Black History in Chess

The history of chess in Africa predates the appearance of chess in Europe by several centuries. The earliest record of a Black chess player was from about 1300 years ago. Sa’id bin Jubair was a Black Islamic jurist who is the first person in the world known to have specialized in blindfold chess. From his time until today, doubtless there were a great many Black chess players, but records are virtually non-existent until we reach the Black diaspora in the United States, some thousand years later.

Dr. James McCune Smith (1813) was the first Black American to hold a medical degree, which he earned in Scotland, not being permitted to study medicine in the United States. He earned his medical degree from the University of Glasgow in 1837, one of three degrees he earned by the age of 19. He returned to the United States where he also became the first African-American to operate a pharmacy.

Smith was a passionate intellectual, a vocal and active abolitionist, a pioneer in modern medicine, and a great chess enthusiast. Regrettably, there seem to be no records of his games. In his most famous essay on chess, he promoted the game as a healthy form of entertainment, and also told of his encounter with one of the greatest chess players of all time. The essay is lengthy, but you can read it by clicking HERE.

Born into slavery in 1855, Theophilus Thompson is the earliest documented Black American chess expert. After being freed, he learned chess and wrote a book of chess puzzles called Chess Problems: Either to Play or Mate, which was published in 1873.

Jim Crow laws in the United States hindered chess progress for many Black Americans. In the 1950s, Black chess players were barred from the Southern Chess Association, the Chicago Chess Club, and the Georgia Open Chess Tournament. They were also prohibited from playing in the U.S. Open in 1954.

One bright spot during this time was the admittance of Archie Waters into the Marshall Chess Club in New York. Waters was a mentor to Bobby Fischer, and accompanied him to Reykjavik in his legendary World Championship match against Boris Spassky in 1972.

The fight against discrimination continued, and other Black chess players came to prominence, including Kenneth Clayton (winner of the 1963 U.S. Amateur Chess Championship), Frank Street Jr. (winner of the 1965 U.S. Amateur Chess Championship), Alan Williams (America’s first Black FIDE Master), and Baraka Shabazz (the first Black woman to earn an Expert rating in the USCF). Kangugi Karanja is regarded as the first Black chess prodigy, becoming a USCF Candidate Master at the age of ten. The accomplishments of these fine players build up to the contemporary Black masters of chess in America and elsewhere. 

It wasn’t until 1999 that the world saw the first Black Grandmaster, Jamaican-American Maurice Ashley, but today titled Black players in Africa and throughout the diaspora are increasingly common. During Black History Month, we pay tribute to those who blazed the trail, and those who now walk the path, paving the way for future generations.

In Paul Morphy we find a person with truly diverse roots. On his father’s side, his heritage comprised Spanish, Irish and Portuguese. More significantly to this discussion, his mother was French Creole, likely with a Caribbean background. Strictly speaking, “Creole” can refer to a wide range of hereditary origins, but it is most commonly associated with Caribbean and/or African background.

So it is likely that Paul Morphy, the so-called Pride and Sorrow of Chess, one of the most celebrated chess players of all time, has some African heritage. Adding weight to this idea is the account that Dr. James McCune Smith wrote of his encounter with Morphy in 1857:

“And as we gazed at Morphy, with his fine, open countenance, brunette hue, marvelous delicacy of fibre, bright, clear eyes, and elongated submaxillary bone, a keen suspicion entered our ethnological department that we were not the only Carthaginian in the room. It might only be one drop, perhaps two, God only know how they got there but surely, beside the Tria mulattin who at present writes, there was also a Hekata-mulattin in that room!"

“Carthaginian” of course refers to a person from the ancient African city of Carthage, and by extension, any person with African heritage. Readers will recognize “mulattin” as related to “mulatto” or mixed-race, and Dr. Smith’s addition of “tria” and “hekata” refer to the fraction of “Blackness” he inferred from appearances. 

We should stress, by the way, that Dr. Smith was a vocal opponent to the standard race theories of his day, and was a particular opponent of phrenology. Nonetheless, Smith makes his impression crystal clear, despite the common depictions of Morphy. There is nothing like the testimony of a witness who saw him in the flesh!

