Captain Joseph Bertin (1690s – c. 1736) was one of the first authors to write about the game of

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

. David Hooper and

Kenneth Whyld Kenneth Whyld (6 March 1926 – 11 July 2003) was a British chess author and researcher, best known as the co-author (with David Hooper) of ''The Oxford Companion to Chess'', a single-volume chess reference work in English. Whyld was a str ...

in ''

The Oxford Companion to Chess ''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' is a reference book on the game of chess written by David Vincent Hooper and Kenneth Whyld. The book is written in an encyclopedia format. The book belongs to the Oxford Companions series. Details The first e ...

'' call his book ''The Noble Game of Chess'' "the first worthwhile chess book in the English language". David Hooper and

, ''

'', Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. 1992, p. 38. . B. Goulding Brown, writing in the December 1932 ''

British Chess Magazine ''British Chess Magazine'' is the world's oldest chess journal in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since. It is frequently known in the chess world as ''BCM''. The founder an ...

'', called it the first original English chess book. Philip W. Sergeant, ''A Century of British Chess'', David McKay, p. 23. Bertin was a

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

born at Castelmoron-sur-Lot in the 1690s. He came to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

during his youth, became a

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

citizen Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

in 1713, and married in 1719. In 1726, he joined a line regiment serving in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

. He was later promoted to the rank of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

, and ultimately was released from the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

as an invalid. In 1735 he published a small volume entitled ''The Noble Game of Chess''. In the same year, he was recommissioned in a Regiment of Invalids and, according to Hooper and Whyld, "In all probability he died soon afterwards." ''The Noble Game of Chess'' was sold only at Slaughter's Coffee House. It contained opening analysis and useful advice about the middlegame, and laid down 19 rules for chess play. Most of them are still useful today. Some examples: :"2. Never play your

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

, till your game is tolerably well opened, that you may not lose any moves; and a game well opened gives a good situation." :"3. You must not give useless checks, for the same reason." :"8. Consider well before you play, what harm your adversary is able to do to you, that you may oppose his designs." :"18. To play well the latter end of a game, you must calculate who has the move, on which the game always depends." (This is a reference to

zugzwang Zugzwang (German for "compulsion to move", ) is a situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because of their obligation to make a move; a player is said to be "in zugzwang" when any legal mov ...

.) Bertin attached great value to maintaining

White's White's is a gentlemen's club in St James's, London. Founded in 1693 as a hot chocolate shop in Mayfair, it is the oldest gentleman's club in London. It moved to its current premises on St James's Street in 1778. Status White's is the oldes ...

first-move advantage.Murray, p. 847. The book also contained 26 games, with each variation analyzed being treated as a separate game. They were divided into "gambets" and "the close-game".

Problem

At left is a

chess problem A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...

from page 54 of Bertin's book. White wins with 1.Qd7+! Kxd7 2.Nbc5+ Kd8 3.Ne6+ Kd7 4.Nac5+ dxc5 5.Nxc5+ Ke8 6.Ne6+ Kd7 7.Ba4+ Bc6 8.Bxc6+ Kxe6 9.d5#. A.J. Roycroft, ''Test Tube Chess'', Stackpole Books, 1972, p. 73. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bertin, Joseph English chess players 18th century in chess English non-fiction writers British chess writers Chess theoreticians Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown English male non-fiction writers