Board Report

Back in the depths of time I introduced you to Chatarungaraja, a chess variant of my own design that I'm unreasonably proud of. In more recent times, through hanging out with my local branch of the SCA a little too much, I was introduced to the Ace's Boke, a series of letters written in middle-agesey-style explaining the rules of period games.

Before long, this happened:

It is sayed far and wide that you are versed well in the ways of the Chesse of the Mad Qweene, but let me tell you of a new game, that is like and allso unlyke it in many wayes. It is known that the Genneral is no grater than the sum of his armie, and in the same way, the King of this new chess, which the Persians call Chatarungaraja, is nothing more than the somme of his menn, and moves like all of them together, the Ruhk, the Horse, the Bishope and the Mann whom you know well from the Queen's chesse. When his army employs of this multitude of forses, then the powers of a Kinge are treemendous indeed, but when the armie is abanddoned by all of the Horses, then the Kinge no longer has use of them, and also cannot move like a Horze moves. When all of the Ruhks are lossed, so then the Kinge cannot move like a Ruhk. When the armie has not any Byshops, then the King is short of their counsel and cannot move in their manner. And iff, following some great battle, all Menn are lost, the the Kinge shall no longer move as a Man. For the Kinge has not any power of his owne exepting that of his armie. Thus if the Kinge has not his armie then he is more easily taken captiv by his enemyes. In this way, this gayme is like warr. But just as the Queen takes no part in war, though the Mad Queene is in this game the Kinge gaynes no comffort from her presents, and may not move in her fashion. So in this way too, this gaeme of Chaturangaraja is like lyfe. In all other ways the game is like the Chesse of the Mad Queene. I hope learning its ways will teach you more of warr, if indeed you have anithing mor to learn.

If that didn't make sense to you, and it wasn't just because of the pseudo-random approach to spelling, then it's time for a brief and simplified diversion into everyone's favourite topic, Chess History!

At some point in the dim dark past, maybe in India, maybe in China, maybe somewhere in the 'Stans (I'm a subscriber to the Indian theory, myself), maybe none/some/all of the aforementioned; a board-based war game that ascribed different properties to different pieces was invented. We can't be sure what this game was really like, but it must have been pretty popular, because it went postal, and versions of it popped up all over the world.

The version we know the most about, because the Arabs actually wrote things down and then faithfully copied them through the ages, was called Shantraj, and was played by the Persians and then assimilated into Arabic culture. They widely played the game, and the masters developed puzzles and teaching literature. This game was remarkably similar to the chess that we play today, with the movements of the King, Rooks and Knights already established. It travelled with the Arabs into Spain, where became 'acedrex', and then into the rest of Europe.

Mad Queen? Scary.

Then, around about 1500, once chess was already widely spread, a new variation spread, widely known as Mad Queen chess, that with the exception of the technicalities, was modern Orthochess. The chancellor or vizier piece not only became the 'Queen', but gained her current all-powerful movements in place of those the the piece we now call the Fers, a kind of one-step bishop. The bishop also gained its modern movements instead of the extremely weak abilities of the Alfil (or elephant), which could travel to only 1/8 the cells of the board as a two-step jumping version of the Fers. Thus chess players in this period knew two games, the chess of the Arabs and the Mad Queen's Chess, a faster, generally more interesting game.

There, you can go back and re-read the above introduction to Chaturanaraja now, if you like. Hopefully it makes a little bit more sense. After playing a couple of games last night we decided that there's another important rule that was part of Shantraj but isn't part of FIDE chess that probably needs to be incorporated, and I'll post a game demonstrating this principle soon. Kudos if you can guess it before then.

Can Christians play chess?

Monday. Vaguely religious-themed day. You guys get to be my diary for a bit. Could get personal, will be muddled, will probably contradict myself. You've been warned.
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When I arrived at church yesterday I was greeted by a number of activites in the foyer, abrightly coloured parachute, a pool table, some giant jenga blocks, a game of twister and a large foam chess set. It was an all-ages service, something that our church does every now and then, and I look forward to them because 'all-ages' generally means 'for the kids', and that means that I can dance to the music without getting funny looks (because kids songs generally have actions), don't have to listen very hard to the sermon (if there is one), and can generally act up, just enjoying being in the company of my friends in a gentle and welcoming atmosphere of the church community. The service didn't disappoint, it had enough depth to it to be a nice reminder to me about the nature of prayer, allowing people to share with each other instead of just sitting back listening to a minister, while keeping the kids at least moderately interested. This is a difficult task which I've tried to achieve before with only limited success, as it's hard to gear something so that adults will still get something out of a service that is by neccesity built for and around young children, and the old rule about never working with children or animals is a rule for a very good reason.