This is quite a claim for Black Americans, and all of the Black chess community, as Morphy is arguably the most ingenious chess mind to have ever lived. In this case, choosing between pride and sorrow, we are going to go with pride, many times over!

The history of chess can be traced back nearly 1500 years, although its earliest origins are uncertain. The popularity of chess has, for the past two centuries, been closely tied to competition, usually in the form of two-player matches, for the title of world champion. The first major international event was a series of six matches held in 1834 between the leading French and British players, Louis-Charles de la Bourdonnais of Paris and Alexander McDonnell of London, which ended with Bourdonnais’s victory. 

But only as of 2015, there are three grandmasters of African descent. Here’s more about some of these grandmasters and other famous Black chess players. They are pictured, left to right, in the photo gallery above in order of listing.

Maurice Ashley is a Jamaican-American chess grandmaster, author, and commentator. Ashley was born in St. Andrew, Jamaica. He attended Wolmer's Boys School in Jamaica, then moved to the United States when he was 12. In 1992, Ashley shared the United States Game/10 chess championship with Maxim Dlugy. In 1999, Ashley beat Adrian Negulescu to complete the requirements for the title of Grandmaster. This made him the first Black chess grandmaster. 

In 2005, he wrote the book Chess for Success, relating his experiences and the positive aspects of chess. He was the main organizer for the 2005 HB Global Chess Challenge, with the biggest cash prize in history for an open chess tournament. Ashley has worked, and currently is working, as a chess commentator covering many events, including those of the Grand Chess Tour.

Kenneth Terence Solomon is a South African chess grandmaster and (International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation) FIDE Trainer. He took up chess at the age of 13, inspired by his elder brother's qualification for the Chess Olympiad in Manila in 1992. Within two years, Solomon was the South African under-16 champion. Solomon won the African Individual Chess Championship in Namibia in December 2014 and became a grandmaster, building on his previous excellent performances. “I continued to work on chess over the years until 2008 even when there were few opportunities,” said Solomon in an interview when asked what were the most important aspects in his chess development “It was important not to give up, to be patient, to bide my time, to learn from defeats and recover quickly."

Pontus Carlsson, born December 18, 1982,  is a Swedish chess grandmaster. Pontus was taught chess by his adoptive father at the age of four and has represented Sweden in international competitions since he was a youth. His first international tournament of record was the under-10 European Championships in Rimavska Sobota. Carlsson's rise to the Grandmaster title was rather sudden as he earned the International Master title  in 2005 and after earning four GM norms, he was awarded the title in 2007. 

Recently, Carlsson has become one of the chess world's most prominent voices in support of the worldwide protests sparked by the May 25 2020 police killing of George Floyd.

Darrian Robinson is the highest-rated African American female chess player in the United States Chess Federation system. Robinson graduated from the University of Chicago in 2016 where she held a White House internship and studied at the London School of Economics. Her USCF rating is 2086 and she holds the title of "Candidate Master." Her chess career became notable in 2006, when she ranked 6th in USCF’s girls under 13 ranking and represented the United States in Batumi, Georgia, at the World Youth Chess Championship. 

“Chess isn't about winning first place in tournaments. It's about beating individuals who are better than you,” said Robinson in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.

February is “Black History Month” in the United States, so this February, I thought it would be appropriate to look at the history of chess players of African descent.

Perhaps the first documented case of a Black chess player was that of Sa’id bin Jubair (665-714), a Black player who excelled at blindfold chess in Kufa, in modern-day Iraq.  He was the first known player who played chess without looking at the pieces.

In 1859, Dr. James Smith McCune (1813-1865), an African-American, was one of the first Black chess players of note and wrote several essays promoting chess as a healthy form of entertainment,  published in Anglo-African Magazine.  He characterized chess as an art that required work and continual practice.  He was also the first African-American to earn a medical degree and to run a pharmacy in the United States.

