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HISTORICAL CHESS
Chesstories
DON'T
BET THE WIFE! THE DILARAM SOLUTION
by Jan Newton
I
couldn't resist putting in the photo of the dancing girls.
They look like they're having such fun!
There
are several different versions of the famous "Dilaram Problem"
on the Internet. Fascinated by the differences in the accounts and by
the romantic legend itself, Goddesschess sent its crack team of researchers
on the hunt to root out the truth...
For
information, we consulted Hooper and Whyld's The Oxford Companion to
Chess(1) and Murray's A History of Chess(2).
The
Dilaram Solution involves an end-game and, in the words of Murray at 266
"[T]he end-game is certainly the principal feature in all the early
literature of chess, both in Muslim lands and in Europe. ... These end-game
positions are called in Arabic 'mansuba,' pl. 'mansubat' or 'manasib,'
this word being the passive participle of the verb 'nasaba,' 'to erect,'
'set up,' 'appoint,' or 'arrange,' and meaning accordingly 'that which
has been erected, set up, or arranged,' an 'arrangement,' 'position,'
or 'situation' - in modern chess language, a 'problem.'"
Oxford
Companion states at 109:
"Dilaram's
mate, Firdewsi at-Tahihal (b. 1453), a Turkish poet who took 40-50 years
to write the world's longest poem (allegedly 890,000 verses containing
all contemporary knowledge of history, philosophy, medicine, geometry,
etc.), completed a chess book in 1503 and decided to use in a story a
famous 10th-century problem attributed to as-SULI. As it happens
he copied the position incorrectly, adding an irrelevant black FERS on
c3 and, more disastrously, moving the white knight to g5 and the rook
on h4 to h5. A prince had wagered and lost his fortune to another
prince during an intense chess session and in desperation offered as stake
his favourite wife, Dilaram (meaning heart's ease). When he seemed
lost she called out 'O Shah, sacrifice both rooks and save Dilaram; advance
your fil and pawn and checkmate with your horse.'"
The
piece shown as a bishop is a FIL (A).
1. Rh8+ Kxh8
2. Af5+ Kg8
3. Rh8+ Kxh8
4. g7+ Kg8
5. Nh6 mate.
"The
story has been told, sung, and embellished down the centuries. The
problem, too, has had enduring popularity; more than 200 settings of it
are known. A position using modern chessmen was given in a Persian
manuscript dated 1796-8. This is a version of it:"
Mate
in 5.
1. Rh8+
2. Ng4+
3. Rh8+
4. g7+
5. Nh6".
Murray
mentions Dilaram several times. On page 280, in a discussion
of mansubat contained in various manuscripts and references: "I
have made my third group of five works of the 15th-17th centuries, RAS
(in a 15th c. MS.), F (written 1501), R (written c. 1575), S (written
1571), and Y (in a MS. of 1612). It is in these MSS. that we meet
with the first signs of the fanciful ascriptions and problem-legends,
of which the Dilaram story (see the solution to No. 83, below) is the
best-known example."(3)
Here
is No. 83 from Murray, and his commentary (pages 286, 311-12):
"1.
Rh8+;
2. Bf5+d, Rh2;
3. RxR+;
4. Rh8+;
5. Pg7+;
6. Kth6 m.
From as-Suli, H.
The
problem appears without any story in AH, C, H, AE and Man.(1) In
S it is called mansuba al-jariya (the maiden's problem). In F
it is called the problem of Dilaram chengi, and the following story is
told, as from al-Lajlaj*. (*No importance can be attached to this use
of al-Lajlaj's name, for he plays an entirely mythical part in this work).
Dilaram was the favourite wife of a certain nobleman, who had given her
this name because his heart knew no peace without her, the name Dilaram
meaning 'heart's ease.' Once he was playing chess with a very strong player,
and finally staked Dilaram on the game. The game went badly for him, and
he found himself in such a position that his opponent appeared to have
a certain mate on the next move. At this moment Dilaram cried out in distress
'Sacrifice your two Rooks, and not me.' Her lover saw the line of
play that she meant, and won the game. With ever-increasing
embellishment this story is given in all the later MSS., and reaches its
most ornate form in Durgaprasada's Urdu work. Here the hero of the game
is the Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan, and his four wives all advise him, but
Dilaram alone sees how to save the game. This problem was one of
the most popular of all the Muslim problems. It occurs in Ber. in
its old-chess form, among problems with the modern moves**.
(**A
modernized version is Oxf. 152, mansuba Dilaram. Red, Kb8, Qh1,
Rg8, Kte8, Pd6, e5, f4, g5; Bl., Kf1, Ra1 and a4, Ktb4, Ba2 and g1, Pb6,
c6, d5, e4, f3, g4. Black mates in V with Kt. 1. Ra8+; 2.
Bc1 (or it may be Bc4, the print is unclear in the book)+; 3. Ra8+; 4.
Pb7+; 5. Kta6 m.) In Europe it was the origin of nearly 200 wager-positions
in the Middle Ages."
