Only A Game

I just read The Immortal Game, David Shenk's book about the history of chess.  So many popular games have fallen by the wayside, but chess remains.  Not that it didn't change along the way, though it's been standardized for about 500 years.  Its origins are uncertain (there are a lot of mythical creation stories), but it spread through the Persian Empire and into Europe, where it was played and pondered by many great figures.

Who knew that Benjamin Franklin was one of the best players of his day in America, or Marcel Duchamp in France?  Then there's the Freudian analysis of the game--isn't it obviously about killing your father? Or how about the Nazi attempt to take over with manly offense after too many years of Jewish positional play?  Or the more well-known Russian takeover, proving the intellectual superiority of the collective?

Interspersed throughout is the actual "Immortal Game," played 160 years ago between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky.  The irony is they were just hanging out a mile away from the official grandmaster chess tournament--a tournament that didn't produce any memorable games--and decided to play one for fun.  It was during the romantic era of chess, when exciting attacks and great flourishes were admired above calm development.  When it was over, Kieseritzky, (spoiler) the loser, was so excited he telegraphed the moves to Paris and later annotated it in his chess magazine.