Chaturanga

The word looped like a sacred chant, “chat-ur-an-ga.” He poked at the word, like a sore in his mouth. Chat-ur-an-ga. The strange word. The helpless king and 18 billion bags each filled with a billion grains of rice.

By David Hopkins

Once upon a time, there was a King and he loved to play games. He excelled at games of skill and games of chance, games that tested a person’s strength and games that tested the intellect. The King was so good at games he often became restless and bored. He needed a challenge. So the King sent his messengers throughout the land to announce he would offer gold and riches to any person who could create a game offering infinite possibility and endless fascination to those who played. No one responded. Years passed, and the King fell into a fitful depression.

Until one day, a poor Mathematician wandered into the kingdom. In his many travels, the Mathematician heard of the King’s challenge: a game of infinite possibility and endless fascination. The mathematician spent months working through different ideas. None of the ideas satisfied him. Until finally, in a dream, he conceived of a game called Chaturanga. The game would be a battle between light and dark armies. Each side would be led by a King. The army would win the game by capturing the enemy King. The battlefield was an 8x8 square board. The army consisted of different pieces that would each have specific moves and talents upon the board.

The Mathematician presented Chaturanga to the King. The King loved this game so much he said, “I will offer anything you wish for.”

The Mathematician was a sly man. “Chaturanga is not a gift for you alone,” he said, “but I offer it to the world. I would only ask for one grain of rice for the first square of the board, two grains for the second, four grains for the third, and so doubled for each of the 64 squares on the board.”

“Is that all?” The king was surprised. “Why don’t you ask for gold?”

“The rice should be sufficient,” replied the Mathematician.

The King commanded his soldiers to collect the rice. He soon learned that all the riches of his kingdom could not buy the amount of rice he needed to reach the 64th square. (If a bag of rice contained a billion grains, the King would need 18 billion of such bags to pay back the Mathematician.) In fact, all the rice was gone by the 40th square.

The King spoke with the Mathematician again.

“You are a clever man,” the King said. “I cannot fulfill your request.  Would you like to be my top advisor instead?”

The Mathematician smiled. “I would like to sit on the throne and be king.”

The King was outraged. He ordered the Mathematician be thrown in prison. As the Mathematician was being lead away, he cursed the King, saying:

“You may put me in prison, but you will be the prisoner. Chaturanga is exactly what you requested, offering infinite possibility and endless fascination. This is no game; it’s a curse. Chaturanga will enslave the mind and drive its most devoted followers to insanity. You could play it, once for every grain of rice you denied me, and you would still not be free.”

The Mathematician was right. The King occupied hours and hours of each day obsessing over the board. He lost sleep. He could not think of anything else. In time, the kingdom fell into ruin.

The desperate King visited the Mathematician in his jail cell.

“Help me” was all the King could say.

The Mathematician asked once again for the throne. The King bowed his head and whispered, “Shah mat. The king is helpless, your majesty.”

 
Simon had lived in his one-bedroom apartment for thirty years. It looked out to a vine-entangled courtyard with the landlord’s house in front. The two-story building behind the house had been divided into four rental properties. Simon lived on the first floor.

Simon’s apartment was not messy. He simply did not have enough space for everything he had accumulated. The bookshelves and every available flat surfaced, including the kitchen table and coffee table, were stacked with chess books and chess magazines. He had books on chess openings, chess tactics and strategies, middle game and end game theory. He had annotated collections of famous chess tournaments. Simon owned the memoirs and biographies of great chess players. He had well over a hundred different instructional DVDs and CD-Roms.

On the walls, Simon had framed black and white photos of some of his favorite chess players: Emanuel Lasker, Frank Marshall, Garry Kasparov, Judit Polgar, and Artur Yusupov.

The only area of his apartment that was free from clutter was his desk with his laptop computer. Next to the laptop was a finely crafted chessboard and set. On his computer, Simon played chess. He played chess for most of the day.

Many years ago, he developed a database program, used in the agricultural industry for counting rice, grain, seeds and other infinitesimal goods. It allowed him to live modestly without needing to leave his apartment. No family and few friends, he reduced his world to 64 squares, alternating light and dark.

