The Extraordinary Origins of Chess: Irving Finkel & Sushma Jansari, The Portico Library, 2021 

I am surprised Finkel does not have 5x the amount of shared content online. The world needs way more Finkel.

I hope someone is filming Dr Finkel every day. What a treasure he is to the human race!

Irving Finkel never ceases to amaze, fascinate, educate and entertain me. What a scholar. It is very unusual to have someone who is so well read in so many different fields - and so passionate about all of them. He should really have a regular show, kind of as the (ancient) history teacher of the world.

I lived in Korea back in the 1970s where I learned to play janggi, the Korean descendent of Chaturanga, the Indian ancestor of chess. I liked the way guys would play it in the street, squatting down with the game between them, the board made from any old piece of plywood with lines drawn on it and the playing pieces were made from disks cut out of an old broom handle. And they never played it slowly, contemplating every move. They played like maniacs

“When the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”-Cortana

Elephants, chariots, horses, you say. I played chess against an Indian opponent a couple of summers ago on a giant chess set, and he called the rooks cannons, which I thought was fantastic, because they do fire in a straight line until they hit something. I think he did call the Knights elephants, and I don't remember what he called the bishops.

I wonder if the black/white pieces became popular because of a manufacturing factor. Did piano manufacturing companies start a sideline turning ebony and ivory?

He's a gem he really is

We always learn loads when Irving gives a talk. He's an absolute goldmine.

Fun fact, in spanish the elephant is still called the "Alfil" :D

When Anand was champion, there was a huge upswing in people stopping to play cricket and play chess for five minutes instead. Very accurate indeed

The ebony and ivory material change causing sets to become black and white makes sense. Possibly because those were also the materials used for pianos and so maybe were available for carving.

9:25 couldn't resist, and calculated a rough estimation on that: rice grain: ~ 2mm x 5 mm. British Islands: ~ 250k km sq foot = 0.3048 m br. islands area * 7 feet / rice grain vol. : ~ 27 * 10^9 grains of rice the number of rice grains mentioned is (2^65) - 1 ~ 3.7 * 10 ^ 19 which is over a billion times more... You welcome.

Irving Finkel

I wonder if queens were given such movement because women traveled from one kingdom to another in order to become queen. She brought new alliances and culture to the court while having influence. Kings were limited in scope to their own realm. Of course, Finkel's explanation of the moves being simply game related is most likely the reason.

There is a wonderful collection of chess pieces at Maryhill Museum of Art in the Columbia Gorge, Washington State, USA

YAY! Irving Finkel! Never can get enough of him.

I have been married to a wonderful lady for 36 years now. It very nearly never happened because we once, foolishly, played a game of Monopoly.

The visage of Irving Finkle revs up my desire to learn yet humbles my present knowledge of whatever subject he speaks. Listen and learn. And laugh!

How wonderful. Finally someone talks about the history of chess and it’s many permutations. And that someone is Dr Finkel. Thank you so much.

Do enjoy your talks Irving, you sure squired a massive amount of information, love the story telling not many people have gift to make things enjoyable at the same time learning..

Good evening. Last question... "What would I like to change?" I would like when the pawn reaches the opponents side that your opponent promotes you. Scripture says let others promote you in the gate.... let others speak of you not you yourself. Well done 👏

The tale of innumerable grains on a chess board is familiar to virtually everyone in Russia. Chess used to be big here, and our math teachers and pop-science writers used this story to illustrate very large numbers. (by the way, chess are called shahmaty in Russian, from the Persian "Shah Mat", the King's dead, as mentioned here.)

When I was a boy (I am a few years older than Dr. Finkel) I could never win, or even compete with, my elder brother at chess--so I gave it up as a lost cause. There was a time when I had someone with whom to play Go--the East Asian board game--and that was very interesting, but after several years we went our different ways.

Alternate versions of chess in my youth were 1. Quick Take (winner is the player who gives away all their pieces), 2. Rifles (taking a piece does not involve moving the taking piece), and 3. Double chess (two moves each -first cannot be a check-).

Dr Finkle is the best!

