Paragon of Pastimes
Chess is reputed to have originated in India prior to the seventh century. Chess, or Chatuanga, later spread to Persia, where it was known as Chatrang, then to Arabia as Shatranji, and finally to Europe in the tenth century. Numerous versions of this game of war and strategy also have been played in China, Korea and Japan. The rules of chess were constantly adapted in Europe until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when there was a move to achieve uniformity. Early literature designed to advise on chess strategies helped characterize the game as a genteel pastime.
In contemporary international chess tournaments, two of the greatest players are Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue 2, a 32-node IBM RS/6000 SP computer. Kasparov can analyze three positions per second while the latest development of Deep Blue can examine 200,000,000. Although their strategies are entirely distinct, both opponents have won games.
Greco, Gioachino. The Royall Game of Chesse-play. London: H. Herringman, 1656.
Fiske, D. Willard. Chess Tales and Chess Miscellanies. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912.
Ours is no bloody battle
With woe and horror fraught
Our joust is of a gentler kind
A measuring of Mind with Mind
A tournament of thought
-- Willard Fiske, "The Conquest of the Field of Chess," published in Chess Monthly, May, 1857.
Willard Fiske, Cornell's first University Librarian, was a scholar and book collector. Fiske was also considered one of world's experts on the subject of chess. In addition to Chess Play, he wrote the influential Chess in Iceland, 1905, and The Book of the First American Chess Congress, 1857, which was regarded as one of the seminal textbooks on the subject.