According to Hoyle

By well-wisher

Sun, 03 Feb 2013

953 reads

3 comments

Up to a chequered heaven, Chessmen go;
leaving their little battles far below.
The knights have stables filled with golden hay
and wooden paddocks where they joust all day;
the bishops, pulpits from which they can shout
to pews of pawns all varnished and devout.
The queens, at least the ones who have been good,
all have great palaces of polished wood.
They’re like the castles in Fairy Tale books
and all the turrets are contented rooks
but for the poor kings there is no reward;
alone, immortal, they wander the board.

Comments

Who's Hoyle WW? I liked

Permalink Submitted by Highhat on Sun, 2013-02-03 17:03

Who's Hoyle WW? I liked this- I used to play a lot of chess- for a girl- I was quite good at it. Taught my sons to play it. ;)Pia

Hoyle is Edmond Hoyle, a

Permalink Submitted by well-wisher on Tue, 2013-02-05 01:25

Hoyle is Edmond Hoyle, a writer who published several rule books for games (card games, backgammon and chess) in the 18th Century. The popularity of his books gave rise to the phrase "to play according to Hoyle" which means, to play by the rules. I like playing Chess but I prefer the more light hearted, fun games like Cluedo and Ludo and Trivial Pursuits.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Thanks, Verdana. I didn't

Permalink Submitted by well-wisher on Tue, 2013-02-05 01:07

Thanks, Verdana. I didn't play many games growing up but Chess was one of the few that I did play because my father thought it would be edifying in some way for his children to play chess. I think he also liked it because it was invented in India, so it was kind of a symbol of national pride. Glad you liked it.