In 1874, Theophilis A. Thompson (1855-1920?), an African-American and freed black slave, put together a book of chess problems called Chess Problems: Either to Play and Mate.  It was published by Orestes Brownson Jr., the editor of the Dubuque Chess Journal.

In 1950, black chess players were barred from the 1950 Southern Chess Association, held in North Carolina.

In the 1950s, Archie Waters (1918-2001) became the first black member of the prestigious Marshall Chess Club in New York.  He was good friends with Bobby Fischer.

In the early 1950s, Blacks were denied membership in the Chicago Chess Club.

In the 1950s, Blacks were barred from chess playing rooms in Louisiana and were barred from playing in the U.S. Open, held in New Orleans in 1954.

In 1955, Black were barred from playing in the Georgia Open chess tournament.

At the 1959 U.S. Open chess tournament in Omaha, Nebraska, blacks were not allowed to rent a room at the hotel (or other nearby hotels ) in which the chess tournament was held.

In 1963, Walter Harris, age 18, became the first black chess master in America.  He won the junior championship of the Marshall Chess Club and was a member of the Manhattan Chess Club and Marshall Chess Club.

In 1963, Kenneth Clayton (1938-  ), an African-American, won the 1963 Amateur Chess Championship.  His picture appeared on the cover of the June, 1963 issue of Chess Life magazine.

In 1965, Frank Street, Jr., an African-American, won the 1965 U.S. Amateur Championship and became the second Black to earn the master title in America.

In 1965, Ray Charles (1930-2004), who lost his vision when he was a child, learned chess after a stint in substance abuse rehab.  It helped him kick the habit.  He became an avid chess player and appeared on the cover of Chess Life and Review in 2002.

In 1967, Ken Clayton became the third Black to earn the master title in America.

In 1970, Alan Williams became America’s first black FIDE master.

Emory Tate, Jr. (1958-    ), an African-American, served in the U.S. Air Force and won the U.S. Armed Forces Championship five times. He became an International Master in 2006.

In 1982, Baraka Shabazz became the first black female to have an expert’s rating by the USCF.

In 1984, Kangugi “K.K.” Karanja (1973-    ) became the a USCF expert (rated over 2000) at the age of 10, the youngest African-American to do so.  He is regarded as the first African-American chess prodigy.  In 1985 at the age of 11, he won the National Elementary Chess Championship with a perfect 7-0, becoming the first African-American to win a national scholastic title and the second African-American to win a national chess championship (Frank Street, Jr. was the first, winning the 1965 US Amateur Championship).

In 1992, National Master Elvin Wilson, an African-American, won the Texas Armed Forces Championship (I took 2nd) and the Air Force Championship (his only loss was to me; we drew the following year).  He won the Armed Forces Championship in 1993 and 1998.

In 1993, Maurice Ashley (1966-    ) became the first African-American to be awarded the International Master title.  In 1963 he also won the Marshall Chess Club Championship in New York.

In 1999, Maurice Ashley, born in Jamaica, became the first and only African-American to awarded the Grandmaster title.  He I snow active in different areas of chess promotion, especially promoting chess with children.  In 1991, he coached a team of black kids from Harlem that won the 1991 National Junior High School Championships.

In 2002, Maurice Ashley became the first African-American to qualify for the US Chess Championship.

In 2005, Maurice Ashley wrote Chess for Success, which I contributed a chapter on famous people who play chess, including several prominent black celebrities.

In 2005, Tuduetso Sabure (1982-    ) of Botswana became the first black woman grandmaster when she won the African Women’s Championship.

In 2007, Pontus Carlsson (1982-    ), A Black player from Sweden, was awarded the Grandmaster title.  He was born in Cali, Columbia.  When he was one year old, his entire family died and he was subsequently adopted by a Swedish couple.  His adopted father was the former president of the Swedish chess federation who taught him how to play chess.  He was the second Black to become a grandmaster.

In 2007, Amon Simutowe (1982-    ), a Black player from Zambia, was awarded the Grandmaster title.  He took 2nd place in the 2000 World Junior Chess Championships in Armenia (won by Lazaro Bruzon of Cuba).  He was named Zambia’s “Sportsman of the Year” in 2001.  In 2009, he won the South African Open.  He was the third Black to become a grandmaster.