Simon had abandoned blitz chess entirely, the stringent time controls stressed and discouraged him too much after too many embarrassing losses, especially with the online taunts of his opponents. He opted for slower-paced online correspondence chess. He started studying more—especially combinations, tactics, and basic positional themes. He switched between the Colle and the London System. These two openings were disdained by some masters for being too boring or simplistic, but Simon had learned how to win games with them and that was good enough for him. He found a book on the New York 1924 tournament, with games annotated by a young Alexander Alekhine. He knew every game, all 100 matches, that historic showdown of world champions. He would play through the moves with the same loving repetition of praying the rosary or humming a familiar song.

Simon hadn’t played a tournament in years. He had been shamed over the board too many times. It’s a terrible feeling to give your best and still be utterly destroyed by a superior chess player. When he lost at home, it felt safer.

On Tuesday nights, Simon would leave the apartment. He met with Aamir Signh at the library. Aamir was a skilled player who offered to play chess. They had developed a friendship over the board.

“London again?” Aamir smirked. They moved through the opening, almost unconsciously.

“It’s what I know,” Simon placed his bishop on the f4 coordinate, a dark square, a safe but active spot on the board.

“You are good enough to learn some new openings.”

“I’m too old to learn anything new.”

“So you say.”

Simon was distracted. He looked away from the board. Aamir noticed the slight gesture.

“What is it?” Aamir asked.

“I’m thinking of playing in the state championship.” Simon had received an email reminding him of the annual Memorial Day weekend tournament. Usually, he deleted these emails. But this one, for whatever reason, caught his attention.

“It’s been a while.”

“I’m feeling more comfortable at the board, better than usual.”

“You should do it.”

Towards the end of the game, the conversation ended. The game had gotten serious and the teaching had stopped. Aamir’s pieces were less active and Simon had somehow gained more territory on the board. Aamir took a breath and grabbed his rook. It was the wrong rook. He paused, still holding the piece, then let go to grab the other rook.

“Ah—” Simon interjected.

“What?”

“What? You know what. You touched the piece. You have to move it.”

Simon was right, but Aamir became indignant.

“When did this become a tournament game?” Aamir rolled his eyes. “Is my rating at stake? Come on. Do you want to win this game because of the stupid touch move?”

“You touched the piece,” Simon held his ground.

“Fine!” Aamir moved the touched rook, frustrated. “Happy?”

Simon saw that knight to e7 created a sinister fork, attacking both rooks. Aamir in his irritation moved too quickly. Aamir saw it, and turned over his king to resign before Simon could make the move.

“Ridiculous. Good luck at the tournament.” Aamir got up to leave. Simon extended his hand to his defeated opponent. Aamir had never lost to Simon before, a few draws, but never a win. His friend paused, exhaled and shook his hand. Chess may be a brutal game. But regardless of the loss, it is the greatest insult to refuse the game-ending handshake.

“Good game,” Aamir said and collected himself. “You had the advantage towards the end. You forced my blunder. Knock ’em down at the tournament.”

The week before the tournament, Simon went the mall. He never went to the mall. He chose a weekday morning to avoid any crowd. In the men’s department store, he roamed around, completely lost. A young sales clerk approached.

“Can I help you?”

“I need clothes for four days.”

“You’re looking for four different outfits?”

“I guess.”

“Well, okay,” the clerk smiled. “What’s the occasion?”

“Chess tournament.”

The clerk didn’t have a response.

Simon added, “I want to look good when I beat my opponents.”

The state championship was hosted at a hotel near the airport. It was an hour drive from Simon’s apartment, but he decided to stay at the hotel instead of making the commute each morning and night. The tournament would start on Friday night and continue until Monday. It was seven rounds, one game the first day and two games every day after. Each game was set for thirty moves in the first ninety minutes for each side with a one hour “sudden death” after. In total, a single game could last five hours.

