Page:Laskers chess magazine January 1905 Volume 1 page 127.jpg

 gine house you will see men playing checkers, and excellent players they are. One of them was asked recently why he did not learn to play chess. The answer was:

"We don't know anything about the game, and I don't believe we could learn it if we tried."

To the person who has not learned the game it seems a profound mystery, capable of being comprehended only by men of extraordinary minds. The fireman continued:

"Chess is too complicated a game to learn. I saw two old fellows playing a game once, and I was watching them for fifteen minutes and neither made a move. What they were trying to do I haven't the remotest idea. Excuse me! While those fellows were trying to figure out what they were going to do, we could play a whole game of checkers."

It is a pity that the knowledge of the royal game should not be possessed by the firemen, who are often wearied for want of variety in their amusements. Can someone suggest a method whereby they may be enlightened?

{{center|

&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
}}

It has become a habit among older players to make comparison between the character of game played in our day and that of the time of Morphy, to the detriment of the chess now played in our clubs, in tournaments, and in matches. One would suppose, to read the descriptions given off-hand that genius was of the past, that nothing exists now but the dry edges of frayed-out variations, that the brilliancies of the olden times no longer exist and the beauties which once blossomed in the combinations of chess are things of the past. It is very often the form of assertion that is made in regard to literature, music and art. In each age there is the usual amount produced; there is an average of bad and good, in which the bad is always most abundant. The good lives, the bad is forgotten and the fact that the beautiful is all that we have by which to remember the past proves merely the truth of the axiom of the theory of evolution; it is the survival of the fittest. And so it is with chess.

It is very pleasant reading which our friend "Caissa" gives us in his letter in another column of memories of Paul Morphy and his times, with the usual comparison of Morphy's style with the "nose to the grindstone" methods of to-day. Paul Morphy was the greatest chess player that ever lived. Every student of the game, who has delved into the stories of the past, realizes that no one ever was so far superior to the players of his time, or ever defeated his opponents with such ease, and no one ever offered knight odds to the men who considered themselves his equal. And yet every game that was played by Morphy was not brilliant. Many of them show the impress of the hard study which our students of to-day give to their battles. At the end of some of the games there is the evidence of labor in the statement of time consumed, and with Paulsen, who was nearer to Morphy's strength than any other player of that time, though it is known that Paulsen consumed most of the time, the games occupied many hours.

{{center|

&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
}}

A game of chess played by men of equal strength, and played accurately, will end in a draw, and it is apt to be dull. Brilliancy occurs usually from opportunities that are afforded by errors in combination, and where one of the players is stronger than the other the pretty things will crop out at every move. It is here that the genius of chess has its full sway. Anderssen voiced it well when asked why he did not play as brilliantly as usual in his game with Morphy, when he replied: "Morphy will not let me." To play brilliant chess requires that you catch your opponent napping, or that you are the stronger player. Equality of strength, especially when the opponents are of the master class, leads to long games, with beauties just touched upon, foiled by clever repartee, and possibilities that are unseen by the onlooker and would be lost were it not for the notes which show the traps and will 'o the wisps with which each triesto lead the other into error.

There are more real beauties of combination in the games played by