This was a delight. Thank you.

This is beautiful - thank you so much to you both. The photograph of the early Persian Chess pieces possibly from Nishapur, Iran ought to remind people of the world famous multi-million selling poem - the Mystical Masterpiece... the Ruba'iya't of Omar Khayya'm as translated by Edward FitzGerald of Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK. Do see the Omar Khayyam Theatre Company - wide screen.

This is a treat! Thank you. And also, extremely fun to hear a shout-out for Agadmator. For anyone interested in chess (presumably anyone watching this already knows this, but still), he's a great source of fun analysis of historical and modern games.

the fact that irving has watched agadmator blows my socks off

What I love about the chess set from Neishapur, Iran, is that it leaves more to the imagination. I like the abstract pieces.

I would agree with Mr. Finkel is correct that knight can jump. I would also imagine that the speed and ability with which Calvary can out flank it’s enemies would explain the change in direction of the piece.

wonderful

Please do a similar Irving Finkel presentation on the 'Extraordinary Origins of Backgammon' including the much lesser known history in China where it was called 'Shuanglu Qi' which translates to 'Double Land' or in another interpretation as 'Double Sixes' which theoretically would be Shuang Liu'. From what I've discovered from the scant English language materials on the subject in China, it was very popular in China for 1,500-2,000 years, but has now become completely forgotten in present-day Chinese culture. Chinese Chess, Mah Jiang, and Go being the most popular games in China these days. I'd just love to re-introduce the wonderful game of Shuanglu Qi (Backgammon, Nard, Shesh Besh,Tabula, Takhteh, Tavli, Tavla, Ban-Sugoroku, Ssang-ryuk etc.) to modern Chinese culture.

This was fun. Thanks for all of the history, insights and good humour.

there is something very beautiful about that 12 century chess(?) set. you can almost see the love/passion it's creator had for the game, whatever game it may have been.

This is fantastic, I've been looking for a video just like this for months. THANK YOU. Excellent interview, excellent questions, excellent answers, excellent illustrations. Many thanks.

Fantastic interview!

Irving Finkel is such a source of knowledge and understanding.

Irving ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dr. Finkel's presentations are always fascinating and entertaining.

Damn, i like this guy. Dude has awesome charisma. I really enjoyed this. Thank you

Wonderful, And Fun! Thank you.

"What change would you make?" Un-Castling, which would allow you to reverse a castling move back to their original positions.

Wow, great job, can't believe how fun this conversation was., fascinating...

6:00 ... too bloody for a boardgame! Edgar Rice Burroughs for his book The Chessmen of Mars adapted chess into the game of Jetan which is described as being very popular (in fact Martian soldiers carry with them small versions of the game to while away the hours between conflicts). The "Chessmen" had an arena sized board with actual people as pieces. When a "piece" moved into an opponent's square they would fight to the death for to determine who would occupy the square.

Wonderful discussion Thank you

its so nice ot see a master time traveling wizard pretend to be a british intelectual, all the cleaver little ways he gaslights us away from understanding his secret like 'we dont have a lot ov archelogical research but ~i~ think...' i see through you, your secret is safe with me but take me with you when you go back please... i have nothing else to learn here.

In case you're interested, if you were to double the number of grains of rice on each successive square of a chessboard, starting with 1 grain on the first square, (according to the anecdote by the wonderful Mr Finkel at around 9:02), by the time you get to the 64th square you would be the proud owner of 9,223,372,036,854,780,000 grains of rice...

The Harry Potter story made me recall that wonderful scene in the Thomas Crown affair, where the lead actress exotically caresses the smooth dome head of her bishop, whilst emphasising her ploy with her foot under the table.

I once saw a photo in a book of a set of chess pieces made of bread by a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp, so that he could play chess with another prisoner.

I’ve always felt that the player is actually the king piece, he had to survive, would never be on the battlefield in actual battle, it’s his mind that was used.

Simply amazing

Chess for me, is the temporary psychological domination of one over another. The advantage being that the domination being only temporary. The representation of the pieces for best effect, need to be recognised not from looking but from scanning. The difference between listening and hearing if you like.

