SavaBeljovic wrote: ↑Mon 9 September 2024 5:25 pmHe said they probably had a monetary prize, but quote, "being a chess player didn't pay much and no one could make a living off of it prior to the 1940s".
Yes, there was certainly no big money in tournament prizes in the past. Professional gamblers existed then as today, and they could not really make a living then, as today. They would be more like the guy playing the three shell scam.
The world championship title was originally about bragging rights, as noted above, and was also generally not something that you easily got to play for if you were good enough. Early champions chose which challenges they accepted and--with the notable exception of Capablanca--they liked to procrastinate and not play those who might take it.
I guess you should hope that I'm not wrong. If chess was not historically a gambling game, the canons cannot be about gambling.
It's a difficult question to make a sharp distinction. Is winning a tournament prize still gambling? Is it gambling if you do it professionally, but not if you don't? Is there some amount of entry fee or some amount of prize money above which it is gambling? Is there some number of people in the tournament above which it is a prize rather than gambling? Are those parameters the same for a poker tournament?
I would argue that medieval jousting was certainly gambling. Knights ruined their families. And yet, they still had to practice their martial craft. Obligatory "ask your priest."
It might not have been invented as a way to circumvent the Canons but rather was just because it was the popular variant at that time and place.
Of course if what I read all those years ago is wrong, then my apologies. That might also be something that happened sporadically rather than a true origin. Or it could be made up. The fact that human nature does not change, and the parallel existence of Ludus Regularis, suggest to me that there is at least some truth to the story even if it may be exaggerated.
The original version of chess was called Chaturanga and is much different than modern chess...
What we know about it is mostly speculative reconstruction. Even the Persian variety is not 100% known in the detailed interpretation of ancient rules.
The Royal Game of Ur is also somewhat ambiguous. I have it that there are two consistent ways to read the rules just by the nature of cuneiform text, before we even get to points which may be ambiguous in some cases. I don't know the differences, though. It appears to be similar to ludo and backgammon as I understand it.
Board games have an interesting history. I must counter that they probably don't go back to Sumer, however. We see them so early that I think they must have been carried over from antediluvian times. Human nature is so prone to creating them that I think if none existed, one would be invented tomorrow.
Morris is similar enough to what I have seen in the highlands that it must have travelled the world. Although of course such a thing could have spread along trade routes, it might equally well have spread out with men when they first dispersed.