In 2010, Justus Williams, age 12, set the record of the youngest black chess player ever to reach the level of chess master.  Prior to this record, Kassa Korley, age 15, was the youngest black chess player to reach the level of chess master.  In 2013, he won the US Junior Open

As of 2015, there are three Grandmasters of African descent.  They are Maurice Ashley of the United States, Pontus Carlsson of Sweden  and Amon Simutowe of Zambia.

As of 2015, there are about 50 black chess masters in the United States.

Famous Black celebrities who have played or play chess include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaun Alexander, LaVar Arrington, Barry Bonds, Kobe Bryant, Jim Brown, Maurice Carter, Wilt Chamberlain, Ray Charles, Lester Conner, Bill Cosby, Fats Domino, Laurence Fishburne, Jamie Foxx, Dizzie Gillespie, GZA, Priest Holmes, Magic Johnson, Lennox Lewis, Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Chris Rock, Bill Russell, RZA, Barry Sanders, Will Smith, Wesley Snipes, Latrell Sprewell, and Tiger Woods.

Black chess masters include Greg Acholonu (SM), Pedro Aderito (IM), Maurice Ashley (GM), Steve Booth (NM), Ron Buckmeyer (SM), Pontus Carlsson (GM), Ken Clayton (NM), Joshua Colas (NM), Charles Covington (NM), Barry Davis (NM), Morris Giles (FM), Charles Green (NM), Robert Gwaze (IM), Walter Harris (NM), Walu Kobese (IM), Kassa Korley (NM), Irvin Middleton (FM), Vincnet Moore (NM), William Morrison (SM), Tony Randolf (NM), Norm Rogers (FM), Ron Simpson (SM), Amon Simutowe (GM), Kenny Solomon (IM), Frank Street (NM), Andre Surgeon (NM), Emory Tate (IM), George Umezinwa (NM), Glenn Umstead (NM), Justus Williams (NM), and Elvin Wilson (NM).

By  Dr. Daaim Shabazz, The Chess Drum 

There are many heroes in Black history, but many have been long forgotten or at least unappreciated. Chess in the times of the Civil War took on a particular significance as it was often perceived as symbol of refinement and erudition.

James McCune Smith was such a man of erudition. Born on April 18, 1813, he was the son of an enslaved mother and developed into one of the most brilliant minds of his day. He attended schools in New York City, but because of blatant racism, wasn't allowed to enter any of the U.S. colleges at the time. He decided to move to Scotland to attend Glasgow University where, by age 19, he would earn three degrees including a Doctor of Medicine. After an internship in Paris in 1837, he returned to his home state of New York where he became the first Black physician.

While in Scotland, he had joined the Glasgow Emancipation Society and upon his return began to fight the cause for the abolition of slavery.  A Frederick Douglass contemporary,  he understood the challenges of Black life in America and sought to build institutions and organization for Black self-empowerment. With Douglass, he helped to establish the The National Council of the Colored People and passed away on November 17, 1865. His life's work was not in vain as he saw slavery abolished the year of his death.

Below is his essay on chess. It is lengthy piece and the prose is very elegant. He makes mention of a great many subjects pertaining to the 19th century chess era including the legacy of Paul Morphy who he noted had "Carthaginian" features. He also discussed an array of topics ranging from metaphysics of chess to the personal battle between Morphy and Howard Staunton. McCune Smith is an important figure in Black chess and preceded Theophilus Thompson another great player of the 19th century.

The National Era
September 29, 1859
Vol. XIII No. 665 P. 153

CHESS
by James McCune Smith

In that sad autumn month of 1857, when the commercial panic had reached its height, and when New York city seemed the central vortex of disaster not only of the United States, but of the civilized world there were two occurrences in singular contrast with the frightfully excited state of the public mind. To the few who had the heart to look out of doors, out of doors never looked more lovely. The air was balmy and of delightful temperature, the sky was cloudless, the sunsets beautiful, and never, since the world began, threw a more gorgeous hue over mountain and forest of the American landscape. We confess to some sympathy with that gloomy state of the public mind not that we had any golden argosy in stocks or shares which went down yet there was the coming winter, and, possibly, wan cheeks and supperless beds to those dearer than life. But, whatever gloom we felt was one day suddenly dissipated by the glorious "out of doors," which had smiled and beckoned us many a day unheeded, and which, now no longer to be kept aloof, told us of the goodness as well as the glory of the Almighty.

