This image from the Art of Contest is one of my favorite. The imaculate design of the board and pieces is incredible. No where (in America) today do we see this sort of craftsmanship going into a game that I can think of. Todays games seem to be all paper and plastic without the beautifal…

The Birth of the Chess Queen was by far one of my favorite pieces we have read so far. The history behind not only the queen but the game itself was fascinating.People gave their chess sets to churches to be preserved. They left them to their families or the church whether rich or poor. This…

Player constructed rules are really interesting to me from a designer as well as player stand point for a variety of reasons, most notably the ways in which self or locally imposed rules influence the personal meaning or culture within or surrounding a game. And while I have one particular instance of self imposed rules…

This is an 18th century Indian chess set found on page 156 of Art of Contest. Of particular interest to me is the use of human bishops rather than elephants. Yalom suggests that the elephant would have represented the most foreign piece on the original chessboard to Europeans, and that as a result they started incorporating…

Games reflect the culture at large. This applies to any kind of cultural element, be it essentials like food and architecture or more discretionary elements of life such as music and games. The Birth of the Chess Queen reinforces this idea, driving home the interactions between leisure activities and the culture that surrounds them. The…

Marilyn Yalom’s book “Birth of the Chess Queen” was a fascinating read, especially since I am such a huge fan of medieval European history and this book focused on a lot of major events or just cool and interesting events for a short time and then moved on to the next event, of course with…

I really enjoyed the Birth if the Chess Queen book. Although I did not go nuts over the bible like beginning of the book that brushed over generations of heritage, I did enjoy the parts of the book that delved into the mystical aspects of Chess. I found the Indian origin story, where the chess…

Queens teaching their children to play chess. Alfonso’s Book of Chess, Spain, 1283. The image depicts two queens instructing their youthful daughters to play chess, with a rather large red and yellow chess board separating the mother-daughter teams. While the artistry is not particularly fascinating it depicts a rather surprising cultural phenomenon that sprang up around chess,…