Why The Chess Queen Is More Powerful Than The King

Letter of Transmittal Date: 19 October, 2009 To Mr. Hasan Murtaza Masum Assistant Director (Publication) BCS Administration Academy Shahbag, Dhaka-1000 Subject: Submission of the assignment on the power of chess queen. Dear Sir, I am very glad to submit my paper to you on the topic ‘Why is the queen more powerful than the king’, that was assigned by you. I tried my best to gather relevant information on your assigned topic. Though I have put relentless efforts during shaping out the paper, it will not be impractical to find some unintentional mistakes. I hope that you will accept it with gracious consideration.

Sincerely yours

Mehedi Hasan (16269) Assistant Commissioner, Bagerhat. Participant Roll Number: 34 70 th Course on Law & Administration BCSAA.

Declaration The information on this paper has been compiled from a variety of non copyrighted sources. This work is solely for academic evaluation and for the submission to Mr. Hasan Murtaza Masum, Assistant Director (Publication), BCS Administration Academy, Shahbag, Dhaka1000. This paper has been submitted by Mehedi Hasan (16269), Roll: 34, a participant of the 70th course on Law & Administration at BCS Administration Academy, Shahbag, Dhaka-1000.

This paper is published under a Creative Commons license under the author’s own blog www.khatibangladeshi.blogspot.com, which allows you to copy and distribute the paper as long as you keep it intact in its original format, credit the original author and do not use it for commercial purposes. You can also write to [email protected] for any further clarifications or doubts. Image Credit: The images in this paper are published under a Creative Commons license from www.photolibrary.com

I n t h e N a m e o f A l m i g h t y A l l a h , t h e M o st Be n e f i c e n t , t h t h e M o s t M e r c if u l , t h e M o s t G r a c ef u l

Queen more POWERFUL THAN THE KING Why is the

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

It's a flat and bloodless field: 64 squares on a small board, two contestants with 16 pieces each. The battle is chess. The most important piece in the game of chess is the Queen Chess piece. There is one Queen for each player. The Queen piece is placed in the middle rank adjacent to the king. According to the white and black columns on the chess board, the white Queen is placed on the white square and the black Queen Chess piece is placed on the black square. This is called Queen on color. The white Queen Chess piece starts on d1 and the black Queen piece on d8 according to algebraic notation. Those who play chess are often reminded, happily or unhappily, of the Queen's might. Twice the strength of the next-ranking piece, the Queen has great mobility in moving in any direction, any chosen distance. Such a powerful scope makes her, of all the chessmen, the most welcomed ally and the most dreaded antagonist. A cursory reflection on the psychology of this Amazonian state of affairs brings two questions readily to mind. First, what is a woman doing in an otherwise allmale combat, and, secondly, once present how is it that she is stronger by far than any of the men? From the standpoint of prevailing relationships between men and women in our phallocentric civilization, the structure of chess offers a startling turnabout. The most powerful position for Queen is when the enemy king is in an open or undefended position. The Queen Chess piece can then execute a check. Most inexperienced players tend to use their Queens first and this is not a wise decision. When the Queen is ready to attack it is a formidable force. Another advantage of the Queen Chess piece is that it can be moved to any number of unoccupied squares in a straight line, diagonally, vertically or horizontally. The Queen can thus thwart the moves of a rook or bishop. The Queen Chess piece can also capture the squares on which the enemy sits by just occupying them. In chess, it is true that the Queen can do a lot more damage than the King. However, you still lose the game if you don't protect your king, so that seems more powerful to me. It is just a different kind of power. The whole game is about the King. If you lose your Queen, the game continues. If the King is in

danger, that takes precedence over everything. But Gary Karpov, the world chess champion believes that a side without a Queen piece is as good as defeated. Now, just have a look on how the Queen is known by different names in differing countries:

English French German Italian Spanish Portuguese Russian Arabic Latin

Queen Dame Dame Donna Dama Rei Ferz Firz Regina

Chess Les echecs Schachspiel Gli scacchi Ajedrez Xadrez Shahmati Ash-shatranj Scaci

