‘It’s nice to be able to admire chess pieces as works of art, on top of being instruments of play’

You’ve spent a good part of your life around chessboards. How does it feel to see chess pieces that aren’t just objects in a game, they’re also works of art?
Chess players often talk about ‘great games’, ‘masterpieces’, beautiful moves and flawless strategies. But when we sit down to play, the pieces are no longer objects: they’ve transformed into ideas, structures, combinations. Everything becomes abstract in our minds.
It’s a nice change of pace to be able to admire the pieces themselves for once, to see them as things of beauty and not just instruments of play.

This cylindrical chess piece depicts a seated king, garbed in a robe and cloak. Two servants kneel on either side of him, one bearing a sword and the other a shield. On the other side of the piece, five figures are carved beneath archways: they are the advisers to the king. One holds a falcon. While the chess pieces that arrived with the game from the East were geometric in shape, the pieces that subsequently developed in the West were more figurative. These pieces featured kings, queens, and all sorts of characters and animals. The elaborate designs elevated chess pieces into ornamental objects: markers of both status and a certain level of power in 12th-century society.

The King and His Advisers shows figures preparing for battle. Do you have any rituals that help you prepare for a big match?
I try not to put too much stock in rituals – what’s really unique about being a grandmaster is that you’re always moving from country to country, going to different places and different tournaments. I enjoy it, because I get to discover all these new countries, people and cultures. It’s incredibly fulfilling. But it also makes it hard to stay disciplined and stick to a routine.
I do still aim for certain things, like being well rested and well prepared, and not feeling stressed out when I get there. I try to sleep well, avoid eating anything too heavy before a match and exercise. A chess match can last six hours: you have to be in great shape to be able to stay concentrated for that long.

Who have been the most important advisers throughout your career? Your coaches? Family? Friends? Opponents?
All of them, really! But my first advisers were the people who helped teach me. And that starts with my mother. She’s the one who taught me to play chess when I was three years old. She’s a chess coach in Russia, and she still is today. She coaches kids every day. I got my passion from her, and my work ethic, too.

This piece carved out of ivory depicts an elephant, the small grooves carved into its back indicating that it wears tack equipment. The head of a man emerges from its back: a mahout, the person charged with driving and caring for it. This chess piece is the precursor to the present-day bishop. In an alternative tradition of chess originating in India and Persia, a piece called the alfil (Old Persian for ‘elephant’) was described as a tower that moved diagonally. It wasn’t until the 13th century that this piece would evolve into what we know today as the bishop.

The piece the Elephant and Mahout corresponds to the bishop. Do you think an elephant is a fitting representation of the bishop? Or would another animal make more sense?
I think it’s a great representation. The bishop is both powerful and a bit under the radar. It’s not a major piece like the queen or the rook: it’s a minor piece, like the knight. But it can be really strong, sometimes even stronger than a knight, because it can cover long distances.
Historically, the bishop is actually associated with elephants. The game of chess comes from India, where elephants were used in the army. In some languages, you can still see these roots in the piece’s name. In Russian, for example, we don’t say ‘bishop’, we say slon, which means elephant.
When chess was first introduced in Europe, elephants probably didn’t mean much to the people there, so they came up with other figures that did.

This 12th-century chess piece is particularly ornate.One of the two main sides depicts two knights fighting one another with lances. The other portrays Adam and Eve committing the original sin at the foot of the Tree of Life, the serpent who tempted them coiled around its trunk. The narrower sides show the couple working after having sinned: Adam tills the soil in a short tunic, while Eve spins with a distaff. Two four-legged animals (dogs, wolves, or stylised bears) are carved in low relief on the top. Alternately called a tower or castle, this piece is the precursor to the rook. From the Persian rukh (chariot), the piece then morphed into rocca (Italian for ‘fortress’) as it travelled across Italy. The tower shape of the rook later took hold in the 16th century.

Adam and Eve here depicts the original sin, conveying temptation. Is that how a chess match can be lost, too, by giving in to the temptation of a flashy move, easy option, sacrifice, or unnecessary risk?
Yes, absolutely. It’s easy to be tempted by flashy moves or heroic sacrifices. These ideas are aesthetically pleasing – but they aren’t necessarily the right choice.
Sometimes, you want to use a combination that you know probably won’t work. But because it seems so beautiful, you get drawn in, caught up in your emotions, and you make a mistake. And then you lose the game.
The greatest players in the world are incredibly disciplined, both in the work they put in outside of tournaments, and in the way they think things through and pick their moves during a match. From the temptation point of view, this piece really shows the dangers of a chess match.

Seated on his throne facing forward, this crowned king grasps the hilt of his sword in one hand and holds his beard in the other, a sign of power and growth in Scandinavian tradition. With his sword laid across his lap, his pose is reminiscent of several of the kings in the Lewis chess pieces collection (held at the British Museum, London). This one, however, is the only known piece in which the king holds his beard. The piece appears to have once been decorated with inlay along the king’s crown, the orphreys on his garments and the cross-guard of his sword, making this a precious object and marker of wealth.

At what point does the king go from wise old figure holding his beard to active participant in the game?
Often much sooner than you might think.
As a general rule of thumb, the king isn’t activated until the endgame, at which point you bring it towards the centre. But the beauty of this piece is that it can become a real weapon as soon as there’s relatively little danger left out on the chessboard.
Once most of the pieces are gone, the king can become active. You can even bring it out towards the centre in certain endgames with queens as part of your plan. Great players know exactly when it’s time to act.

Which of these four artworks speaks to you the most, and why?
I think I would have to say Adam and Eve. This piece is about temptation, and that’s a central question in chess. You have to stay concentrated, disciplined and clear-sighted. You have to resist the urge to make a move just because you like it, or it would be dramatic, or you want to believe that it could work.
And that’s not only the case in chess – it also goes for life. The real question might be: is this actually a good idea, or do I just want to believe it? We’re often drawn to conclusions that work in our favour. That’s why we have to learn to push back on our own ways of thinking.

If you were playing with pieces like these in an official tournament, would it change your gameplay?
I don’t think so – or at least, not much. Once a chess player is in tournament mode, they don’t really see the pieces as objects any more. They become abstract: you know what they represent without having to look at them as figures.
Players generally prefer to play with classic pieces because they’re less distracting. But once you start thinking about positions, your reasoning becomes almost mathematical. It doesn’t matter whether the symbol is a dot, an arrow or a figure: it all represents the same thing in your mind.

It’s often said that a chess match is a masterpiece. Do you think chess is an art?
Yes, without a doubt! Chess is an art, but it’s also a sport, a game, and a science.
When you come up with beautiful combinations or when you work on solving studies (that is, made-up positions where you have to find the one correct, and usually very creative, solution), chess is an art form. When I devise a beautiful plan or a beautiful idea to play out on the chessboard, or when I sacrifice a piece and the remaining whole resonates in perfect harmony, chess is art.
But when it’s time to win or get a result, it becomes a sport. When you study chess systematically, it’s a science. And when you play in front of an audience, or just in the Luxembourg Garden in Paris, it goes back to being a game, too.

From an interview with Noham Selcer

These four chess pieces are displayed in Room 502, Richelieu Wing, Level 1