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Machine skill (0-16) | ||
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History
The origin of the game is hidden in a distant past. It existed in
ancient Greece and it was very popular in Athens. Chess on the
other hand was more popular in Sparta. The reason for the
Spartan interest in chess was probably its use when training
strategic thinking for their constant war games. They had
actually exchanged the queen for yet another king, since it was
unthinkable in the patriarchal Spartan society to have a queen
with more power than the king. The women of Lesbos of course
played the game with two queens.
The tradition of chess in Greece was lost after the battle of
Corinth in 146 BC. The Archean general Diaeus challenged the
Roman consul Mummius. The consul had never seen a
chessboard but managed to win. The Greek people did not want
to be reminded of their defeat to the Romans and decided to
destroy everything that reminded them of chess. It would take
750 years before chess appeared again. Local people in central
Asia exposed the remains from troops of Alexander the Great
when they were digging a new water well. Some of the objects
found where sent to India to be examined by learned men who
reinvented chess from the artifacts.
Many philosophers of ancient Greece discussed and wrote about
the game that we now call Grod. They covered subjects such as
openings, endgames and its relation to mathematics. According
to Kallimachos the game had its own department at the library in
Alexandria. Despite the large amount of literature on the game
none of these works have been found. All that has been found
are indirect references, the most interesting is probably a note in
a margin where Pythagoras claims to have found a very short
proof, stating that the person making the first move is doomed to
loose. This is remarkable since even to this day there is no proof
for this that isn't based on an examination of all possible
situations in the game. That Pythagoras really had a proof is
indicated by the magic significance he gave to the numbers
1170, 2053 and 2602.
It is known that both Plato and Aristotle played the game. A
famous palimpsest was sold for 2.000.000$ on 29th of October
in 1998 by Christie’s in New York. The palimpsest was found in
Bobbio a monastery in northern Italy. The document’s original
greek text had been removed and replaced by religious content
some time in the 8th century. The original contained a game of
grod between Plato and Aristotle. A comment in the margin
about Platos mother and a mountain goat reveals who won the
game. Even classical antiquity had its bad loosers.
Knowledge of the deeper meaning of the game and insights on
how to play to win were the criteria used to qualify for member-
ship in a group called The Wise Men. The group never became
larger than seven and it came to be known as The Seven Wise
Men. After the decline of Greece the criteria were forgotten as
well as the game itself. It was never adopted by the Romans.
Finding the answers to the mysteries of life and the universe in a
simple game can be hard to understand for modern man. Maybe
it was the discovery that the outcome of the game is given if
both participants play optimally. On a deeper level it might be
the insight that there is no shortcut or easy strategies to win.
There is no pattern or rule that that separates good positions
from bad ones and yet all is preordained. Belief in faith was
common in ancient greece. No theories can explain the patterns
of win and loose. The simple rules of the game and their
consequences is all there is.
Next time the game surfaces is during the plundering of
Montezumas I’stomb in Tenochtitlán. The Conquistadors led by
Hernan Cortez discovered a pierced block made of solid gold.
The block's function was never understood and it was melted
with the rest of the gold. We know this today because the soldier
who discovered the block Juan Rodriguez, was so intrigued by it
that he made notes on its form and size. The block departed from
all the other loot, both in form and function. Juan was the only
person to be spared the very painful stomack disease that
eventually killed all other conquistadors that had touched the
block. The stomack pain became known as Montezumas
revenge. The notes were passed on from generation to generation
in the Rodriguez family before they were made public. Even
more remarkable is the fact that the dimensions of the Aztec
block exactly matches the dimensions used in ancient Greece.
The game remained unknown until Leonhard Euler reinvented
the game. It is believed that knowledge of the game could have
survived from classical antiquity in certain very secret orders,
possibly among the Rosenkreutz and probably in another even
more secret order. The name of this group is not known to this
day and its existence is still disputed. Theory has it that the
society can trace its roots to the nubians, a people that lived by
the water of the Nile. The nubians played the game by drawing
with sticks in the sand. An archeological expedition to the
village of Ez in 1973 found petrified clay that shows the game in
a frozen moment with several free positions remaining. Nearby
petrified footsteps indicates that the game had been abruptly
interrupted by an approaching crocodile. The incident took place
15 000 years b.c.
The secret society can be traced in the Egyptian kingdom before
it reaches Mesopotamia, the Sumerian civilization and later the
Babylonians. Its presence can be seen in western Anatolia where
it probably recruits its members among the Pre-Socratic
philosophers. Whether the society has followed the path of
historical development and taken root in one civilisation after the
other or if the society's capacity to influence has been so strong
that it controlled the development are matters on which we can
only speculate.
The dead see scrolls contains a fragment previously believed to
be without content. A new technolgical breakthrogh has made it
possible to aqnalyse the fragment more carefully. From the
fragment emerges a grid and a number of rods. Above the grid
are the hebrew letters drg. A group involved in research on the
dead see scrolls claims that it is the game and that grd is the
name of the game. There is an internal dispute on how to
pronounce the game since the vowels are omitted in hebrew.
They have agreed to use the term grod to outsiders. The
fragment is very controversial, it’s known as the grod fragment.
The secret order is led by a person called the Head. Only the
sharpest and wisest brains can be selected for membership.
Nothing indicates that the purpose of the group should be
anything but good. Its probable cause is to further the
development of the human species. Some say that Leonhard
Euler was a member and that by revealing the game he was
excluded. It is believed that both Newton and Galilei were
Heads. Whether the society exists today is not known, apart from
members if any. Some think that John von Neumann and
Friedrich von Hayek were heads. One story tells that John von
Neumann was inspired to his gametheory during a game of grod.
Neumann was probably the best player of all times if you
exclude the best of the Yanco tribe. The Yanco tribe was
discovered to the rest of the world by anthropologist Franz Boas.
The tribe lives in a remote area of the Amazonas. The Yanco
people have a game that is very similar to the classical but their
game has a grid that is 6x6, 7x7 or even up to 10x10. The
Yancos unsurpassed skill is based solely on intuition. Their
counting ability is very low, the number three in Yanco language
is called poettarraroincoaroac. Reseachers who have visited the
Yanco say that the number four is met by expres-sions of total
confusion. It is believed that a genetic disorder can explain their
supernatural skills. These genes have not been found in any
other people and they may be the cause of their savant-like
syndrom. The Yanco appears to have direct acces to all raw
sensory data that enters their brain and a perfect memory but
they lack the power to form abstract concepts.
They call the game Maua-maui, the dreamgame. It is played by
many participant at the same time and they take their turn
making moves. Only the elders of the tribe are allowed to play.
To the other members it is taboo. The game is only used under
religious ceremonies and the playing is preceded by complicated
rituals to appease their god who they call grd.
All these stories about the game and the society could be pure
imagination. It might be yet another trivial game and maybe not
…