THE THEORY OF CHESS.*
Two Americans have attempted for chess what Jomini did for strategy. There had always existed, thought Jomini, certain principles upon which rest all the good combinations of war; they had been applied by the best generals since the beginning of history, but they had never been analysed and explained. Jomini, in 1806, set forth these principles in an essay which became the source and starting-point of the modern theory of war. Chess until now has been treated much as war was treated before Jomini. The traditional text-books explain the moves and the rules, give one or two empirical • The Minor Tactics of Chess : a Treatise on the Deployment of the Forces in Obedience to Strategic Principle. By Franklin K. Young and Edwin 0, Howell. London; Chatto and Windua. 1805.
precepts, and then plunge into history. They repeat the records of hundreds of games, classified according to openings, and accompanied by, here and there, a note which describes a particular move as "a splendid conception" or " the initiation of a masterly combination." From such a dictionary of games the beginner has been expected to derive his ideas. Messrs. Young and Howell have been stimulated by Jomini's example. They have attempted to reduce to a system the play of the best records, and the volume before us contains so much of the system thus obtained as applies to the opening of the game. The opening is the process by which the pieces, originally in their normal positions along the two first horizontal lines, are rearranged so as to be efficiently grouped for attack or defence, a process which the authors describe as "the de- ployment of the forces in obedience to strategic principle." The authors have, therefore, undertaken to discover the best groupings of the pieces for the purposes of attack and defence. They begin with the pawns, and expound a series of positions for all the eight pawns,—positions, one or other of which should, if possible, be secured at the outset. Thus (in the open game) White is recommended never, in the opening, to move his rooks' or knights' pawns at all ; always to post Q B P at Q B 3, Q P at Q 4, and K P at K 4. This done, but not before, White may advance K B P. Black (in the open game) is to leave undisturbed his rooks' pawns, his knights' pawns, and his Q B P. He is to post Q P at Q 3, K P at K 4, and may then advance K B P to K B 4. Other groupings of pawns are recommended for the close game. The superior pieces are next discussed, and the best positions for each pair and for the Queen, both in the open and in the close game, are enumerated. The various elements having been thus dealt with are next combined into " primary bases," that is, positions or deployments of the whole sixteen pieces. A "primary base " is defined as "a complete and consistent disposition of all the pieces in the opening of a game, preliminary to the play of the mid-game." The authors give eleven such primary bases for the open, and five for the close game, all of which, however, upon examination and comparison are seen to be merely variations upon four fundamental types, two for the open and two for the close game.
The substance of the theory is contained in these types of deployment, and the theory will stand or fall with the first of them, which the authors consider to be the perfect ideal, and of which a photograph forms their frontispiece. The reader will have this ideal deployment before him if he will set the White pieces on the board and make the following moves :-1. K P—K 4; 2. Q P—Q 4; 3. Q B P—Q B 3; 4. K B—Q 3 ; 5. K Kt —K 2; 6. Castles (K R); 7. Q B—K 3; 8. Q Kt—Q 2; 9. K B P—K B 4 ; 10. Q Kt—K B 3; 11. Q— Q 2; 12. K R-1C 1. The position thus formed is declared to be " the most efficient disposition of the forces possible in the development of the open game; " it is a model of the dis- position of the forces for the open attack, and to this model the White player should as far as possible conform. Of course the White player has to reckon with Black, who will hardly allow him to carry out his deployment undisturbed during twelve moves. But the authors' view is that White ought to know what position he is aiming at, though he will probably never attain it ; and that in the course of the attempt to com- plete a perfect deployment, he will not only be able to defend himself against his adversary (whose deployment cannot be more advanced than his own), but may also have the oppor- tunity, if his opponent makes any mistake, of an effective attack which would otherwise be premature.
The authors give in an appendix fifteen well-known games which throw a strong light upon their theory, for it appears when these games are followed through, as if the better player in each case had had one of their "primary bases" in his mind during the opening. To this historical test may be
added an experimental one. The reviewer, a poor player (the critics are those who have failed in literature and art), played for many years with a friend from whom he usually received odds and a beating. After acquiring the new theory, he has played a series of games with the same friend (to whom this theory was unknown) without taking odds, and has not only won the majority of the games, but made a much better fight in those which he lost than he had usually been able to make before becoming acquainted with the theory. The authors are therefore perhaps right in declaring that the study of their work will make beginners into players, and poor players into better players. The orthodox will perhaps be displeased by the rejection of some long accepted methods; the King's Gambit, for example, is condemned by the pro- hibition to advance K B P until after the centre pawns on the Queen's wing have come forward, and the favourite move Q Kt—Q B 3 is strongly deprecated for White.
