_Situations on the Chess-board require for their demonstration a degree
of skill which decreases as the hostile power of resistance decreases._
All power for resistance possessed by an army emanates from its ability
to move. This faculty of Mobility is that inestimable quality without
which nothing and by means of which everything, can be done.
From this truth it is easy to deduce the common object of all movement,
which obviously is:
_To minimize the mobility of the opposing force._
The hostile army having the ability to move and consequently a power for
resistance equal to that possessed by the kindred army; it becomes of the
first importance to discover in what way the kindred army is superior to
that adverse force, which in the Normal Situation on the Chess-board is
its exact counterpart in material, position and formation.
Such normal superiority of the White army over the Black army is found in
the fact that:
1. _The former has the privilege of making the initial move of
the game._
2. _This privilege of first move is the absolute advantage in
Time._
While no mathematical demonstration of the outcome of a game at Chess is
possible, nevertheless there are rational grounds for assuming that with
exact play, White should win.
This decided and probably decisive advantage possessed by White can be
minimized only by correcting a mathematical blemish in the game of Chess
as at present constructed; which blemish, there is reason to believe, did
not originally exist.
This imperfection seemingly is the result of unscientific modifications
of the Italian method of Castling; which latter, from the standpoint
of mathematics and of Strategetics, embodies the true spirit of that
delicate and vital evolution.
To the mathematician and to the Strategist, it is clear that Chess as
first devised was geometrically perfect. The abortions played during
successive ages and in various parts of the Earth, merely are crude and
unscientific deviations from the perfect original.
Thus, strategetically, the correct post of deployment for the Chess-King
is at the extremity of a straight line drawn from the center of that
Grand Strategic Front which appertains to the existing formation.
Hence, in the grand front by the right, the King in Castling K R,
properly goes in one move to KKt1, his proper post. Conversely, in
Castling Q R, he also should go in one move to QKt1, his proper post
corresponding to the grand front by the left.
Again, whenever the formation logically points to the grand front by the
right refused, the King should go in one move from K1 to KR1. When the
formations indicate the grand front by the left refused, the King should
go in one move from K1 to QR1.
In each and every case the co-operating Rook should be posted at the
corresponding Bishop’s square, in order to support the alignment by P-B4,
of the front adopted.
The faulty mode of castling today in vogue clearly is not the product
either of the mathematic nor of the strategetic mind.
The infantile definition of “the books,” viz., “The King in Castling
moves two squares either to the right or to the left,” displays all that
mania for the commonplace, which characterizes the dilettante.
All that can be done is to call attention to this baleful excrescence on
the great Game. Of course, it is useless to combat it. In the words of
the Count de Saxe:
“The power of custom is absolute. To depart from it is a
crime, and the most inexcusable of all crimes is to introduce
innovations. For most people, it is sufficient that a thing is
so, to forever allow it to remain so.”
Says the great Frederic;
“Man hardly may eradicate in his short lifetime all the
prejudices that are imbibed with his mother’s milk; and it is
well nigh impossible to successfully wrestle with custom, that
chief argument of fools.”
Also bearing in mind the irony of Cicero, who regarded himself fortunate
in that he had not fallen victim to services rendered his countrymen, it
suffices to say:
The true Chessic dictum in regard to the double evolution of the King and
Rook should read:
“_The King of Castling should deploy in one move to that
point where, as the Base of Operations, it mathematically
harmonizes with that Strategic Front, which is, or must become,
established._”
The change in the present form of Castling, herein suggested, should be
made in the true interests of the Royal Game.
The instant effect of such change will be:
1. Largely to increase the defensive resources both of White and
Black;
2. To minimize the handicap on the second player, due to White’s
advantage of first move;
3. To permit open play on the Queen’s side of the board and thus
provide a broader and more resplendent field for Strategetic
genius.
* * * * *
In all our modern-day mis-interpretations of the ethics of Chess and
our characteristic Twentieth Century looseness of practice as applied
to Chess-play, perhaps there exists no greater absurdity, than that
subversion of ordinary intelligence, daily evinced by permitting a piece
which cannot move, to give check.
It is a well known and in many ways a deserved reproach, cast by the
German erudite, that the mind of the Anglo-Saxon is not properly
developed, that it is able to act correctly only when dealing with known
quantities, and is inadequate for the elucidation of indeterminate things.
In consequence, they say, the argumentative attempts of the Anglo-Saxon
are puerile; the natural result of a mental limitation which differs from
that of monkeys and parrots, merely in ability to count beyond two.
Surely it would seem that a very young child readily would sense that:
A Chess-piece, which by law is debarred from movement, is, by the same
law, necessarily debarred from capturing adverse material; inasmuch as in
order to capture, a piece must move.
Nevertheless consensus of opinion today among children of every growth
and whether Anglo-Saxon or German, universally countenance the paradox
that:
A piece which is pinned on its own King, can give check _i.e._, threaten
to move and capture the adverse King.
To argue this question correctly and to deduce the logical solution, it
is necessary to revert to first principles and to note that:
It is a fundamental of Chess mathematics that the King cannot be exposed
to capture.
Furthermore, it is to be noted as equally fundamental, that:
1. A piece exerts no force against that point upon which it is
posted;
2. That whatever power a piece exerts, always is exerted against
some other point than the point upon which it stands; and that;
3. In order to exert such power, it is an all-essential that the
piece move from the point which it occupies to the point at which
its power is to be exerted.
Hence, it is obvious and may be mathematically demonstrated, that,