THE HISTORY OF CHESS

The Origin of Chess Is Obscure. Where did chess come from? Was it invented by a single person or did it evolve over time? Many eminent chess historians have been fascinated by these questions. While there is considerable controversy over the facts, the most widely accepted scenario is that chess appeared in India around 500 A.D., was adopted in Persia around 700 A.D., and was absorbed by Arab culture around 800 A.D. The Arab / Muslim influence was responsible for its later introduction into other cultures. Various versions of chess were invented in the 500AD in India and some of those versions were Chaturanga and Shatranj etc. The chess board then lacked a queen altogether and instead of a queen there was a piece which was called ‘Farz’ or ‘Firz’, meaning ‘counselor’ or ‘general’ or ‘minister’. That means the early chess included only the male figures. The Chess versions in India were featured by generals, elephants and horses in abstract or figurative shapes. The most interesting thing in Indian Chess is that it was involved in a 10x10 square board and an extra piece named camel. This version of Chess was played by four, instead of two. The chess then spread to Persia. The Persians altered some of the rules and their version of chess had recognizable figures as pieces -- a king, a vizier (which was just the replacement of counselor/general/minister included in the Indian version of Chess), elephants etc. The meaning of the word ‘Vizier’ is nothing but an advisor and does not connote any form of gender. That means that Persian chess board also lacked a queen altogether. The first documented historic Arabic reference to Chess puts it as being widely spread from Persia by the rule of the Abbasids from Baghdad (after 750 A.D.). But the Muslim world forbade graven images of any living thing, so the pieces became abstract shapes. It is from Baghdad that Chess is disseminated in all directions: towards the East, where primitive forms of Chaturanga represented its breeding ground, finally grafting into many of the national modalities of Chess of each one of the Asian countries. The Arabs call a complete family of games Shatransh, each with game boards in different shapes and sizes, with the basic shape that dominated all others. As outlined by Murray, none of the Asian modalities of Chess was universalized because the

culture that produced them was likewise not universal. The lack of specific literature in these countries has forced each generation to rewrite the technical laws of the game. The Arabian chess board also lacked a queen altogether. The Bishop amongst the Persians was called Pil (elephant) but the Arabs not having the letter ‘p’ in their alphabet, wrote it Fil, or, with their definite article, ‘Al-Fil’. It was the next in command and a force assisting the Counselor or Minister.

The Byzantine chess (900 A.D.)

The ancient Chess pieces from France

The ancient Chess pieces from England

Pieces in Christian Chess

When the game reached Europe in the early Middle Ages through Muslim-ruled southern Spain, human figures reappeared, including the king. In Europe, a queen began to replace the vizier - the king's adviser -around the end of the 10th century, but she was a weak piece. Around the year 990, in a poem titled "Verses on Chess" by a monk in the Swiss monastery of Einsiedeln, came the earliest known reference to a chess queen. The early queen was far from the icon of power she is today. Indeed, according to tenth century chess rules, the queen is second only to pawns in her abject powerlessness on the board - able to move only one step diagonally in any direction (less power than today's king). The Bishop, originally, could only move two squares diagonally, not like it does today. The 15th century saw the arrival of the modern Queen with all her powers and the chess game then accorded nine points to the Queen piece. Since chess assigns no points to the king, this makes the Queen chess piece the most valuable piece. Beginning in the late 1400s, the game was sped up with some major rule changes (which started in Europe and eventually made their way across the rest of the civilized world)... 1) The Bishop was allowed to move as many diagonal squares as it could, being limited only by other pieces in its path or by the edge of the board itslef. 2) The Queen's powers were expanded to its modern form, giving her the combined powers of a Rook and Bishop 3) Pawns were now allowed the option of moving two squares on its first move...which also necessitated the "en passant" rule 4) Castling rules were standardized. Derivation of Chess terms and pieces: Checkmate is the English rendition of shah mat, which is Persian for "the king is finished" and Arabic for "the king is dead". Rook came via Arabic from the Persian rukh, which means "chariot", but also means "cheek" (part of the face), and the mythical bird of great power called the roc. Bishop: Arabic al-fil means "the elephant", but in Europe and the western part of the Islamic world people knew little or nothing about elephants, and the name of

the chessman entered Western Europe as Latin alfinus and similar, a word with no other meaning. The English name "bishop" is a rename inspired by the conventional shape of the piece. Queen: entered western European languages as forms such as alfferza, fers, etc but was later replaced by "queen". In some countries, pieces have changed name without changing their moves. In Russia and parts of modern India, the Rook is called "boat". This refers to longdistance transport along big rivers. In parts of modern India, the Rook is called "elephant" and the Bishop is called "camel".