Simon arrived early. He entered the empty ballroom where the games would be played. He walked past rows of tables with green-checkered boards positioned in the middle. At the far end, a partition separated the amateurs from the professionals, the international masters and grandmasters who dedicated their life to this simple and frustrating game. In theory, an amateur, if he or she played well enough, could face off against some of these titans in later rounds. It rarely happened. The older players always stay at their level with only the illusion of progress. The books and tutorials promise improvement, tease at greatness, but if Simon wanted to be great, he needed to get started when we was much younger when the pattern recognition part of his brain was still open to imprinting. Chess was a language he had learned too late.

For the first round, Simon was paired against a young boy ranked about 400 points higher than Simon’s own rating. In official chess competitions, players are rated on a scale based on their previous tournament wins and loses. The higher the number, the better the player. Simon hadn’t played a tournament in a while, but the United States Chess Federation maintains these records, a vast database containing thousands of serious players. Someone rated 400 points higher should easily beat his or her opponent. The first round is like this. The system quickly sorts the players for the next round, winners play winners, losers play losers.

Simon and the young boy sat at their table, waiting for the round to begin. The boy looked bored, his head resting on his hands staring off, lost in unknown territories. The tournament director stood at the mic, gave some announcements on which door to exit after the round, and then gave permission to begin. Simon shook the boy’s hand. The boy offered the most limp apathetic handshake. Simon wanted to destroy him.

And he did. Simon was ahead on material. He had a crushing position, and a passed pawn wrecking havoc on the board. The boy appeared as a more deflated version of his previous incarnation, if it were possible. His rating would drop. Parents would want to know what went wrong. His coach would point out every single fault in the careless game. The boy did not resign. But within two hours, Simon checkmated him with an army of against lowly resistance.

The next day, for round two, Simon played a woman just a bit younger than him. She had competed in tournaments for years and developed a casual acceptance of where she stood amidst the competition. She was polite, friendly, and when the round started, utterly focused. Three hours into the game, Simon saw an opportunity to take her queen by pinning it to her king with his bishop. He knew she would resign as a courtesy, and she did.

Afterward, Simon and his opponent went into another room for a post mortem. They went over the game, talking through the moves, and seeing if other opportunities were possible. “You’re much stronger than your rating,” she commented. “If you keep playing this way, you’re going to have a good weekend.”

And then he won his third round.

He went into his hotel room and laid down on the bed. Three wins in three rounds. He was one of a handful of players with a perfect score. Would people accuse him of sand bagging? Chess players are, by nature, cautious and paranoid. Among the amateurs, there is no sin greater than sand bagging. It’s a devious maneuver where strong players sabotage their rating in smaller tournaments, so they can win prize money by competing in a lower division at the larger tournaments. Sand bagging doesn’t make a lot of sense. A player would have to pay to enter those small tournaments, and wins at the large tournaments aren’t a guarantee. Not to mention, the prize money, at best a few hundred dollars, would hardly justify the time and effort. And who would want to go through the shame of losing all those matches?

Yes, Simon was stronger than his rating, but he wasn’t trying to trick anyone. He hadn’t played in a tournament in years, and during that time, he had practiced a lot. He earned every win. With this thought lodged in his brain, he fell asleep.

In the morning, Simon woke up. With the heavy curtain drawn, the room was darker than his apartment, but he could see daylight outlining the curtain’s edges. He looked at the alarm clock. He had overslept. The fourth round was in ten minutes. He put on his shoes. There would be no time to change into a new outfit. Simon was still wearing his clothes from yesterday when he feel asleep pondering his good fortune. He brushed his teeth, a benevolent act for the opponent who would be seated across from him. Simon left his room.

Simon hurried to the front of the convention hall where the table numbers were listed. The hallway was empty, which told him everyone was already at his or her table. Simon entered the room. Fortunately, the round had not started. Simon found his table. He would be playing as white. He looked across to his opponent, International Master Alejandro Blanco.

Blanco was not only higher rated. He was astronomically better. An average player could play hundreds of games against an International Master and never win once. There must be a mistake. Simon checked the table number. “You’re in the right place,” Blanco muttered.

