11 Jan '11 02:25>
In Shakespeare's "Hamlet", the protagonist at one point exclaims, "O God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space..." Is this not a description (however oblique) of our beloved game? Chess is bounded in a 64-square nut-shell with rigid rules governing play, and yet what an infinity of possibilities stretches out before us. Galaxies of moves and counter-moves swirl within our nut-shell. Chess is rather like the TARDIS of Doctor Who: bigger on the inside than on the outside. Chess is an Archetypal Image of the Mind of That Which Can Not Be Named. It is also other things to other people, that's what makes chess so fascinating. As you can tell, I'm more interested in the "meaning" of chess than in the "mechanics" of our Divine Game. How about you?