TIM BOUCHER, FALL 2010

There’s a little ritual I go through when playing a game of chess which I learned from other players: once both sides of the board are set up, you pick one white pawn and one black pawn – one in each hand. Put your hands together, shake em up, put your hands together behind your back and shake them up more. Bring your fists closed, palms down, one piece clutched in each hand. The other player then physically – not verbally (that way there’s no question of “my right” versus “your right”) – picks a hand, the color of the piece within determining that player’s side. White goes first, but I recently heard that “black is lucky.” Black also, as consolation, gets to pick which side the clock is on – if you’re playing with a clock.

It occurs to me, though, that this simple ritual of choosing sides is the only element of chance left in the game of chess. Everything else is based on a decision made. And unlike poker, all the information is available to all players. Older variants of chess, I’ve read, incorporated dice. One simple rule for using dice is chess has to do with assigning a value of 1-6 to each category of piece. Rolling two dice gives you two options of pieces you may move. Doubles let you make any legal chess move.

In any case, I feel almost like the taking of one pawn of each color and shaking them up is ritually quite similar to what you do when you throw dice. The act and the objects also call to mind an element of something I’ve seen firsthand in the dilogun system of divination used in Santeria. From an older article of mine on the subject:

Spread out on the table was a straw mat with eight white lines drawn on it and a cross marked in cascarilla. Next to that sat a small head representing the Orisha Eleggua, trickster god of the crossroads, mediator between humans and the divine. Also on the table were a multi-colored seven-day candle, a bowl of water containing the sixteen cowrie shells, and two other implements shaped like small heads, one white and one brown which I would use later in the reading.

I’m also interested in experimenting with using other games to supplement the teaching of certain elements of chess – for example, mancala. I’m figuring a game like mancala teaches you a certain kind of tabulation and planning which would come in handy at reinforcing decision-making patterns in chess relating to the different values of each piece (1,3,3,5,9).

• Beaters on three sides only
• From Ben Franklin’s Morals of Chess
• Beginner’s Checkmates in Chess: Fool’s Mate and Scholar’s Mate
• Play Chess Against Yourself
• Dramatic Situations Within Chess