Saturday 24 March 2012

Oldest recorded game?

A possible entry for oldest recorded game. It was played around 1485 and pre-dates any entries I have in my databases. My source for the game is the book "The Golden Treasury of Chess" by Francis Wellmuth. The author says the game comes from a Catalan manuscript, where the score is contained in a poem.
While the game is of a fairly low quality (both sides overlook tactical tricks) it at least was played with the modern rules (Queen and Bishop fully mobile), although I'm not sure the fact that neither side castled is significant.


de Castellvi,Francisco - Vingles,Narciso [B01]
Catalan Manuscript, 1485


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This game is given in Murray's History of Chess as described in a Catalan poem between Castellvi and Vinoles, although it is not definite that the game was a real one. The poem includes comments by a third person, Fenollar, about the (Aragon) rules, including en passent, only one queen allowed per player and loss of a queen was also loss of the game. Castling was not common for another hundred years.
MP

Shaun Press said...

Thanks for the extra info, Miles.