The round began. Simon played the London. Blanco did not raise his eyebrows at the opening selection. He only proceeded to play the strongest response to the opening. Blanco made natural, comfortable moves, while Simon agonized over the position after every response. Then it happened, at the 20th move, Simon found a clever combination that by sacrificing his bishop and then taking an available pawn with his knight—he could fork two rooks. White would be up material with only a slightly weaker pawn structure. At this moment, Blanco leaned forward, resting his chin upon his hands. He sat there, calculating his next move, burning time off the clock. Blanco sat there so long that all the fast moves of his opening were nullified. Simon now had more time remaining. Eventually, Blanco held his hand over his pawn, uncertain. He slowly reached down and grabbed for the bishop. He saw the combination, but was allowing Simon to pursue his course.

More bystanders walked past their table. As other games in the hall finished, they garnered a large crowd to watch their game. The younger kids had no sense of personal space and moved closer on the players. A tournament director stepped in to create an artificial perimeter for Simon and Blanco. The director glared at any player who even looked like he would whisper to his neighbor.

The game moved into the fourth hour. By this point, the position and material advantages had most equalized into a painfully balanced rook-pawn end game. Simon began to wear down. Like a boxer in the ring, each move felt like a jab or an uppercut. Sweat pooled at his armpits. He no longer looked like the confident amateur wearing new clothes from the department store. Over the course of this game, he became the awkward disheveled mess again. The disguise was gone. Simon would drink water, and adjust his position in his chair. He would roll his shoulders, then rock his head from side to side—anything to remind himself of his space and place in the room. But by the fourth hour, he was delirious. He started having delusions of an imprisoned mathematician in a magical land, a sad obsessed king, and the word “Chaturanga.” The word looped like a sacred chant, “chat-ur-an-ga.” He poked at the word, like a sore in his mouth. Chat-ur-an-ga. The strange word. The helpless king and 18 billion bags each filled with a billion grains of rice.

Simon pushed ahead, played the game—moving more with instinct than anything else. The pattern of this game looked familiar, and he put the pieces where they belonged.

Blanco and Simon were the last game left in the hall. A large crowd encircled them. The increase in bodies raised the temperature a few degrees. At this point, the end game appeared to be a draw. Among masters, the result would have been agreed upon. They would shake hands, and move on to the next round. After pushing a pawn, Simon offered his hand and said, “draw.” He tried to sound confident in his offer, but the word “draw” came out more like “please?” Blanco looked at the board and silently shook his head. No draw would be accepted. A few in the crowed groaned. The tournament director shushed them.

They played on.

Each side only had a few minutes left. Simon reached for a pawn. He touched it. No, it was the wrong move. He let go of the pawn. The crowd sighed, which alerted Simon to the fact that, yes, he had touched the pawn. Simon looked at the board. He could’ve forced the draw—not from the consent of Blanco, but by reducing the material so that only the two kings remained. It was possible, but not now. He touched the wrong piece. Moving that pawn would enable Blanco an extra tempo to “queen” his pawn first. Simon would take it with his rook, but then Blanco would take back, and Simon would be down a rook. An easy win for any novice. Simon could play the clock. See if he could force a draw on the hope that Blanco would run out of time. But that was cheap way to get a half point. Simon wouldn’t do it.

Simon laid down his king, indicated his resignation. Blanco nodded his head, and they shook hands. The crowd applauded—not for Blanco, but for Simon. Chess is a game that respects courage and a noble defeat. It was an amazing game from beginning to end, one to analyze and marvel at for some time. Blanco stood up from his chair and applauded Simon.

The rest of the tournament was terrible. Simon was so wiped from his brawl with International Master Alejandro Blanco that he couldn’t recover his prior glory. He was deflated. He lost the next two rounds, but tied on the last game. His score wasn’t high enough to receive any award, but his rating did improve. And the game itself was published in a chess magazine, which was honor enough.

Years after this tournament, Simon would still remember this game as one of his greatest accomplishments. He could’ve been frustrated—so close to a draw—but he found peace in this game, a game that was the ruin of great minds, that served as a metaphor for conflict and struggle.

Simon was happy with the rice. He didn’t need gold.