And
they lived happily ever-after... Well, er, who knows? If I
had been in Dilaram's shoes, I won't tell you what I would have done to
the hapless husband. If so-and-so loved Dilaram, his "heart's
ease," so very much, why did he wager her in a chess game (particularly
when he had lost everything else to this same player - obviously an early
Arabian version of the Mighty Kasparov)? What does this say about
the intelligence - and integrity - of the guy? If tales like this
were circulating around the chess-playing world, no wonder some of the
leaders of the day (secular and religious) wanted the game banned!
Dilaram would have been better served breaking the chessboard over her
lord and master's head. Of course, if the game was being played
on an embroidered cloth board (often used at the time), it wouldn't have
hurt. Too bad. It sounds to me like Mr. Dilaram needed some
sense knocked into him.
An
interesting part of this story is Dilaram's active kibitzing. Today,
at least in "western" chess, calling out moves to a player would
be an obvious cheat. The question is - was this merely a literary
device of the story teller to add drama and give the reader a hint in
the right direction toward solving the mansuba - or was it customary at
the time for kibitzers to audibly suggest moves to the players?
Do
you think I can find anything on this subject, either on the internet
or in my library? Of course not! I must be looking in all
the wrong places (nothing new there), because I have not found a thing
about "audience participation" in chess games in the old days,
or even in the new days. I've tried various internet searches and
checked the indexes of the books in my library, but - nada.
I did, though, find a few extremely interesting accounts involving the
wagering a wife in games chance.
Here's
an account from Murray at 373-374:
| (2)
The BCM., April, 1904, translates (via the Schachrubrik der
Bohemia) a letter in the St. Petersburger Zeitung,
in which Herr Kupffer says:
Herr Peredolsky,
conservator of the University of St. Petersburg, informs me
that...he was sent in the year 1895 on a special mission to
Northern Siberia, and that he devoted many months to ethnological
investigations among the Tungusians and the Yakoots... .
He found that all the tribes (the Samoyedes, the Tungusians,
the Yakoots, &c.) are enthusiastic 'board-game' players.
The game of draughts is played with the greatest frequency;
the game of chess with the greatest enthusiasm. ...
A game lasts for hours; often it is not finished till the second
day. Hard by sits a crowd of spectators, who stare in
silence at the board. When, however, a move is made, if
it be unexpected, pretty, or brilliant, and more particularly
if it be the sacrifice of a piece, the spectators jump up, shout
out loudly, exhibit signs of delight, or dance, or even weep
through excitement. ... The finishing of a game
is quite a scene of festivity. Excitement often causes
the players to raise their stakes, until the loss of the game
involves the absolute ruin of the loser. A game, to begin
with, is for the reindeers; then for the dogs; for clothes;
for a man's whole belongings; and, in the end, even the women
are gambled away.
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Here are
two accounts from The Tlingit Indians(4) at 422:
| [Von
Kotzebue (1830, 2:61-62), writing about the Sitkans in 1825, reported:
That no vice may
be wanting to complete their characters, the Kalushes are great
gamblers. ... They lose at this game ["little
sticks"] all their possessions, and even their wives and
children, who then become the property of the winner."
[Lutke (1835, 1:205-20,
free translation) corroborated these observations of gambling
at Sikta in 1826-29:
Many are passionately
fond of the game of little sticks...they lose in this sometimes
all their clothing, their furs, their guns, their slaves, and
there are even instances in which they have lost their wives.
...]
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And, if
this is a true story rather than a modern urban-legend, good for the wife:
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Wednesday,
January 31, 2007
A
Russian man lost his wife in a game of cards after putting her
up as a stake instead of cash.
Andrei
Karpov from Murmansk had run out of money in a game of poker
and offered his opponent his wife instead of cash to stay in
the game.
When
he lost the game and his opponent Sergey Brodov turned up to
claim his winnings his wife Tatiana was so angry she decided
to divorce her husband and started a relationship with Brodov.
She
has since married Brodov, and said she does not regret leaving
her first husband.
She
said: 'It was humiliating and I was utterly ashamed. But as
soon as my ex-husband did that I knew I had to leave him.
'Sergey
was a very handsome, charming man and I am very happy with him,
even if he did "win" me in a poker game.'
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Notes:
(1)
David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (Second
Edition), Oxford University Press, Oxford, NY, 1992, ISBN 0-19-866164-9.
(2)
H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess, (Reprint of the classic Oxford
Edition), Benjamin Press, Northampton, Massachusetts, ISBN 0-936317-01-9.
(3)
The abbreviations AH, C, H, AE, and Man, as well as S and F, refer to
various articles, books and manuscripts to which Murray cites. However,
I was unable to locate an index or appendix containing an alphabetical
listing of his references and their abbreviations, so I cannot tell you
to what sources Murray is citing when he uses these letter-abbreviations.
(4)
George Thornton Emmons, The Tlingit Indians, University of
Washington Press, 1955; Douglas & McIntyre, University of Washington
Press, 1991, edited by Frederica de Laguna, ISBN 0-295-97008-1.
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