We thought then, and we think now, that had the men of God, instead of improving that dark hour with pictures of darker sins and darker vengeance, and a more fearful judgment to come, had they simply pointed to the earth yielding her abundance, and to the air charged with health, and to the sky filled with the smile of God, and said to their alarmed people, "Peace, be still!" there would soon have been an end of all panic. Cheerfulness would have resumed her sway; and many a grave would have yet remained unfilled, and the sadder gates of our institutions for the insane would now hold some thousands fewer within their portals. 

The other occurrence was in-doors. While men in Wall street surged to and fro under impulses they no more understood and could no more govern than the iron waves in the howling storm; while men in Broadway and other streets adjacent the masters suddenly arrested in their golden dreams of enormous profit, and the workmen sadly folding up their implements of labor; and while the poor, frantic with an unknown dread, rushed to the savings banks,* or gathered in bread mobs in distant parks in the midst of this social hurricane, there was one house in Broadway, in which men daily gathered, and matters went on "Calm as a summer's sea," the very centre of the vortex, yet calm as a moonlit pool, so deeply embayed in mountains, that no breath of air could reach it a land-locked haven, in which whoever entered, however storm riven or care-crushed, became calm and still, and hung up his votive offerings to the genius loci; which was neither music, nor dancing, nor dice, nor wine, nor opium, nor lotus, nor hasheesh, but simply Chess! the immortal game, painted as played on the inside of the tomb of Nevotp, the Egyptian, 3,000 years B.C.;** but who can paint it as played at Donadi's rooms in Broadway, in the year of grace 1857?

We have said that "out of doors" dissipated our gloom at that date; but in-doors this indoors was an accessory cloud-dispeller. We "got" there after this wise: Years ago, in the early months of our still persistent honeymoon, I purchased a pretty but fragile set of chessmen, and aided by an old copy of "Walker", and the new frau, made some little progress in chess, until little fingers grew up round the table, and made a general smash of knights, pawns, and rooks, and little cares of another kind interfered with further proficiency. 

And it is good testimony in favor of the game, that when knight and pawn so went to the band, no harsh nor unkind word was uttered against their young destroyers, the chubby fingers were not rapped, nor their owners punished. It is not always so, however. We read of a passionate duke, in the middle ages, breaking the chess board on the skull of his conqueror; and I have seen the wild Fylbel aim a sudden blow at a little French, man, who recklessly swept the men off the board when Fyl was about to "mate" an opponent. 

My description of the game attracted some friends to buy board and book; and in a little while, Fylbel, the Downings, one of the Reasons, and an occasional jew-pedlar who insisted on taking the king, (the atrocious regicide!) with the preliminary exclamation, "chess de koenig" formed as clumsy a set of chess players as could be hunted up. The appearance of Staunton's Chess-Players Hand Book was an era in our progress, although months were wasted in discussing the laws of the game by that born Causidicus, who now presides over the Sea-Girt House at Newport. In course of time, we became decent players.

So the year 1857 found us. It was some relief, looking at the daily papers, to turn from the failure of A, B, & Co., for $150,000, and from the suspension of specie payments by the banks, except the glorious old Chemical, to the unruffled proceedings of the first American Chess Congress, then in session, admission for the week, to lookers on one dollar. But that dollar? Was it prudent, with bank account at low water, and slim prospect of a flow, and on the edge of a long winter, with others dependent, was it prudent so to bestow to throw away a dollar? 

