by Stefanina Hill

Created on: August 31, 2009   Last Updated: March 27, 2012

Chess is well known as being a pastime for the intellectually dedicated as much as it is known as a social game. Playing regularly can build up your powers of concentration, focus and reasoning. With many mathematical strategies connected to the game it's easy to see how building up skill at it can improve your mind but chess is also related to the ability to be wise in life as well as in theory. The image of the chess player or the chess board itself is often used to represent wisdom. It is supposed that someone who can control a scenario despite move by move opposition must have the mental agility to apply this approach to real life. By developing an understanding of the core principles of a chess game and seeing how they relate to life you can set out on the path to nurturing wisdom and applying it to your own life.

Brain child. The story of how chess itself originated, although somewhat apocryphal, is a shining example of intellectual prowess. The most popular story about the origin of chess holds that the game was commissioned from a mathematician by an Indian king. Delighted with the game the king offered the creator anything he wanted in recognition of the work. The mathematician's request was unusual to say the least. He asked for one grain of rice to be placed on the first square of the chess board and given to him. He then wanted two grains attributed to the second square, four to the third, eight to the fourth and so on. For each of the sixty four squares on the eight by eight square chess board the grain quota would be double what had been attributed to the previous square. The king was amazed at what he considered to be a very paltry payment and bid his servants count out the rice grains. He soon discovered, however, that due to the exponential increase across sixty four squares the number of grains required was equal to many billions. The entire kingdom lacked sufficient grains to fulfill the pledge. The king was now doubly impressed with the wisdom of the mathematician and rewarded him in other ways.

Alternative stories exist about the origin of chess but whoever created the demonstration of the exponential principle on the chess board took an appreciation for mathematics and wove it into a game which represents logic and strategy in a very tangible form. Like so many things in life the chess board has a fascinating and powerful structure at its base. Before the game is even begun the scope and possibility is beyond what most people would ever

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