If Chess Pieces Choose Their Own Moves

On Sunday afternoons in this small town the men play chess on a large cotton sheet, painted in a chequer pattern and weighted down on the one main street that cuts through the houses. They always get a large animated and critical crowd. The men stand in place on this 'board' each clasping a staff identifying his chess piece, the tussles for which are inevitable for no-one seems to seek to be a pawn. This disinclination by the way, I think is regrettable for it is a missed opportunity for a wealthy man to rib his power, as it is also for the poor but interesting man to rib his. A vehicle passing through will sometimes come up against the crowd that blocks the street and the 'board' is temporarily cleared to let him cross, accompanied of course by good-natured but excessively low bowing.

The men on the board remain informal; they pass the time of day with one another, and their children sometimes hop onto the squares and skid across to ask some permission or other of them; at other times a chess-piece may get fed up and wander off home to the catcalls of the bystanders, one of whom must quickly refresh himself with the current state of play and take his place.

In keeping with this informality, it is they - the chess-pieces - who move themselves, and not some off-board general-in-command who decides the play. Of course this has an effect on the planning within the games. It is open to any piece (that is able to) to choose to move at any one moment as long as it is his colour's turn. And some of these pieces are impetuous men, and often do bolt into a new position thus spoiling an infant plan or agreement of moves which some of his colleagues may have sensed amongst themselves. So in addition to the blocks of the opposition, plans are thwarted sometimes unknowingly by players of one's own colour with less insight, but sometimes knowingly by others who have an alternative plan.

Chess is frequently thought of as a form of war game. Few of the players in this small town have been to war, but if ever they do, this game must more closely resemble what they would make of their war, for all ranks of soldier are generals in mind. All these townsfolk have an idea of what ought to be done.