi government has devoted time and money to the Arabic chess
tradition by collecting and illuminating ancient manuscripts. Charlemagne
received an elaborate chess set from the Baghdad Caliph Haroun al-Rashid,
which is now in the Musee Nationale in Paris. Haroun's successor, al-Amin
was killed due to chess: he was engrossed in a game while his brother
al-Mamun was beseiging the city. In those days chess players enjoyed much
social and cultural status. The Caliph al-Mutasim invented a chess problem
called "mansouba" in 840a.d.--perhaps the first ever. The present-day Souli
Chess Club in Baghdad was named for the most famous of all Islamic-Arab
chess players: Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Souli, who wrote several influential
chess books. The poet Ibn al-Hubariya al-Hashimi of Baghdad wrote a long
poem on chess in which he recorded the political and military events he
witnessed during the battle for the Abbasid Caliphate between the Buwaihid
sultans and the Seljuq Turks in the time of the Caliph al-Qadir. Two blind
players were noted for their invincibility: the poet-philosopher Abul Ala
al-Maarri, and the poet Aladdin Ibn Qairan.

[ The BCM 1900 tells us:
The Arabs and Persians call the end-game "Mansuba," == "'position' or 'situation,'" being a "determinate" chess problem, the solution of which is reduced to a certainty. The ending announced might be checkmate, stalemate, or capture of the last piece—in each case a win. Their best players seem to have prided themselves on their readiness of seizing on such positions as led to victory in a certain number of moves. Hence the epithet " mansuba dan," "a cunning chess-player," and figuratively "a man of resource" The term was applied to all such players as Ali Shatranj, Al Suli, and everyone in the first rank at any period.]

Her posts are very excellent, mateologist

and well commented on!  :-D

Thanks.

Chess and the Law

"Court's `Eyesore' Street Jester Beats Loitering Ticket."
Kocieniewski, David. Detroit News (Aug 9, 1989), p. B3.
Charlie Campbell was a flamboyant lawyer in Detroit who was given a ticket
for loitering near a police station. Campbell spent a lot of his time out on
the street, offering legal advice, chess lessons, and religious instruction.
He won his own case against the ticket.


"Lawyer's Gambit Declined."
Kornstein, Daniel. New York Law Journal (Feb 4, 1986), p. 2.
One key to both chess and the law is the adversarial process. In both
fields, two opponents contend for victory; litigation and chess, at their
core, are a one-on-one confrontation. A lawsuit, like a chess game, has an
opening, middle game, and end game. The basic objective of the opening is
development. A lawsuit can open with an exciting gambit: lawyers refer to
it as filing a complaint together with a motion for a preliminary injunction
or for accelerated discovery. The middle game in a lawsuit starts after the
initial filing and is marked by pretrial discovery. It can take up the bulk
of the time and effort and is crucially important to what chessplayers call
"position." Good and bad position often determine the outcome. When
discovery is over, the end game begins. This can take the form of a
dispositive motion, settlement, or actual trial. The key to chess and law is
strategy. Success entails the ability to plan. The experienced advocate has
a "theory of the case" and has mapped out an entire litigation and trial
before it takes place, going over in his mind what each side, witness, and
the judge will say and do. It is essential to go through a long sequence of
moves and concentrate on furthering your own plan and limiting that of
your opponent. The litigator may sacrifice discovery in return for the
benefits of filing an early note or issue. An "overloaded piece" in chess
is like a legal adversary buried under an avalanche of discovery or motions.
Zugzwang could describe the predicament of a trial witness confronted on
the stand with a damaging prior inconsistent statement. Whatever the
witness says, he loses.