To a true chess player, the pushing about of thirty-two counters on 8x8 squares is an end in itself, a whole world next to which that of mere biological or political or social life seems messy, stale, and contingent.

Even the patzer, the wretched amateur who charges out with his knight pawn when the opponent's bishop decamps to R4

Thus there is, literally, in every mate a touch of what is called suimate--a kind of chess problem in which the solver is required to maneuver his own pieces into mate.

the brain narrows to a luminous blade pointed at a single congeries of lines and occult forces