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| Sep-24-04 | | SBC: Some Automaton operators that I'm aware of:
TURK (1769-mid 1850's)
Allgaier
Alexandre
Mouret
Williams
Lewis
Schlumberger
AJEEB (1868-1940's)
Sam Gotski
Moehle
Hodges
Constant Ferdinand Burille
Charles Barker
Pillsbury
Albert Hodges
Jesse Henley
MEPHISTO (1878-1889)
Gunsberg
Taubenhaus |
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| Sep-24-04 | | SBC: I'm sorry. I put it one too many Hodges under AJEEB. While normally one can't have too many Hodges, this is the exception. |
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| Oct-29-04 | | Spassky69: I guess AJEEB or The Turk played Teddy Roosevelt so said http://www.chesscity.com/Features/t... |
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| Nov-02-04 | | Knight13: Cool. Chessgames.com found a new game of The Turk! Thats very nice. |
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| Nov-25-04 | | Phoenix: Haha, just noticed "The Turk" is the player of the day on Thanksgiving. |
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Nov-25-04
 | | Sneaky: The trick behind the Turk was very simple. The three doors are revealed to the audience, as well as a curtain in the back, and one of the two drawers on the bottom (the second drawer is not really a drawer, just decoration.) However at no time are all of these openings revealed at once, thereby giving the operator time to reposition himself while the exhibiter goes through a ritual of gathering up the pieces, walking around to the back of the machine, etc. Further helping the illusion is that the "interior is apparently filled with wheels, pinions, levers, and other machinery, crowded very closely together, so that the eye can penetrate but a little distance into the mass" (Poe) thereby giving further visual cover. Houdini's famous "water trick" is based on a similar principle--behind the closed drape some very simple events take place but the effect to the audience is stunning. |
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Nov-25-04
 | | offramp: How did a player sit inside these works?
That's nobody's business but the Turk's. |
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| Apr-01-05 | | Backward Development: <Haha, just noticed "The Turk" is the player of the day on Thanksgiving.>
Ha! That's very funny cg.com
It's no wonder he's player of the day on April Fool's...He fooled quite a many! A potential candidate for next year's April Fool's Day player could be Marshall<for his swindles> or maybe a trappy player like Greco or Bill Wall<since they 'fooled' hundreds of people.> |
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May-13-05
 | | BishopBerkeley: I was surprised and pleased to see that Raymond Bernard's 1927 silent film "The Chess Player" (in which The Turk plays a pivotal role) is not only available on VHS, but also on DVD. Here is the description at Amazon.com: "This powerful drama of patriotism, betrayal and suspense combines gorgeous decors and thousands of extras. In 1776 Poland, nobleman Boleslas Vorowski heads a secret liberation movement against Russia and learns his childhood sweetheart, Sophie, loves his friend, a Russian officer. When Vorowsky is wounded in battle, his mentor, the inventor Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, constructs a marvelous chess- playing automaton which, when summoned by Catherine the Great, holds the fate of Polish independence by a single, suspenseful chess game. Like Abel Gance's Napoleon, director Raymond Bernard 'Demands a veritable ovation: the cavalry charge reaches heights never before reached in film. So magnificent... So splendid!' - Cinemagazine" VHS:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t... or http://tinyurl.com/9j4rd
under the title "Le Joueur d'Echecs":
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t... or http://tinyurl.com/deqe5
DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A... or http://tinyurl.com/cew68
More information on "Le Joueur d'Echecs", Le at IMDB.com: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018045/
Serendipitously, when looking this up, I came upon a 1977 film by Satyajit Ray titled, "Shatranj Ke Khilari" (roughly, "The Chess Players"). It looks worthwhile: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076696/
(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :) |
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| Jun-14-05 | | Knight13: "The secret of the Turk was due to the foldable nature of the compartments within the Turk's cabinet, and the fact that the "machinery" and a drawer in the cabinet did not extend all the way to the back of it. Within the cabinet was a secondary chessboard, which the operator used to follow the game. The bottom of the main chessboard which the Turk itself played on had a spring beneath every square, and each piece contained a magnet. This intricate system was used to indicate to the operator which piece had moved and to where. The operator made his move with the use of a special device which could be fitted into special holes on the secondary chessboard to indicate to the Turk where to move. (There are also many Turk-related myths that refuse to die: Kempelen was not a Baron; he was not known as Farkas, or at least not until his biography was rewritten by Hungarian nationalists after his death; the Turk was never operated by a legless war veteran, and could accommodate a full-sized man; and it never played against Frederick the Great.)" --- Wikipedia |
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| Aug-02-05 | | turkishgrandmaster: Why did they call him The Turk? Well I am a Turk but I still don't get it? |
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| Aug-02-05 | | ahmadov: <turkishgrandmaster:> Probably because they thought Turks (I mean Turkic nations as a whole) would play chess well in the future. I believe, or at least hope that this name was not given to a fake machine to insult Turks |