The book is clearly written; the powers of the pieces are quite admirably explained ; but an effort is required to master the theory, and it needs to be mastered entire, from beginning to end, before the light dawns. This difficulty is, however, inherent in the subject and in the nature of the theory put forward. The authors speak of "principles " in a way which will lead the unwary to expect general propositions founded in the nature of things and appealing directly to the ordinary intelligence. But chess is hardly based upon the nature of things. It is a system of conventional abstractions,—the sixty-four squares, the powers and original places of the pieces, the proceedings of castling and queening, of check and check- mate. There is no room within these conventional limits for what are commonly called general principles ; the perfect theory can be no more than an exhaustive analysis of specific factors and combinations ; and such an analysis is, in fact, what the authors offer.
It seems at first sight as though the authors do not justify their recommendations for play. They assert, for instance, that the beat position for the queen is at her second; for the two knights, at K B 3 and at K 2 ; and they set forth some advantages of these positions, but prove nothing. The mind is apt to resent this kind of dogmatic statement, and to crave an exposition of the reasons why. But the reason why, in each case, really consists in the analysis of an infinite number of games played to the end ; it cannot be given in a syllogism. The true justification of the authors' theory of the openings would be in a theory of the mid- game and of the endings, which indeed they promise to give in due time, being content for the nonce with various hints on the subject thrown out in the course of the present volume.
Messrs. Young and Howell may be congratulated upon a thoroughly original work, treating with great interest and suggestiveness of a subject that seemed well-nigh thread- bare; and they may reasonably expect their labours to lead to an improvement in the practice of the game. As regards its philosophy, they are bound fast in traditional errors. After referring to the eulogies of Leibnitz, of Petroff, and of Anders- sen upon chess, they "are tempted to go still further and to assert not only that chess is a real science, but that it may not unreasonably be regarded as symbolical of the supreme science, the science of force. If this be true, the study of chess may profitably engage the attention of the ablest intellects." Here are disclosed a series of fundamental untruths. The analogy between chess and war—for by the "supreme science" the writers mean not politics, which is properly so described, but war—appeals chiefly to those whose knowledge of war is superficial. The quasi-mathe- matical calculus which figures so largely in old-fashioned treatises on strategy, and attracts the popular mind in a pseudo-scientific age, does, indeed, resemble the calculus of the chess-player. But the essence of war is the fight, of which the elements are destruction and the will that scorns it. The military virtues reside in the spirit that keeps men to their course m spite of danger ; that impels them to obey leaders and to support comrades ; that confronts death haughtily. So potent in war are these spiritual forces, that they may upset the strategical calculus. In chess, the question is purely of position. One piece will capture any other piece within its radius; there is no resistance, but at most an ex- change. But in war it is possible for a body of men not to know when they are beaten. Without that sublime ignorance strategy is as helpless as Antieus in the air. It is there- fore a mistake to dwell on a comparison which assumes that the strategical calculus is the chief thing in war.
Equally wrong is it to suppose that the combinations of chess could serve as an introduction to those of war. That which is difficult cannot be a propwdentic for that which is simple ; and the principles of strategy are as simple and general as those of chess are complicated, abstruse, and specific. The hard thing in war is to make the pieces move, not, as in chess, to know where to put them. A third deplorable error into which our authors fall, is the opinion that chess is to be recommended for its practical utility ; wherein they display a lack of acquaintance with human nature, for who will play at a game that is useful ? Whether the metaphysic of chess has ever been written, we do not know, if it has, we apologise to those qui ante nos nostra dixere ; the matter ought certainly to have been settled by Schopenhaner, for his philosophy alone explains perfectly why men must play at this game. It is necessary, according to the great pessimist, to seek an escape from the evil of existence, either by the straight and arduous road of nirvana, the annihilation of the will to exist, or by the evasive path of ideal art. But, Schopenhaner must have added, there is also a loophole or temporary door of evasion presented by chess ; in chess the will and the intelligence find entire occupation and absorption devoid of all alloy of passion or desire ; it is a world of decision and action in the abstract, a world of pure form without matter, reproducing, free from sensuous taint, the essence of all endeavour, an end and a variety of means for its attainment. In this abstract world the will is opposed by another will, and yet, the opposition being formal and ideal, is without the anger and malice that are inseparable from the practice of life. Amid the ills of existence, intensified by the feebleness of our attempts at self-annihilation and by the imperfection of our artistic creations, the chess-board provides a temporary haven,—a momentary paradise, where conflict, our bane in the actual world, is deprived of its poison, and, thus sublimated into pure form, becomes absolute happiness.
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