Ajeeb
Encyclopedia
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
-playing "automaton
Automaton
An automaton is a self-operating machine. The word is sometimes used to describe a robot, more specifically an autonomous robot. An alternative spelling, now obsolete, is automation.-Etymology:...
", created by Charles Hooper (a cabinet maker), first presented at the Royal Polytechnical Institute in 1868. A particularly intriguing piece of faux mechanical technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
(while presented as entirely automated, it in fact concealed a strong human chess player inside), it drew scores of thousands of spectators to its games, the opponents for which included Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...
, Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, and O. Henry
O. Henry
O. Henry was the pen name of the American writer William Sydney Porter . O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.-Early life:...
.
The genius behind "Ajeeb" were players such as Harry Nelson Pillsbury
Harry Nelson Pillsbury
Harry Nelson Pillsbury , was a leading chess player. At age 22, he won one of the strongest tournaments of the time , but his illness and early death prevented him from challenging for the World Chess Championship.- Early life :Pillsbury was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, moved to New York City...
(1898–1904), Albert Beauregard Hodges
Albert Hodges
Albert Beauregard Hodges was an American chess master.-Chess career:As one of the most well known American chess players of the late 19th century, Hodges played an important role in transforming chess from a pleasant pastime into a social institution.In 1894 he lost a match to Jackson Whipps...
, Constant Ferdinand Burille
Constant Ferdinand Burille
Constant Ferdinand Burille was an American chess master.He was a Bostonian born in Paris , Burille was a member of a group of Boston chess players and theoreticians who formed a loose chess association they called the Mandarins of the Yellow Buttons.He took 15th at New York 1889 Constant Ferdinand...
, Charles Moehle
Charles Moehle
Charles Moehle was an American chess master.He took 3rd at New York 1880 , and shared 2nd, behind Jackson Whipps Showalter, at Cincinnati 1888 .He participated in several matches; beat David Graham Baird in 1879, and N...
, and Charles Francis Barker.
In the history of such devices, it succeeded "The Turk
The Turk
The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player , was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was exposed in the early 1820s as an...
" and preceded "Mephisto
Mephisto (automaton)
Mephisto was the name given to a chess-playing "pseudo-automaton" built in 1876. Unlike The Turk and Ajeeb it had no hidden operator, instead being remotely controlled by electromechanical means....
".
After several spectacular demonstrations at Coney Island, New York, Ajeeb was destroyed in a fire in 1929.
Ajeeb is an Arabic word meaning strange or unexplainable.