Joseph Bertin
Captain Joseph Bertin (1690s – c. 1736) was one of the first authors to write about the game of chess.[1] David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld in The Oxford Companion to Chess call his book The Noble Game of Chess "the first worthwhile chess book in the English language".[2] B. Goulding Brown, writing in the December 1932 British Chess Magazine, called it the first original English chess book.[3]
| Joseph Bertin | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Joseph Bertin |
| Country |  France England |
| Born | 1690s |
| Died | c. 1736 |
Bertin was a Huguenot born at Castelmoron-sur-Lot in the 1690s. He came to England during his youth, became a naturalized citizen in 1713, and married in 1719. In 1726, he joined a line regiment serving in the West Indies. He was later promoted to the rank of Captain, and ultimately was released from the Army as an invalid.[2] In 1735 he published a small volume entitled The Noble Game of Chess.[2][3] In the same year, he was recommissioned in a Regiment of Invalids and, according to Hooper and Whyld, "In all probability he died soon afterwards."[2]
The Noble Game of Chess was sold only at Slaughter's Coffee House.[2][3][4] It contained opening analysis and useful advice about the middlegame, and laid down 19 rules for chess play. Most of them are still useful today. Some examples:
- "2. Never play your Queen, till your game is tolerably well opened, that you may not lose any moves; and a game well opened gives a good situation."
- "3. You must not give useless checks, for the same reason."
- "8. Consider well before you play, what harm your adversary is able to do to you, that you may oppose his designs."
- "18. To play well the latter end of a game, you must calculate who has the move, on which the game always depends." (This is a reference to zugzwang.)[5]
Bertin attached great value to maintaining White's first-move advantage.[6] The book also contained 26 games, with each variation analyzed being treated as a separate game.[7] They were divided into "gambets" and "the close-game".[6]
Problem
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
| 8 |              | 8 | |||||||
| 7 | 7 | ||||||||
| 6 | 6 | ||||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||||
| 4 | 4 | ||||||||
| 3 | 3 | ||||||||
| 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
| 8 | | 8 | |||||||
| 7 | 7 | ||||||||
| 6 | 6 | ||||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||||
| 4 | 4 | ||||||||
| 3 | 3 | ||||||||
| 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
At left is a chess problem from page 54 of Bertin's book. White wins with 1.Qd7+! Kxd7 2.Nbc5+ Kd8 3.Ne6+ Kd7 4.Nac5+ dxc5 5.Nxc5+ Ke8 6.Ne6+ Kd7 7.Ba4+ Bc6 8.Bxc6+ Kxe6 9.d5#.[8]
References
- I.A. Horowitz, Chess Openings: Theory and Practice, Simon and Schuster, 1964, p. VII.
- David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess, Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. 1992, p. 38. ISBN 0-19-866164-9.
- Philip W. Sergeant, A Century of British Chess, David McKay, p. 23.
- H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess, Oxford University Press, 1913, pp. 846-47. ISBN 0-19-827403-3.
- Hooper & Whyld, pp. 38-39.
- Murray, p. 847.
- David DeLucia, David DeLucia's Chess Library: A Few Old Friends (2nd ed. 2007), p. 65.
- A.J. Roycroft, Test Tube Chess, Stackpole Books, 1972, p. 73. ISBN 0-8117-1734-8.