If you want to see passion in a board game, watch a bunch of Royal Navy Sailors playing Uckers (a grown up form of Ludo). Careers have depended (or ended) on the outcome!

Vietnamese chess, a real thing, is very interesting. I bought a Vietnamese chess set at a Vietnamese market in Dallas in the early 1980's and played Vietnamese chess with my Vietnamese immigrant colleagues.

Study of games is an important anthropology. I believe the limited move of the king piece reflects the actual limits of a ruler in a court society. Limited by creed and law, by politics, by the need to try to cover all bases and keep all the powerful nobles on side, a monarch is nearly always handicapped and rarely absolute (some French monarchs excepted). Rank may have privileges but is also has shackles.

Concerning, the origin of the Knight move, one theory that I have read is that a very early version of the game had a 5x5 board. Place a Rook and a Bishopv(which in early forms of chess only moved in a checker-like diagonal hopping move), and these two pieces cover all the squares of the 5x5 board Except for the oblique 8 oblique squares. The knight move was (in this theory) invented to cover these 8 squares and no others.

There's a 15th century painting of death playing chess against a man in Täby church in Sweden. Apparently the inspiration for the similar scene in Bergman's "The seventh seal".

I love that people developed themselves while essential personnel just worked around the clock, I feel no different than prior to covd19, actually I do feel a bit more poor. 😭😭

It is very funny that it started with a chess items from Persia and tried to tell stories about invention in India ( without any evidence) and make stories about playing chess in England. Don't you think the main part of it which is Persian chess is missing?😅😅

Gandalf the Grey. ? He certainly is an elderly wizard .

In Xiangqi we have two pieces that move, attack like the rook and it is called the chariot piece.

💘💘💘. 💞. 😃 Today will Now Be Brilliant. Thank You. 😃 Been playing since I was 2. 👉 Isince ( 1973 )

we have a Korean set -- game has 2 Queens, and different movies, an King is limeted to a 9x9 area...

Donkeys for knights. This was reality. Rollo Ganger, who founded the Norman nation, was known as the ganger because his feet touched the ground on his horse. Shetland and Norse horses were quite small. R

About the red vs black pieces: In Alice in Wonderland (or behind the mirrrors?) there is the Red Queen; could it be that Lewis Caroll took his inspiration from the Lewis chess set?

I don't think that chess started as an instructional tool for battle. That's because in chess, both sides are equal, you start in the same place, you take turns and the goal the capture of the king. And that's nothing LIKE a battle. I think it wa a way for soldiers to relax. A way to play at battle in a very low-stakes manner. Also, if you think of a knight as an L-shape move, of course it makes no sense. But if you look at it another way, it's one step orthoginally and one step diagianlly. That's equivalent to the L-shape, but crucially, it's a mix of bishop and rook and the knight starts right between them. This is a great video I hope my rambling doesn't suggest that I think otherwise.

Any relation to Ray? THE LACES WERE IN!!

26:00 Irving Finkel's roundabout way of saying "Damn Anya Taylor-Joy is so hot" lol

Love Finkel.

Your soul is basically unstoppable

"The Queen's Gambit is absolutely brilliant!" you might want to mind the fact that it's the story of a kid addicted to sleeping pills, who throws her life out the window to pursue a first prize in competitive chess tournaments. it's not a story of self-improvement or hope.... it's a story of addiction and self-destruction that just happens to end on a high note by being placed in an environment of disproportionately high rewards to the already high risk. you take that story and use it as a guiding example to drive the life of a person, and chances are, they gonna end up dead. just because Beth succeeded doing that, doesn't mean anyone else will, at the same thing, or in the same way.

Horse move is a cavalry flank

Is it true that everything came from India? Fun having friends from Iran and India and one of them discovers Aesop's Fables or Plato on your bookshelf. Listen to the argument - "This was stolen from Persia" "And where did Persia get it? From India!" OMG on and on hahaha. Plumbing, agriculture, domesticated dogs hahaha.