After hearing counsel before ourself three whole days, we held a family council with "die frau," who at once decided that we must go. And "went" we did. And the officers of the Chess Congress, with nobler instincts of gentlemen than the New York Academy of Medicine ***, did not hesitate or refuse to admit a negro, even with the high-bloods from the South in their midst, and the danger of the dissolution of the Union before their eyes.

Having seen their portraits in Frank Leslie, we instantly singled out Paulsen and his great antagonist, and a little skillful elbowing found us seated beside their board. There was Louis Paulsen, with his vast head, sanguine temperament, but coarse fibre, indicating his rough, almost pure-Bersekir blood; and as we gazed at Morphy, with his fine, open countenance, brunette hue, marvelous delicacy of fibre, bright, clear eyes, and elongated submaxillary bone, a keen suspicion entered our ethnological department that we were not the only Carthaginian in the room. It might only be one drop, perhaps two ,God only knows how they got there but surely, beside the Tria mulattin who at present writes, there was also a Hekata-mulattin in that room!

It was the old combat between Coeur de Lion and the Saladin. How strange that the Orient and the Occident should yet war! Paulsen huge, massive, ponderous; Morphy slight, elegant, yet swift as lightning.

The game was about half through, so far as the number of moves were concerned. Paulsen hesitated, clasped his hands, leaving out the two long fore-fingers, which he laid firmly on the edge of the board counted over the five or six possible moves of his opponent, and then evidently knew something more would follow but what? You could almost see him think; at length, with a peculiar flourish of his arm, he seizes a pawn, and moves. With scarcely a moment's hesitation, with his eyes for an instant bent on the board, Morphy raises his arm as if to strike, and throws a piece right in the way of his antagonist. 

Another long, long pause, the hands again clasped: "why, take the piece, man," is on everybody's unopened lips; yet Paulsen pauses, again clasps his hands, and for nearly half an hour pores over the board; he does not take the proffered piece, but offers one of equal value; then something skin to electricity flashed through and out of Morphy, the calm white forehead "pleated up," his arm raised, he swiftly moves; and, as if caught with the same impulse. Paulsen moves instantly; then, for a few seconds, there is a click, click, click a move each second percussion-caps, rifles, cannons, grape, canister, the clash of swords and then all is still. Flushed with the struggle, Paulsen looks up to see why the other sits calm and cold as an icicle; Paulsen glances again at the board, and sees mate for himself three or four moves off!

Surely, thought we, chess is a question of magnetism; given, a fair parity in skill between two players, and the more powerfully magnetic will sway and conquer the will of the less magnetic, and force him into moves according to his will. We had tried this often, directly, with the susceptible engraver, P. H. R., and once, in a reflex manner, with J. S., of Providence. In this latter instance, he being the less practiced player, but of impressible nerves, by fixing our attention on the board at the same moment with him, and marking out the best move against us, he invariably made that move, and won; per contra, while, in another game, we made moves, and then looked away; ignored the board until he had moved; unmagnetized, the termination of the game was speedily against him.

How, then, did Paulsen, with his superior magnetism, and not very inferior skill, fail to affect Morphy? The moment that Morphy completed a move, he threw the whole board away from his attention, brushed away magnetism, so to speak often went off to the other end of the room, and had to be summoned thence to reply to Paulsen's move. (4.) And it was very evident that the study of the former was not at all in relation to what Paulsen would move, but in regard to the possible moves and combinations, embracing from twelve to twenty moves, and their twelve times twelve, and twenty times twenty of possible inter-combinations. 

This whirl of permutation, with accurate results in each of thousands of combinations, evidently passes through Morphy's mind in like manner as in Zerah Colburn and other arithmetical prodigies, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and the square root, are performed with the rapidity and accuracy of Mr. Babbage's machine. So that for any one less gifted in this peculiar power than Morphy to attempt to play with him, is like one man at the brake of a fire-engine, striving to play the same against another worked by steam; or, more accurately, for an ordinary adept to endeavor to count interest with Zerah Colburn, or the negro prodigy recently announced in Alabama.