But that's not what this post is about. No, as you may have guessed given that this is the Leaflocker and I am who I am, this is a post about the chess and the Christian attitude towards it and other games, and just a bit of a braindump in general. It's going to ramble a bit as there isn't really a plan and I've got a couple of different ideas that I'd like to play with, a little bit serious and a little bit tongue in cheek, and of course it'll come at things from a Christian perspective, so if you dislike poor prose or religious content, this is your first and final warning: go read Dinosaur Comics or something.

The board was set up underneath a poster that explained that 'Chess is like our Christian lives; it requires forward planning, respect of your fellow players and the ability to adapt to new challenges' (I meant to take down what it said exactly, but the sign had disappeared by the time I got back there after the service, so I must apologise if my quote is not spot-on). This is an example of a habit of religious people that I find incredibly irritating, the idea that the word 'Christian' in that sentence makes any difference, implying that those who aren't Christian can't plan for the future or respect others, and aren't equipped to deal with new challenges. It might be true that non-Christians don't come at problems the same way that we do (at least when we're coming at things the way we should), but the kind of attitude that supposes that the heathens are somehow lesser than we are must be avoided like the plague.

I'm certain that this isn't what was meant by this sign, that for whoever wrote it 'Christian life' and 'life' are seem like synonyms in a religious setting. The ability that some people are blessed with, to look at parts of everyday life and see what it can teach us about the nature of God and creation, is a beautiful and precious gift that I try to foster in myself, but I see a danger here, an extension of the 'us and them' mentality that only causes divides and breeds an isolationism and disconnect between Christians and the rest of the world, something that worries me whenever I see it.

But I also see another message in this simple sign, something that as a gamer paused me to stop and think on a topic that I've visited many times in the past and will undoubtedly visit again. The mere presence of the sign, the acknowledgement that a game needs some justification of its holiness to be in the church foyer, worries me. Why can't a game be there as something for people (players and kibitzers) to do together to pass the time before the service? Why does it have to be justified as something that builds us up and can teach us something about God? A pool table is just a pool table, a chess board is just a chess board, a medium for us to exercise or minds and our bodies, share with others just by being together? Maybe that's enough. But when we spend hours bent over a pool table or a chessboard, honing our skills and testing our mind alone, is that enough?

When I estimate the hours of my life spent playing or thinking about video games, for example, playing Pokemon, watching re-runs of Doctor Who, reading pulp science-fiction, things that have little or no positive effect on the world around me, it adds up a very large amount of time. Am I not only wasting that time, am I practising something that is inherently sinful? I've always settled on the position that as long as I don't set up these things as idols that distract me from the important things in my life, that they're acceptable, that they're beneficial even, to relax me, to occupy me, to improve my brain in some abstract and not easily defined way. Do I have to find something in every activity in my life that makes me more holy or helps myself or someone else in some little way for it to be justified?

It would be easier to just do as the Romans do, to justify things by saying "I am enjoying this, therefore I shall do it more", and trust that my God made me in such a way that I would only enjoy those things that are good for me, but that's a pretty cissy philosophy that doesn't gel with Christianity. I am fortunate enough to be part of a religion where there is a guidebook, albeit a few thousand years out of date, and it's pretty clear that doing as we wish isn't how we please God. So how do I find a middle-ground, where I can enjoy the little things, help bring joy to the lives of the people around me, and grow closer to God at the same time.

I don't know. I've never known. I try things, and they mostly don't work. But I know that I can't spend my life concerned only with Godly things or I'll go mad, and I know that I could easily spend my life playing games, but I'd be just as mad. I guess I just keep trying to spend as much time as I can bring myself to in the first category, pray for the strength and the wisdom to know the difference, and get as good at the French Defence as I can along the way.

But since I like to hedge my bets, here's a few tongue-in-cheek justifications for the way I seem to be spending my down-time at the moment:
'Chess is like life. It teaches us that those who move first have a slight advantage, that learning from the book isn't enough without real experience, and that sometimes a draw is the best outcome we can hope for.'
'Trumpeting is llike life. We'll only get better at it if we grow the calluses, and until then it's sometimes going to be terrible.'
'Chaturangaraja is like life. It teaches us the power of the King, not to neglect the little pieces, and that even the smallest actions can yield unexpected fruit.'
'Doctor Who is like life. There's always time to talk, the nice guys always win in the end, and that there's always another Dalek just around the corner.'
'Pokemon is like life. It teaches us to devote time to levelling up, even when it seems like a grind, to regularly check the guidebook for handy hints, to talk to everybody, and to always keep a stock of pokeballs. And you can always make it harder if you want a challenge.'
'Drinking tea is like life. It might be bitter, but the world be a less interesting place and conversations would be more awkward without it.'