26:00 The King is the most important piece. A king acts through his agents; he does not do everything in his realm or on his battlefied personally - what point then of an army? I don't agree with Dr Finkle's description of the tired shy king here. Even on the battlefield the king has of course an honour guard with him. The queen's upgrade however has many more influences that I would assume some polite chap like Dr Finkle wouldn't dare say directly to a woman, especially such a friendly one. The new rule or version was also known as the "Mad Queen's Chess" which is the version we mainly play today. The "mad queen" is a hysterical woman, or in a friendlier interpretation projecting the reach of her own games of intrigue. The meanest interpretation would be that in order to get the women interested in the game, one would appeal to their narcissism and make the piece representing them some all powerful Mary Sue who could do everything compared to everyone else. A cruel power fantasy so to say. Something we see in today's badly written media quite a lot, and hopefully dying down soon again. - The mentioned TV show "The Queen's Gambit" is similarly such a power fantasy appealing to just that, for there is no historical precedent for what happens in the show. It is a mere fantasy of a "strong women" outdoing all the men in what they're great at. Narcissism is of course not a solely female thing, but this is an expression of it. As Dr Finkle said himself, I would have enjoyed more women to play with as well, but alas barely any are interested in such games. Be it chess, shogi, go or the like. More colourful and less abstract boardgames, like Archipelago, or with even more social aspects in the game's narrative changes that a bit.

White pieces were ivory; green pieces probably originated as jade.

ah yes, queens gambit.👌 an excellent story about a young alien that gets adopted by jimmy page

I believe the less figurative chess pieces where designed by the owner to confuse his opponent !

couldn't it be that bishops were totally unexceptable in protestant Germany and the Netherlands and consequently were replaced by 'Läufer' and 'lopers'? Cheers, Willem (Belgium)

it was more than a game he sold

What happens to the game if you make a 3 - person chess board? What new strategies and theories emerge?

The rook is the archer who shoots straight, the Bishop is shifty and goes diagonaly. The Knight to jump diagonaly to break the sheild-wall

Hilarious to find out that a national scholar watches chess RU-vid videos lol

Wait wait.. you can't just randomly say that you need bananas if you are to have a Giraffe piece and not comment further!!

25:36 Irving you dirty dawg :)

I would stop the Queen being able to move so many squares, and knights would be able to take pieces they jump over. There are variants of chess, like CrazyHouse, where you convert and place pieces you've taken.

Exploding chess!

03:04

If you look at the picture closely in the Queens Gambit, some of the pieces are replaced with little liqueur sample bottles, guess if captured you get to drink it down.. more staggering moves ahead in the game of chess.

That comment about changing chess to have a "speedy" version was stunningly ignorant. There already is such chess, called blitz, and it is very popular among chess players, with tournaments and ratings.

I have witnessed several fist fights over chess games before. Not sure why, but it's a very egotistical game among men.

Elaborate pieces have little relevance to the game, which is about visualizing abstract possibilties.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Red Queen, White Knight. For shame...

I agree that Dr. Irving Finkel is an amazing (and amusing) source of knowledge, but I have to take issue with his statement that his white and red chess set was new in modern times and that no one has seen white and red pieces before: in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”, Alice is definitely encountering the Red Queen and King, and the rest of the red pieces.

Carcassonne is not a game of Indian origin.

Ah. Irving the White. A pleasure again.

To get the age the chess pieces that has only three pieces. The age of firearms first appeared in China about 14 10 which the great Mr finkle would have known

I have to say Dr. Finkel, chess did not go from Persia to Europe and thence to the rest of the world. It travelled from both Persia and India into Thailand and Burma probably via Islamic merchants, thence to China, Korea and eventually Japan, mutating along the way. 'European' chess did not arrive in the Far East until the mid 1650's at the earliest and those cultures all had their own native variations tracable back to Shatranj, if not directly from Chataranga itself. I would be pleased to discuss this at your pleasure.

The Queen's Gambit was based on a novel. It is indeed a very good read, but what a shame people watch a television version of it. Chess is indeed the best game ever invented, and it will never be exhausted.