Introduction

Few years ago in the pandemic I was stuck at home with more free time at hands, so I signed up for EDX CS50 course to study artificial intelligence in Python and JavaScript and I wanted to apply the knowledge to some game imitating free style wrestling. I’ve chosen three paths to this AI problem: on one path I compared wrestling to a maze, on another path I compared wrestling to a game of tic-tac-toe and the third path was set to compare wrestling to chess. The first 2 paths led me nowhere. But the third was some success. It took much longer then the cs50 course, and in this article I want to present some results.

I have been wrestling since I was 10, and still do at 54. Many chess players can say the same about their chess biography, but not too many wrestlers stayed on the mat for that long. I come from big wrestling family and with some chess connections. Both of my older brothers wrestled and my oldest brother Sanasar Oganisian won Olympic gold in 1980 in free style wrestling and numerous world and Soviet titles. The older brothers took chess lessons from my uncle Artashes Oganisian, who fulfilled the criteria for Chess Master in the Soviet Union in the 70ies, although he could not confirm it as rules required due to very poor health and remained a candidate master. His youth friends included Yerevan grand masters Rafael Vaganian and others, perhaps they know more about Artashes ability then I remember. Around 15 years old Artashes did tie with Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian in a simul given by Petrosian in Yerevan when he visited Yerevan after wining world title in 1963. And there is a newspaper article highlighting that in family archives. Artash also had a passion for yoga and overall India and spoke about history of chess. So chess was very popular in my family although wrestling was a key passion.

My dad taught chess my kids and then they met a brilliant chess coach in their school. They started winning some tournaments, but I was quite skeptical and discouraging about their chess carriers waiting when they will pick up a passion for wrestling which they also practiced.

With kids I maintained the line that chess is great fun, which they can stay with their whole lives, but there is no need to devote countless hours of practice to chess when they can be outside playing. Still the kids got me involved in chess a little. We frequently went to Moscow chess club on Gogol Boulevard to play blitz and at some point they introduced me to Lichess.

This was around the time when I set the goal to find some connection between wrestling and chess and took the JavaScript course to find some results.

While spending countless hours on lichess I was brainstorming for a wrestling chess connection, playing again and again. So I found some connections and wrote some code to implement it.

I will explain it later in detail

I defined 64 cubes in space by drawing 4 imaginary wrestlers each consisting of 16 cubes which were fixed and there was a strict rule which mapped the cubes to chess squares and which described each of 64 cubes.

For example an A1 square is fixed for white rook, so is A3. A2 square is fixed for white pawn so is a4. A8 and A6 are fixed for black rook and A7 and A5 cubes are fixed for black pawn. If for example a white figure moves in to the space of an black wrestler crossing the 4th rank it should navigate his space in a manner where cubes were defined for black. Test this:

Hands are heavy pieces, play for white and black does random moves
Hands are heavy pieces, play for white and for black
Hands are pawns and legs are heavy pieces, play for white and for black
Hands are pawns and legs are heavy pieces, play for white and black goes random

Freestyle wrestling and chess have a lot in common

Freestyle wrestling and its US version collegiate wrestling are direct descendants of Indian Kushti wrestling or Pehlwani and Persian version Pahlevani wrestling. This is where similarities begin, as chess has both Indian and Persian roots.

An attack in wrestling is initiated with bringing up your arms extending palms, and engaging feet, elbows and knees, controlling opponents neck, shoulders and legs, creating a solid stance and then trying to penetrate inside opponent’s joints to find weaknesses, inaccuracies and waiting for opponents mistakes and blunders. An attack can end in score, or touché it could also lead to steal mate or can cause a counterattack if the opponents’ defense is strong.

Wrestling attacks and moves can be abstractly represented by chess pieces moves on the chess board

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Then Krishna took another leaf, tore it, and threw the two pieces into opposite directions. When the next fight began Bhima again tore Jarasandha in to two halves, but this time, he threw the two halves in opposite directions.

In my first attempt to connect chess to freestyle wrestling I have defined a space of 64 cubes and devised rules how chess pieces navigate that space. The resulting system was only partially good. I liked the way I could explain mate on f7 in wrestling terms. But the details of the system I designed were only partially intuitive and corresponded to wrestling. I wanted to explain each chess move from the logic of wrestling. My goal was to connect chess geometry to wrestling geometry. I didn’t like the way it was designed that e2 pawn (which is a forfoot in the correspondence where pawns are leg joints) moved to e3, which is fixed for king (because the 3rd rank is fixed for pieces) moved up to a cube which is at the height level of a belly (waist it king). Nobody moves up feet so high in wrestling. Only soldiers do that when marching on a parade. Even worse is when d2 pawn went to d3, it went up to the height level of the neck. And although the resulting system is completely isomorphic to chess and one can move cubes in space by corresponding chess moves and the resulting game will be just chess, but weird one. So what’s next? And how to design the space so that it is completely isomorphic to wrestling?

Firstly it is impossible to create such isomorphism without changing some chess rules. For example in chess - pawns could only move forward. Ok. That’s good. Moreover if a game of chess is just one wrestling attack as it was explained in my first blog, a successful attack in wrestling almost never allowed that an attacker takes back steps. But the defendant will do many backsteps in real life wrestling match. He will sprawl his legs to defend from the leg shot. Take few step back to get out of the uncomfortable grip and etc. Perhaps in ancient wrestling the stepping back was not allowed. That’s also possible. So for example if you have been made to step back during the wrestling match – you immediately lose. It’s an interesting way to wrestle! I need to think about it. But let me take a step back and create some confidence that some system of correspondence could be found.

F7 mate is a low head single.

The way to fill the void is to create more examples of chess wrestling correspondence. As it was explained in the first blog mate on f7 corresponds to low single leg attack. F7 pawn is black’s ankle joint. When you make a low jump with one of your forfeet keep your head low, attach the neck to opponents ankle, grab his ankle with your arm or elbow from behind and start pressing with your neck and part of the head into ankle and slightly above you will start create danger for opponents center of gravity, and he will lose his balance and will fall on his but. That’s checkmate as it was explained that’s check in wrestling is state of stable or unstable equilibrium where opponent center of mass becomes vulnerable and if it results that center of mass hits the ground, that’s checkmate. But if the equilibrium is stable and the opponent gets back control of his center of gravity, he is again stable - he was just checked. So you can do low head single using your neck and either palm or elbow. F7 mate is made with queen (neck) and either knight (palm) or a bishop (elbow).

This is how goal of wrestling was explained in Mahabharat Episode 29: There were two kinds of wrestling matches in those days. One was as a sport where, once you floor the opponent, the match is over. Another was a life and death match where you had to kill the opponent in the ring. I guess here we are talking about the first kind.

Fireman’s carry.

This move is an attack on opponents right or left shoulder (rooks) and right or left hips ( A or H pawns) depending on which side of the attack is chosen. Say the attack is on opponents right shoulder. Attacker also uses his neck (queen), left palm (knight) and his right shoulder (rook), right albow (bishop) and palm (knight) as well as his king and some queen side pawns to make this throw. Even the white’s waste is involved in some variations, which is a king in the correspondence.

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Below are video examples of chess move animations in Blender