This leads us to inquire, what is chess? Is it a purely intellectual exercise, affording scope and improvement and test of the mental faculties? or is it a physico-intellectual exercise, engaging muscular as well as brain work? What faculties does it call into exercise? The eye and fingers, the muscles of the arm, and the muscles of the orbit, the peculiar power of seeing the men in their places, and of seeing men that are in their places as if they were not there, but elsewhere, and others, or blanks, where they actually are a sort of physical reticence and imagination acting at one and the same moment such is one phase of chess exercise. 

Napoleon planned his battles on large maps, with pin-heads indicating the whereabouts of each corps, division, and even brigade. He moved the pins about as his thought required, and thus completed his plan. But your chess-player must go through this preliminary fight without touching map or pin; he must with most difficult reticence keep hands off until he makes a complete survey of the men and the field; and when he once touches a man, it must be moved beyond recall. This requires a stretch of attention very exhausting, nay, almost impossible to some minds; it is the faculty which phrenologists term "continuity," which is the result, for the most part, of training, sometimes a gift. We notice, in nearly all the chess - playing friends we have named, that their failure in play depends on the lack of this faculty. 

G.T.D., for example, makes the most vigorous attacks of any of them, but, after the twelfth or sixteenth move, his attention is exhausted, and some careless move makes him an easy prey to a less vigorous opponent. In his case, this failure in attention, or continuity, is confined to his chess play; in business, or in public movements, in which he is deeply interested, he is constant, persistent, and steadfast as a sleuth bound. This would seem to indicate that his perceptive faculties are deficient, or are easily wearied over the chess-board. Per contra, among these friends, P. H. R., the engraver, is the only one who plays an even, unflagging game throughout; indeed, as many have found to their chagrin, plays the better end game, the worse his chances appear to be. His perceptive faculties are trained by his employment, and rather improve than weary by continuity of exercise.

Another amateur, W. C. I., is a most interesting study at the chess-board. He has fine perceptive faculties, is a splendid boxer, of quick, strong, combative temperament, and of full physical imagination. He makes the most beautiful combinations we ever saw on the chess - board; they seem as brilliant as fireworks; but he loses almost every game, not from breaking down of his continuity or attention, so much as from an incurably mercurial disposition, which leads him to forsake a sound move for one apparently more brilliant, but less safe. This gentleman bought a mare the other day, which, in twenty four hours, kicked three wagons to pieces, and threw him out each time; of course, instead of getting rid of her, he is "bound" to break her, it will be "such a splendid feat." 

From the nature of the faculties which it calls into play, we regard chess as a physical as well as intellectual exercise, requiring muscular work as well as brain work. Cricket, billiards, chess, rise from the physico-intellectual to the intellectuo-physical; and chess, billiards, cricket, reverse the order. Lookers-on at cricket feel the blood rush, the muscles clench, and a "hurra" escaping from the lips. Lookers on at billiards tell me that to see Phelan play affords the highest possible physical enjoyment (5.). Lookers on at chess feel their muscles twitching, their fingers clasping and moving imaginary men, and their heads aching when the game is done.

Another reason why we regard chess less as an intellectual than a physical exercise consists in the fact, that the highest eminence in chess is attained before the age of full intellectual development. In our American Chess Congress, the champions of the champions were very young men: Morphy twenty, and Paulsen twenty-three or four. McDonnell, Staunton, Harrwitz, Stanley, all won their laurels in their early days. The best chess-players on record, in like manner, had attained their eminence while under thirty years of age; while the human intellect is not at its full development until between the thirty-fifth and forty-fifth year of the individual. 

And if chess-playing maximum occurs before the intellectual maximum, it follows that chess is not a purely intellectual exercise. Furthermore, a man's force in chess, like his physical power or force, diminishes after he is thirty years of age. Yankee Sullivan at forty three, some eighteen years after he had passed his physical maximum, was no match for his own equal, aged twenty-five; hence the years told in Tom Hyer's favor.

In like manner, Mr. Stanley, who, at twenty-two, had won a match against Mr. St. Amant, in New Orleans, was but a third-rate player at forty years of age; and the real excuse for Mr. Staunton, in declining to play with Morphy, was, that he had passed his maximum chess-playing age some twenty years ago, and could not be expected, an old man, to acquit himself as if he had been a young one. "I will take to my work, let the young gentleman take to his play," was really a truthful and adequate reason for declining to play; but "why not say this before?" say the critics. 