Chaturangaraja

The world of chess variants is a weird and wonderful place, full of curious boards, exotic pieces and no small number of nutters capable of thinking in three or more dimensions, but the most popular chess variants are, and have always been, games that are only a little bit different to the chess of the common people. Strange chess variants come and go, but those that last have only small and elegant differences to the normal game. In this way modern FIDE chess grew from medieval chess, which grew from Shatrang, which grew from...let's not get into the whole India/China chess origins thing today, except to say that chess has been growing and changing for as long as there has been people with the time and cranial capacity to sit down and play games against one another.

It's with this in mind that I sat down a few months ago and designed two modest chess variants that I was fortunate enough to be able to subject a couple of friends to at the second of our occasional chess variant tournaments earlier this year. I've designed chess variants before, but these were actually playable and actually interesting, belonging to the family of chess variants distinguished by pieces inheriting their powers from others, one of the simplest and most common types of variants. They're not better games than chess, if such a thing could even be imagined, but I feel that they're interesting while still being very familiar to the chess player, and they certainly seem to have some replay value, at least amongst amateur players such as ourselves.

The first of these games, which am identical starting position to Orthochess, is a little something that I call Chatarangaraja, which I, in my utter ignorance of foreign languages, believe might translate to something like 'The Game of the Quadripartite King'. This is a play on the name of the postulated first ancestor of chess (depending which school of thought you belong to). The rules are the same as those of orthochess except that:

A) The King has no movement powers of his own, but instead gains the powers of all the pieces remaining in his army except the Queen. 

B) There's no castling, as the increased powers of the King makes it unneeded.

In the beginning of the game, the King has the movements of a Rook, Bishop, Knight and Pawn, becoming an incredibly powerful offensive piece (an Amazon, in fairy parlance), but loses power as his pieces are taken. In the example below, though the white King may appear to be exposed and is down a Queen, White retains the full movement of the King while the Black King has lost his bishops and no longer has his diagonal movement (except for one square while capturing, like a pawn). A queen sacrifice for a minor piece in order to use a more powerful King more effectively to check the opponent is a common tactic in this game, as the other pieces have a value greater than their orthochess counterparts.

The game is easy to pick up and play passably well, but many learnt chess positions and strategies no longer apply. The powerful King means that an all out blitz straight away is almost certain to fail, and the King moving as a knight has been a trap for many an invading force. But as is typical for games with strong pieces, the game is typically over faster than orthochess, and the play seems to shift more easily too.

Perhaps more properly this game should be called Chaturangaking, with the -raja version being reserved for the same concept in a game of Shatrang, rather than modern chess. But hey, I like the name better like this, and due to the glacial pace of Shatrang and its variants I'm unlikely to play it anytime soon, so we'll call that version Chaturangashah and be done with it.

That's it for today, except to say that I'd recommend this game to those of you that like chess and would welcome any comments that you'd care to make on it, and any games of it you'd care to play against me if you happen to live nearby or can devise a way to play it online. I had intended to leave you with a puzzles that I've devised to demonstrate the game and give you some concept of the ideas of this little variant, but I've made a fundamental error that I can't think how to solve this early in the morning, so that will have to be a post for another day.

Keep on Chooglin'

Read: The Yiddish Policeman's Union (Part II)

So, I still haven't got around to reading Neuromancer. I meant to, but I fell asleep instead. I can give you all the solution to the chess puzzle from The Yiddish Policeman's Union that I know that you've all been losing sleep over. If you're the kinda guy that doesn't like his novel ruined by knowing the outcome of the central chess puzzle motif, then you should walk away now and go sit down somewhere and read this book.

The chess puzzle is set up on a cheap board in the room of a murdered Jew who went by the name of Emmanuel Lasker (a name you might be a little bit familiar with), who happens to live in the same apartment block as Detective Meyer Landsman, an over-the-hill homicide detective with a broken marriage with his boss, an on-again-off-again relationship with a cheap bottle of vodka and no sense for the middle game. The whole thing takes place in the District of Sitka, a Jewish enclave in Alaska about to revert to the US in this alternative history in which the state of Israel collapsed in 1948.


