*** Awake! 1973 March 22 pp.13-14 Chess-What Kind of Game Is It? ***
Highly Competitive Game
However, pitting one mind against another, with the element of chance eliminated entirely, tends
to stir up a competitive spirit in chess players. In fact, chess is frequently characterized as
an 'intellectualized fight.' For example, dethroned world chess champion Boris Spassky noted:
"By nature I do not have a combative urge. . . . But in chess you have to be a fighter,
and of necessity I became one."
This helps to explain why there are no topflight women chess players-the more
than eighty chess grand masters in the world are all men. Actress Sylvia Miles observed
regarding this: "To be a professional chess player, you have to be a killer. If the spirit
of competition in American women ever does become that strong, then I think we'll get some
major female players."
The spirit of competition in chess may be stirred to fever pitch, which is reflected
in chess players' attitudes and language. "There's no comparison in any other sport in the
attempt to destroy your opponent's psyche," explains chess player Stuart Marguiles. "I never
have heard anybody say that he beat his opponent. It's always that he smashed, squished,
murdered or killed him."
True, players with which one may be acquainted may not use such language. But,
nevertheless, the spirit of competition between players can lead to unpleasant consequences,
as the New York Times last summer reported: "Most families manage to keep the
inevitable conflicts that arise in games to the chessboard. But in some homes, tensions
linger long past checkmate."
Of course, chess is not, in this respect, much different from other competitive games.
Participants who desire to please God, regardless of the game they are playing, need
to be careful that they do not violate the Bible principle: "Let us not become
egotistical, stirring up competition with one another, envying one another."-Gal. 5:26.
However, there is something else regarding chess that deserves consideration.
Relation to War
This is the game's military connotations, which are obvious. The opposing forces are
called "the enemy." These are "attacked" and "captured"; the purpose being to make the
opposing king "surrender." Thus Horowitz and Rothenberg say in their book
The Complete Book of Chess under the subheading "Chess Is War": "The functions
assigned to [the chess pieces], the terms used in describing these functions, the
ultimate aim, the justified brutality in gaining the objective all-add up to war, no less."
It is generally accepted that chess can be traced to a game played in India around
600 C.E. called chaturanga, or the army game. The four elements of the Indian
army-chariots, elephants, cavalry and infantry-were represented by the pieces that
developed through the centuries into rooks, bishops, knights and pawns. Thus the New York
Times, August 31, 1972, observed:
"Chess has been a game of war ever since it was originated 1,400 years ago. The
chessboard has been an arena for battles between royal courts, between armies, between
all sorts of conflicting ideologies. The most familiar opposition has been the one
created in the Middle Age with one set of king, queen, knights, bishops, rooks and
pawns against another.
"Other conflicts depicted have been between Christians against barbarians,
Americans against British, cowboys against Indians and capitalists against
Communists. . . . It is reported that one American designer is now creating a
set illustrating the war in Vietnam."
Probably most modern chess players do not think of themselves as maneuvering
an army in battle. Yet are not the game's connections with war obvious?
The word for pawn is derived from a Medieval Latin word meaning "foot soldier."
A knight was a mounted man-at-arms of the European feudal period. Bishops took an
active part in supporting their side's military efforts. And rooks, or castles,
places of protection, were important in medieval warfare.
Thus Reuben Fine, a chess player of international stature, wrote in his book
The Psychology of the Chess Player: "Quite obviously, chess is a play-substitute
for the art of war." And
Time magazine reported: "Chess originated as a war game. It is an adult,
intellectualized equivalent of the maneuvers enacted by little boys with toy soldiers."
While some chess players may object to making such a comparison, others will
readily acknowledge the similarity. In fact, in an article about one expert chess
player, the New York Times noted: "When Mr. Lyman looks at a chessboard,
its squared outlines dissolve at times into the hills and valleys and secret paths
of a woodland chase, or the scarred ground of an English battlefield."
When one considers the complex movements, as opposing chessboard armies vie with
each other for position, one may wonder whether chess has been a factor in the
development of military strategy. According to V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, it has.
In his book War in Ancient India he examined this matter at length, and concluded:
"The principles of chess supplied ideas to the progressive development of the modes and
constituents of the army."
The Need for Caution
Some chess players have recognized the harm that can result from playing the game.
According to The Encyclopaedia Britannica, the religious reformer "John Huss, . . . when
in prison, deplored his having played at chess, whereby he had lost time and run the risk of
being subject to violent passions."
The extreme fascination of chess can result in its consuming large amounts of one's time
and attention to the exclusion of more important matters, apparently a reason Huss regretted
having played the game. Also, in playing it there is the danger of "stirring up
competition with one another," even developing hostility toward another, something the
Bible warns Christians to avoid doing.
Then, too, grown-ups may not consider it proper for children to play with war toys, or at
games of a military nature. Is it consistent, then, that they play a game noted to be, in the
opinion of some, an "intellectualized equivalent of the maneuvers enacted by little boys with
toy soldiers"? What effect does playing chess really have upon one? Is it a wholesome effect?
Surely chess is a fascinating game. But there are questions regarding it that are good
for each one who plays chess to consider.
[Emphasis Added]