Because, on practicing, as he doubtless did, in private, Mr. Staunton discovered that his chess skill was dulled to his own apprehension, his chess muscles had lost their wonted fire and lubricity in the gambit. Au reste what a stupid piece of red republicanism it is, in the midst of the nineteenth century, to expect a king, even of chess, to throw away his crown wittingly, before an unknown cavalier, however preux!

In relation to the higher faculties which it calls into exercise, chess affects less the pure reasoning powers than is usually taken for granted. Classed as a division of mathematical study, it belongs to the arithmetical rather than the transcendental department of mathematics; it is no higher than permutation. All possible moves of a given number of pieces can be summed up in an intelligible line of figures less than a yard long. The objection, therefore, of the great Scotch metaphysician to mathematics, as a means of mental development that they lead to only positive results, as in a grooved track applies with double force to chess, which calls into exercise one of the lower branches of mathematics only.

A great deal has been said about invention in relation to chess-playing, and a London newspaper especially lands the inventive genius of Mr. Morphy. If our view of his peculiar power be the correct one, then there is no invention in his play. All the possible combinations of the moves before him appear to his mind as clearly as K. p. to K.' to an ordinary player; and from what he sees, he selects the best play. It is about as much invention as is exercised by a natural arithmetician, in announcing, in a minute, a difficult result in interest for days no more. Besides, this gentleman, he very best of known living chess-players seems singularly deficient in even the moderate degree of invention which can be predicated of chess. We have the Evans Gambit, the Scotch Gambit, the Muzio Gambit, &c., &c., but we have not yet the Morphy Gambit, nor is there in print more than one very commonplace problem by our modern chess king.

But the problems! Do not they require invention! If they do, it is invention of no higher character, and requiring no greater powers, than to construct certain figures with a Chinese puzzle; and a first-rate problem-composer is seldom, if ever, a first-class player. These views of the status of chess-playing receive confirmation from the fact that first-class chess-players have seldom, if ever, distinguished themselves in the higher departments of thought or invention. Mr. Buckle, the author of "Civilization in England," may be adduced as an exception; he was, fifteen years ago, among the most eminent chess-players in Europe; he suddenly gave up chess-playing, betook himself to study, and his admirable volume is the first fruits of fifteen years of intense application. 

Yet, while, he betrays an extent of reading wider than that so pompously announced by Gibbon, and while strong common sense and keen observation are abundantly manifest in his work, there is lacking the bold grasp and deep insight which we find in Hume and Sir James Mackintosh, and even in Dumas. Mr. Buckle lets us into the secret of his shortcomings, moreover, in the following sentence: "Whoever will take the pains fairly to estimate the present condition of mental philosophy must admit that, notwithstanding the influence it has always exercised over some of the most powerful minds, and through them over society at large, there is, nevertheless, no other study which has been so zealously prosecuted, so long continued, and yet remains so barren of results!" Barren of results! Shades of Locke, Malebranche, Berkeley, Dugald Stewart, Reid, Brown, Cousin, and Sir William Hamilton! Of course, Mr. Buckle is an ardent admirer of Auguste Compte, and fifteen years of purely literary labor has not raised him above the intellectual level of the chess-board.

Yet chess-playing is an amusement worthy of cultivation, especially for the young. It is better in-door entertainment than cards, or dice, or lager-bier; it has been well said that it does not lead to gambling. It has the positive merit of improving the tone of manners and of cultivating the power of attention. In looking at Morphy and Paulsen, in 1857, we were struck with the evident purity of both these young men. Neither presented the bleared eyes, shaking hands, nor nervous tremor, which a four-hours sitting would betray in nine-tenths of our young men of the city; they were plainly in perfect physical condition, and all their faculties were clear and in full honest exercise. And so must the devotees of chess keep themselves, or they will inevitably lose rank as chess-players.