The Monarchs of Strategy

This is an autopromotion ad that appeared in the Spanish pop-science magazine Muy Interesante in 2006. It is advertising a special edition dedicated to ths Catholic Monarchs; Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. Their marriage was instrumental in merging both kingdoms and creating the biggest empire of their time.

King and Queen are represented as the equivalent chess pieces, on top of a chessboard whose shape is in the form of a map of Spain. It is actually the current map of Spain, as when they got married in 1469 there were 5 Kingdoms in the territory of the Iberian peninsula. Apart from Castile and Aragon, there were Portugal, who has remained independent, Granada the last Muslim kingdom in Western Europe, conquered by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492 and Navarre, annexed by Ferdinand in 1512.

A significant milestone for the history of chess happened in Spain at that time. In this era of transition from the Middle to the Modern Age, chess was living its own transition from old to modern rules. In this context, Lucena published one of the oldest chess books in Salamanca in 1497.

The World in a Pawn

The World in a Pawn, or maybe America in a Pawn. I do not remember from where I took this. I think it was from a commercial, not specifically chess context.

We have a white pawn on a dark square. The black and white image suggests seriousness, the pawn and the map evoke strategy. For sure it is an image for businness.

Chess clubs in the world

A heatmap published in www.xakeweb.com, including data on the chess clubs registered in the webpage of FIDE. Updated in June 2008.

It seems the United States, the Philippines and Spain are the countries whose clubs have taken advantage of this tool.Not much success for FIDE in former Soviet territories, though. Most of the African countries have not even one registered chess club.

It will be interesting to see how this evolves.