DRAUGHTS ITEMS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10267, 26 January 1895, Page 7

DRAUGHTS ITEMS.

Lake County.—Mr Ben Eodgersi a well-known Skippers draughts player and enthusiast, has been elected chairman of the take County Council.

BroiHe's Testimonial.—AH holders of subscription lists will greatly oblige the committee by returning their fists without delay, as it is desirable to "close up." • '■■ Draughts Superior to .Chess.—The mental features discoursed of as the analytical are in themselves but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, tl> at they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest eujoyment. As the strong man exults iv his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyist in the rhorttl activity which disentanyUs. He derives pleasure from the moat trivial occupations bringing his talent into play. He is fond of enigmas, conundrums, hieroglyphics, exhibiting in his solution of each a degree of acumen which appears tv the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul arid essence of method, have, in troth1, the whole air of intuition. The faculty of resolutioaia possibly much invigorated by mathematical study,- and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, lms been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet, to calculate is not in itself to enalyse. A chess player, for example, doea the onu without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects on mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I assert that the higher powers of tho reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre notions, with various and variable values, what is only complexion is mistaken (a n«t unnsiral error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instaut, an oversight is committed resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold, but involute, the chances of such oversights ate multiplied, and in nine cases'out of ten it is the more cohcentrative rather than the more acute pltiyer who conquers. In droughts on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what udvantases are obtained by either party art! obtained by superior acumen. To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some i echercttt movement, the result of some strong exertiqn of tbe intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himßelf therewith, and not infrequently sees thus, at a glance, the whole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple Ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.—EdOar Allah POe.