Back in this reality for a moment, the puzzle was composed by Victor Nabokov of Lolita fame (Lolita is in my shelf partly read at the moment, having given me the heebie-jeebies on the first attempt), and it had deep meaning for him, as it does for "Emmanuel Lasker". The way for white to move and mate in two is to move his bishop to c2, putting black into the inenviable chess position of "zugzwang", in which any possible move works out badly for him, and allowing white to mate next move no matter his decision. It is a very, very attractive puzzle in it's own right, and I think Nabokov would be gratified that someone else found it as useful a motif as he did.

This "zugzwang" is very appropriate, not just for the yid calling himself Emmanuel Lasker in room 208, and for all the displaced Jews of Sitka, but also for an anglo-saxon attempting a review. As you may have gathered by this point, this is the kind of book that in this sensitive age could only have been written by a Jew, as it portrays Jews not only as the good guys, but as the bad guys too, which is just not cricket for a non-Jew in the same way that it would be ill-advised for an anglo-saxon to call an African American a nigger, but appears to be ok if it comes from the horse's mouth. Thus, I'll refrain from too much comment except to say that the subject of race is not treated in the conventional manner.

For all that, though, it's a very attractive book. The dialogue is harsh and crisp and full of bitter resentment and double meanings, all the witty repartee of noir with all the mystery of the best SF, slowly releasing details about a world like, but unlike, our own. Everyone in the book is a smart-talking bad-ass, and all the conversations are full of things not said and things avoided, things the characters understand but the reader is left to wonder about. A quick sample from random from a book full of exciting little conversations, written in a frenetic, jumpy style, just like they would occur, not as if they're just dead words on a page:

"Never again I don't touch that stuff, Detectives, and even if I do, believe me, I don't go near Frank. I am crazy, but I am not lunatic."
Landsman feels the bump and the skid as the tires lock. They have just hit something.
"Why not?" Berko says, kindly and wise. "Why does selling smack to Frank make you not just a criminal but a lunatic, Mr. Shitnovitzer?"
There is a small, decisive click, a bit hollow, like false teeth clapping together. Velvel tips over his king.
"I resign" says Velvel. He takes off his glasses, slips them into his pocket and stands up. He forgot an appointment. He's late for work. His mother is calling him on the ultrasonic frequency reserved by the government for Jewish mothers in the event of lunch.
"Sit down," Berko says without turning around. The kid sits down.

The mystery unfolds, like mystery stories always do, with international plots that go right to the top, old crimes brought to the surface, heavies out to whack the good guys, painted cows and one rather unusual femme-fatale. All in all it's a rollicking good ride, and well worth the $8 I spent for it, and has put a bunch of other books on my reading list, namely the other works of this young up-and-comer Michael Chabon, with the possibility of extending the list to every book that's ever won the Hugo Award (as this one has) if the internet ever decides to pay me to give up my day job and read full-time.

Page 123:

Zimbalist struggled for the next hour to understand that move, and the strength to resist confiding to a ten-year-old whose universe was bounded by the study house, the shul, and the door to his mother's kitchen, the sorrow and dark rapture of Zimbalist's love for the dying widow, how some secret thirst of his own was quenched every time he dribbled cool water through her peelng lips.

Despite what these quotes might indicate, the book is not all about chess, chess is just regularly used as a metaphor because chess naturally lends itself to that sort of thing (probably a post for another time, that), and sometimes whole pages go by without a single mention of the game at all. It's a genuine blend of the different genres that it's trying to be a part of, and for money it's hit that difficult nail on the head. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, I have a nice hardcover copy I'm willing to lend you, as I need to rearrange my read bookshelves so that I can fit some more stuff on them anyway.

Reading List Progress:

Number of Books read: 6
Australian dividend: 1.045
Science Fiction dividend: 2.5
Fantasy dividend: 2
Biography dividend: 1
Mystery dividend: .5
Next Up: William Gibson, Neuromancer (Still), or something else that's partly read at the moment.

Read: The Yiddish Policeman's Union (Part I)

24 hours remain to complete last week's quiz.

I'm afraid that my Saturday sickness cut severely into my reading time for this week. One of the books that I have read earlier in the year that I'd hoped to review here was Michael Chambon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. But my Monday night movie education has left me with little time, so I'll leave you instead with the central motif of the book, a cunning little chess problem set by the victim of the murder (by way of Victor Nabokov), and come back later in the week to do the rest of the review, hopefully giving me enough time to finish up Neuromancer before next week.

White to mate in two. I do think it's a beautiful little thing.