MARK RUBERY CHESS

Kriegspiel is an unorthodox variant of chess invented by the English player Henry Temple (1862-1928) and was introduced at the end of the 19th century becoming very popular, even amongst famous chess players like Emanuel Lasker. At that time it was played by two players, but required a third person to act as a referee. Three boards were required for a game. The main point about Kriegspiel is that players only get to see their own pieces, not those of their opponents. They also do not know what moves the other side has made, so they have to guess where the opponent’s pieces are. Only the referee knows exactly the real position of both sets of pieces. The players attempt to make their moves, and the referee tells them whether their moves are legal or not. If an attempted move is not legal the player tries another one, until he has made a legal move. The referee also announces when a move is a capture or checking move. The only question a player may ask is ‘Any?’, meaning are any pawn captures possible; if the answer is yes at least one must be tried.

The name of the game comes from the German for ‘war game’ used in the 18th and 19th centuries to train their military officers and was played on an 11 x 11 board.

WHITE TO PLAY AND WIN

‘For some chess is a hobby picked up along the way, while for others it’s a cathedral of truth and beauty. There’s a score of interlocking reasons that people stick to the game. The attractions often relate to the dramas that each game promises, the competitive challenge from pitting one’s skills against another’s, the intricate complexity that comes with any chess position, the rewarding intellectual conversation that takes place between two minds during a game, how focused concentration can take a person into a domain of pure thought removed from the hassles of everyday life, the way chess enables people to know the mind better, the thrill of accomplishing something creative at the board, and the way in which truth and beauty-and perhaps a measure of wisdom-can be found in chess. It’s a swirl of deeply felt intensities that cut through the lives of chess players.’ (‘Counterplay’-An Anthropologist at the Chessboard by Robert Desjarlais)