Site review - Another view on Chess

Good websites about the origin of chess are few and far between. One
of the best is a bilingual (English & French) site...

Another view on Chess (Les échecs sous un autre angle)
http://www.chez.com/cazaux/index.htm

...by Jean-Louis Cazaux. Although the page says, 'Welcome to my
homepage dedicated to Chess, Xiangqi, Shogi and more', the title of
the page is 'Shako', which is not mentioned anywhere else on the
page. What is 'Shako'? I searched the Web and found the answer on
Chessvariants.com...

Shako
http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/shako.html

...a big site which I had the pleasure of reviewing almost two years
ago (2000 no.12). The page dedicated to Shako tells us, 'Inspired by
several old chess variants, Jean-Louis Cazaux from Toulouse (France)
invented this variant. The name Shako means Chess in Esperanto'.
Elsewhere on Chessvariants is an interview from last year...

The Art of Chess Variants - Interview with Jean-Louis Cazaux
http://www.chessvariants.com/people.dir/cazaux.html

...by Hans Bodlaender, the guiding light behind Chessvariants. There
is a natural connection between chess variants and the origin of
chess. The ancestors and relatives of Western chess -- which Cazaux
calls 'FIDE chess' -- are all chess variants. The study of the
structure and rules of these other games offers clues to the origin
of chess.

In the first chapter of his monumental 'A History of Chess' (1913),
H.J.R. Murray wrote authoritatively, 'We must conclude that our
European chess is a direct descendant of an Indian game played in the
7th century with substantially the same arrangement and method as in
Europe five centuries later, the game having been adopted first by
the Persians, then handed on by the Persians to the Muslim world, and
finally borrowed from Islam by Christian Europe.' After listing nine
other Oriental games, including 'the Chinese "siang k'i"' (better
known today as "Xiangqi"), he continued, 'There is naturally far less
direct evidence respecting the ancestry of these games than in the
case of European chess, but there can be no doubt that all these
games are equally descended from the same original Indian game.'

While Murray had 'no doubt' about the origin of chess, other
historians have considerable doubt. A look at...

Google Advanced Groups Search on rec.games.chess.*
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?
q=group:rec.games.chess.*&hl=en&safe=off

...using some combination of the keywords 'India China origin' should
convince you of that. One of the more knowledgeable contributors is
David Li, author of 'The Genealogy of Chess'. Li posted the table of
contents from his book in...

Subject: Genealogy of Chess Date: 1999/12/20
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=385EE2B0.FC0@erols.com&hl=en

...and posts whenever the topic of chess origin re-ignites. He's
firmly in the 'Chess originated in China' camp.

---

Cazaux's site has a relatively simple structure. Of the various links
on the home page, the material most relevant to chess history is
under [History]. There are also links to a short [Biography], where
an additional link to a University of Michigan page tells us that
Cazaux earned a PhD in electronics in 1985; a [What's new?] page,
where the most recent entry (7 Apr 2002) is about Shogi; a [Books]
page about the two which Cazaux has authored -- the book covers are
also displayed on the home page; chess [Variants], which describes
Shako and has a catalog of pieces used in the different variants; and
a good collection of [Links], where I discovered that Peter Banaschak
also maintains a website on the origin of chess.

The [Books] page offers links to content and ordering information for
the two French language books which Cazaux has authored. They
are 'Guide des Echecs exotiques et insolites' ('Guide to exotic and
unusual chess') and 'L'Univers des Echecs' ('The universe of chess').
Along with descriptions in French and in English, the table of
contents for both books is available online.

The first link on the [History] page is [The origin of Chess], 'a
fascinating enigma : where, when, why, how was Chess born'. The
introduction is a link to...

Initiative Group Koenigstein (IGK) : On the origin of chess
http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-jostenge/

...which I also reviewed more than two years ago (2000 no.2)...

2000/01/15 Origin of Chess Gerhard Josten (& others)
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/Sit-rvws/2000-02.txt

...That review summarized each of the site's essays in which
different theories for the birthplace of chess -- India, China,
Persia, etc. -- are presented. The IGK site looks different today,
but the content hasn't changed dramatically. The lead link now gives
a detailed history of the group, which first met in 1991 in
Koenigstein/Taunus, Germany. There are also new essays by Peter
Banaschak ('Chinese-Western contacts and chess') and Siegfried
Schoenle ('Jean Paul and chess', in German), as well as a forthcoming
essay by Myron Samsin ('Pawns and pieces - towards the prehistory of
chess').

At the beginning of 2000, Cazaux was represented by a preliminary
essay ('A Speculative Theory of Early Chess Structure and Evolution')
where he was 'looking for a proto-chess'. This has now been replaced
by a full essay ('Is Chess a Hybrid Game?'), accompanied by a PDF
file with the same title, but somewhat different content. The essays
use the same arguments that are presented on the [History] page of
Cazaux's website.

The second topic on the [History] page is [The enigma of Chess
birth], 'The similarities between both games [Persian Chatrang
(Indian Chaturanga) & Chinese Xiangqi] are too great to deny a link
between them.' This is followed by a short description of both games.

The next topic presents [Four possible scenarios]. 'It is widely
accepted that the striking resemblance between Chatrang and Xiangqi
is not fortuitous [...] Logically, four scenarios can be constructed.
1) A westward birth followed by an eastward diffusion. [...] 2) An
eastward birth followed by a westward diffusion. [...] 3) A common
ancestor for both Chatrang and Xiangqi. [...] 4) The development of
two different war games with a mutual influence during their
formation.' The page ends with a nice diagram of the Silk Road, 'the
theatre of many cultural and industrial exchanges between the Indo-
Persian and the Chinese worlds '

Other topics are [Chessmen and magic squares], showing a simple
scheme to derive the moves; [An exhaustive comparison between
Chatrang (ancient Persian Chess) and Xianqi (Chinese Chess)]; and
[The old texts], where 'The English page gives a synthesis of all
sources along with dates. The French page is more complete with some
short discussions'.

Finally, Cazaux presents a long two-part essay [A proposed Chess
birth scheme] which concludes, 'Chess would be an hybrid game
combining western characters inherited from Graeco-Roman or Indian
games with some eastern elements which have led to Xiangqi from their
own side.'

Cazaux divides his [History] page into five sections, where the first
section contains the topics I've just outlined ('origin of Chess').
The second section, 'archaeological findings', covers early pieces
and sets which have been discovered throughout the world. For 22
different sets, he gives an estimated date of construction, the place
of discovery, the game they were used to play, a description of the
set with photos where possible, and the museum which owns the set.
Some sets are represented by image scans. Among them are the famous
Charlemagne and Lewis pieces.

The third section appears to be under construction. Of the four
bulleted topics, only [Four-Handed Chaturanga] leads to another page.
It starts, 'For many people, the oldest ancestor of Chess is a game
for 4 players, called Chaturanga. It is depicted as a diced game
where four teams of 8 pieces fight for a final victory. [...]
CAUTION : SO FAR, THIS THEORY IS WRONG!' It then explains how this
theory came to be accepted by so many people.

The fourth section is a survey of different variations of chess
played in Asia. The last section lists champions for chess, xiangqi
and shogi. The list of chess champions starts with Ruy Lopez and ends
with Ruslan Ponomariov. The women's champions list Vera Menchik
through Zhu Chen.

---

Murray opened his great work with the words, 'Historically chess must
be classed as a game of war.' It is appropriate that one of the great
battles in that war is the controversy over its origin -- India,
China, hybrid, or other?

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

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