Luis Ramírez de Lucena (c. 1465 – c. 1530) was a Spanish

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 ...

player who published the first extant chess book. He is believed to be the son of humanist writer and diplomat Juan de Lucena.

Book

Lucena wrote the oldest surviving printed book on chess, ''Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez con CL 50Juegos de Partido'' ("Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess with 150 Games"), published in

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...

around 1497. The book includes analysis of eleven chess openings but also contains many elementary errors that led chess historian H. J. R. Murray to suggest that it was prepared in a hurry. The book was written when the rules of chess were taking their modern form (see origins of modern chess), and some of the 150 positions in the book are of the old game and some of the new. Fewer than a dozen copies of the book exist. Commentators have suggested that much of the material was copied from

Francesc Vicent Francesc Vicent (1450 in Segorbe – c. 1512) was a Spanish author who wrote the first treatise about chess using the present-day moves for the queen and the bishop. ''Libre dels jochs partits dels schacs en nombre de 100'' was printed in Valenc ...

's now-lost 1495 work ''Libre dels jochs partits dels schacs en nombre de 100''. The

Lucena position The Lucena position is one of the most famous and important positions in chess endgame theory, where one side has a rook and a pawn and the defender has a rook. Karsten Müller said that it may be the most important position in endgame theory. ...

is named after him, even though it does not appear in his book. (It was first published in 1634 by

Alessandro Salvio Alessandro Salvio (c. 1575 – c. 1640) was a leading Italian chess player in the early 17th century. He started a chess academy in Naples, and wrote a book called ''Trattato dell'Inventione et Arte Liberale del Gioco Degli Scacchi'', which was ...

.) The

smothered mate In chess, a smothered mate is a checkmate delivered by a knight in which the mated king is unable to move because it is completely surrounded (or ''smothered'') by its own pieces. The mate is usually seen in a corner of the board, since fewer pie ...

(later named ''Philidor's legacy'') is in the book.See the image of p. 201 of the book
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References

Sources

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External links

Lucena's book online

''Berliner Schach-Erinnerungen nebst den Spielen des Greco und Lucena''
by Baron von der Lasa, Leipzig 1859 - includes German translation and commentary on Lucena's work {{DEFAULTSORT:Lucena, Luis Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Spanish people of Jewish descent Spanish chess players Spanish chess writers Spanish Roman Catholics 1460s births 1530s deaths 15th century in chess University of Salamanca alumni People from Lucena, Córdoba