WHY THE QUEEN IS MORE POWERFUL

How did the chess queen come to dominate the chessboard when, in real life, women are almost always seen in a position of secondary power? What is her relationship to the other chessmen? What can she tell us about the civilization that created her? Nobody knows exactly how, or when, or why it happened. For centuries, the king was dominant. Then the queen surpassed him and has ruled the field ever since. At the end of the middle ages, the slow ferz was replaced in the game of Chess by the Queen. This was part of an overall reform of the rules of Chess (c. 1475), making the game much faster. It has been conjectured that the Queen is called after an influential Spanish Queen that lived at the time of the invention of this piece.

Cultural historian Marilyn Yalom set out with her book, "Birth of the Chess Queen," to solve a mystery: How was it that sometime between the years 990 and 1497 the feminine monarch replaced the king as the center of power? Plowing through archives and poring over ancient manuscripts, Yalom found tantalizing references to the importance of the queen. The earliest explicit presentation of the queen as the powerful piece she is today Yalom found in Luis Ramiriz de Lucena's "Discourse on Love and the Art of Chess," published in Spain in 1496 or '97. Since older forms still existed, the newer game was called "lady chess" or "queen's chess." By whatever name, it became the accepted form throughout Europe, despite some opposition from traditionalists. A more relevant factor may have been the rise of powerful real-life queens, principally Isabella I of Castile (1451-1504), who married Ferdinand, prince of Aragon, and ruled Spain jointly with him. Yalom speculates that Lucena and others in Spain who wrote about "queen's chess" were currying favor with Isabella, perhaps unconsciously. Some years later, in 1475, Isabella I of Castile, was crowned Queen with greater effective power than her husband, Fernando. So much, so that when Spain in 1492 was released from the last Moorish outpost in Granada, discovering

America and enforcing one sole religion in its territory, it was suddenly justified to use in Chess a new Queen with more power than her “King”. It was between 1474 and 1492 when the new powerful dama was developed and this time it can be considered as a dormant stage. The definitive beginning originated in 1492 when the Queen was at the height of her reign: 1.

Conquest of the Morish outpost “Granada”;

2.

Discovery of America;

3.

Expulsion of the Jews;

4. Loss of power of the nobility due to the administrative reforms.

Doubtless there is some truth to the idea that examples such as Isabella made the appearance of a kick-ass female monarch on the chessboard more credible. Isabella, Queen of Castile, the monarch who unified Spain and sent Christopher Columbus to discover America, was also the inspiration for the figure of the queen in modern chess. The Arabs brought chess to Spain when they invaded it in the eighth century, but it was not until the late fifteenth century, when Queen Isabella was at the height of her powers, that the queen becomes the most powerful piece, according to research by chess historians. Not until 1495, when Isabella was the most powerful woman in Europe, were the present rules of chess established, in which the queen roams freely in all directions on the board," said Dr Westerveld, a Dutch chess historian and former youth champion who lives in Spain. It was, he said, no accident that the appearance of the first female chess piece, bearing a crown, sword and sceptre, coincided with the emergence of Queen Isabella, who astonished Europe with her powers of leadership, bravery and determination. This opinion of….cannot be generalised too much. It is not as though the world had never known powerful female rulers before the early-modern period. And bishops and kings are still as powerful in today's chess as they were five centuries ago, despite their waning influence in the western world.