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| Aug-02-05 | | jcmoral: Maybe there's also a human operator inside Hydra. :P |
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Aug-02-05
| | Sneaky: Bobby Fischer was hiding inside the chassis. |
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| Aug-02-05 | | AdrianP: <jcmoral> Kasparov beats Adams twice at Linares 2005 then disappears from the top league of chess... ...a big black box bursts onto the chess scene beating Adams 5.5-0.5 coincidence? |
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| Aug-03-05 | | jcmoral: Now I'm starting to believe it... |
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| Oct-19-05 | | AlexanderMorphy: i'm sure it played more than 3 games!? |
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| Oct-19-05 | | BobbyBishop: No Sneaky...it was Virgil Sollozzo. |
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| Oct-21-05 | | AlexanderMorphy: well this virgil solozzo must have been real good! he played a form of blindfold chess...i think, or could he actually see the board? |
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| Oct-22-05 | | BobbyBishop: There was a mechanism inside that allowed the player to keep track of the position I believe. I can also see you're not a Godfather fan..lol |
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| Oct-22-05 | | AlexanderMorphy: ohhhhh i watched the movie when i was like 10...can't remember much..other than Don Corleone lol |
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| Mar-07-06 | | alexandrovm: <AdrianP: <jcmoral> Kasparov beats Adams twice at Linares 2005 then disappears from the top league of chess... ...a big black box bursts onto the chess scene beating Adams 5.5-0.5 coincidence?> lol! That's a good one! |
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| Mar-11-06 | | SBC: . A brief bio of Schlumberger:
Not a whole lot is known of Wilhelm (William) Schlumberger. He was born in Mulhouse in Alsace region of France where the Schlumberger
family operated a largy winery that is in operation today. They
also were idustrialists who operated fabric mills in the area.
Schlumberger was a leading French player (his German name
comes from the fact that Alsace lies next to Germany and has
often changed alliances throughout history between France and
Germany. During Schlumberger's life, Alsace was French.). He's
best known for his chess in America where arrived in October 1,
1826 under a contract to operate Maelzel's automaton, the Turk.
He was the Turk's last operator (previous operators during its
European tour had been Allgaier in Germany, Alexandre and
Mouret in France, Williams and Lewis in England). Surprisingly, he
was to replace an young French woman who, for lack of
chessplayers in America, was the operator when the Turk
premiered on April 13, 1826 at the National Hotel, l12 Broadway,
NY. She was only capable of playing pre-established endgames.
Schlumberger had his own peculiar experiences. He almost gave
away the secret of the Turk when some school boys reportedly
saw him exiting the cabinet after an exhibition. Then on January
30 and 31, 1827, the Turk played a game against a certain Mrs.
Fischer. Mrs. Fischer won the game. Ater the game Maelzel
explained that the Turk had only ever lost three games; once in
Paris, once in Boston and by Mrs. Fischer in Philadelphia. The
game, published in the newspapers, was possibly the first
published game by an American woman chess player.
Edgar Allen Poe wrote in his famous exposé of the Turk: "There is a man, Schlumberger, who attends him wherever
he goes, but who has no ostensible occupation other than
that of assisting in the packing and unpacking of the
automaton. This man is about the medium size, and has a
remarkable stoop in the shoulders. Whether he professes to
play chess or not, we are not informed. It is quite certain,
however, that he is never to be seen during the exhibition
of the Chess-Player, although frequently visible just before
and just after the exhibition. Moreover, some years ago
Maelzel visited Richmond with his automata, and exhibited
them, we believe, in the house now occupied by M. Bossieux as a Dancing Academy. Schlumberger was suddenly taken ill, and during his illness there was no exhibition of the Chess Player. These facts are well known to many of our citizens. The reason assigned for the suspension of the Chess-Player's performances, was not the illness of Schlumberger. The inferences from all this we leave, without farther comment, to the reader." On November 9, 1837, Schlumberger, who sometimes used the
alias Mulhouse, sailed to Havana, Cuba, along with Maelzel and
the Turk. There, he contracted Yellow Fever and died in February
of 1838.
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Mar-12-06
| | BishopBerkeley: This is a reworking of a message I posted over on the Paul Morphy message board. I post it here since it might be worthwhile to those interested in the Turk... I believe this is the homepage of the winery <SBC> mentions in her piece on Schlumberger: http://www.domaines-schlumberger.co... A bit of history (in French):
http://www.domaines-schlumberger.co... (in English):
http://www.domaines-schlumberger.co... Jacques Pierre Schlumberger is part owner of the Michel-Schlumberger winery in Sonoma County, California, not too far from my home: http://www.michelschlumberger.com/i... http://www.michelschlumberger.com/
(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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| Mar-14-06 | | SBC: I made some corrections and added a lot more information on William Schlumberger, the last Director of the Turk, and posted it at: http://batgirl.atspace.com/Mulhouse... |
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