Whatever the reason for the rise of the queen, chess's metaphorical nature gives the question added interest. Yalom said, "The king is the most important piece, but the queen is the most powerful. Freudians have a great time with this. I read their literature -- it's so a historical that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but there may be some unconscious factors in the way the game is played. The world is incomplete without a female presence." A man's game? Freudian interpretations aside, chess "represents society and the course of life," Yalom said. "One side wins, the other loses. It's a war game but can be adapted to life and death, sin and redemption. Omar Khayyam wrote that life is like a game of chess: In the end, we are all dumped into the sack, the king can fall to the bottom of the pile and the pawns on top." Marilyn Yalom's book seeks to trace these changes in the context of their political culture. Was the birth of the chess queen influenced by the appearance of powerful queens on the European stage? These queens, on Yalom's admiring accounts, could do little wrong: they are celebrated for courage and fortitude, and even occasionally fighting in battle themselves. Yalom acknowledges hastily that yes, Isabella drove Jews and Moors from her shores and instituted the Spanish Inquisition, but this just makes Isabella's a "mixed legacy". Well, some legacies are more mixed than others. In a curious little historical irony, chess, among the pursuits banned by the Taliban, was one of the enduring gifts to Europe of the Arabs, whose expulsion by Isabella still rankles among Islamist terrorists today. The game was hugely popular throughout al-Andalus, as Moorish Spain was known, and reflected the constant clashes between rival Arab kingdoms, and between Christian warrior knights and the occupying "ïnfidels". Yalom argues the appearance of the queen on the board coincided with the Arab invasion of Europe and the Christianization of the game as it took root in lands dominated by the idea of a woman as help-meet to a Christian king. This is not so difficult to explain if we take into account the fact that in 1492 Spain banished some 250,000 Jews from its land, who were distributed all over Europe with all its political and economic influence. Furthermore, the Spanish King Carlos V spent more time away from Spain than within its boundaries in function of the defense of the Spanish hegemony in Europe.

Some other theories depicts that the queen was born of the gender politics associated with the clash between Christianity and Eastern cultures; and gained power in concert with traditions of queenly rule in Europe. But this doesn't explain the other side of the coin: why the chess king is so vulnerable relative to his counterpart - so (one might say) feminized? Queens may have had greater power in Europe than in other parts of the world, and chess may have been a site for using gender as a cultural marker for civilizational identity, but queens hardly displaced their husbands and fathers as the loci of political authority. Perhaps the chess king's vulnerability reflects the perception of many men surrounded by strong females that women actually hold the power, even if it's not wielded through the sword. Another opinion tells about the veneration of the Virgin Mary as a figure of power in medieval Europe. In the New Testament, the mother of Jesus is the meek and submissive "handmaid of the Lord." But by the middle Ages, she had been endowed with regal glory and power. "If you look at the portal of the cathedral of Notre Dame [in Paris]," said Yalom, "you see the coronation of the Virgin." There was also the cult of courtly love that arose in the middle Ages, in which every knight had a devotion to his lady, sometimes an unattainable married noblewoman, who inspired feats of bravery and derring-do. It was no surprise, if true, that the powerful chess queen arose in Southern Europe. "In southern Europe, aristocratic women had more freedom and power than women in northern Europe," said Clifford R. Backman, a professor of medieval history at Boston University. "In the south, a woman could inherit land and titles, could become the countess and run the county. In the north, it was more likely that the court would find someone for a woman to marry, someone to be in charge."

CONCLUSION

In chess, the queen has mobility (the crucial barometer of power in the game) but less value, as the game can continue without her; the hobbled king is relatively powerless, but is the most valuable piece without whom the game ceases. In actual politics, the situation is reversed: women's relative lack of access to political and military power and even social, economic and physical mobility is sometimes justified and at any rate partly explained through their greater perceived value compared to men for reproductive and symbolic purposes. Chess Queen, the sole female on a field of male monarchs, ecclesiastical oligarchs, horsemen and armed peasants, she is more forceful than them all. She strikes fear into the opposing king, yet is still subservient to her own. The queen and king begin at each other's side; then the king hides in a fortress while the queen roams free in battle. Most glamorous of her possible destinies is to sacrifice herself to bring victory to her husband. Today chess is predominantly a man's game, and few women are found in the top competitive ranks. if powerful real-life women, such as Isabella I of Castile, inspired the game of chess, then chess can return the favor to modern women. Any woman wishing to follow the chess queen's lead, especially in the public realm, needs to be tactically superior to the men around her, relentless in battle, even cruel when necessary. Whether or not she is called upon to protect her husband . . . she will have to learn to negotiate a treacherous terrain, not unlike the chessboard, if she wants to move forward, both at home and in the workplace. She, and those committed to her well-being, could do worse than take up the chess queen as their personal emblem and silently utter those ritual words: Long live the queen!

Web References




www.guardian.co.uk




www.chess-poster.com













www.duckofminerva.blogspot.com www.independent.co.uk www.wiki.answers.com www.answers.yahoo.com www.chessinvasion.com www.pep-web.org www.mark-weeks.com www.goddesschess.com www.pdfcoke.com www.chesssetsking.com

Bibliography:  Eales, Richard, Chess: the history of a game (New York, Facts on Publication, 1985).  Golombek, Herry, Chess: A History (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1976)