DICEBALL VS SHATRANJ

Diceball! is a board game in which two players roll dice to simulate a baseball game, one representing the visiting team and the other the home team. Both players use the dice to throw the baseball from the mound to the plate and field the ball on defense. Diceball! was designed to mirror the statistical reality of baseball. A regular game of Diceball! without extra innings lasts about 45 minutes. The game was designed in 1979 on a pizza box by a 16-year old Daniel Girard from Rawdon, Québec, while the Montreal Expos were chasing the pennant in the National League. Girard brought his game to his high school, where he organized tournaments with other students. Given the popularity of the game in his school, Girard also brought his game to university where it also became popular. The interest created by the game was noticed by entrepreneur Louis Desjardins, who launched the game with Girard. To start the game, the visiting team puts a pawn (as a batter and eventually runner) in the batter's box, to get the pitcher's throws. The die replaces the ball. The pitcher rolls the die until either the batter is struck out, the batter is walked, or the ball is hit. If the ball is hit, the offensive team rolls a die to determine the number of dice to be used to hit the ball. The number of dice indicated are rolled and added up. Numbers from 1 to 36 show the location where the ball is hit and the ball is placed on the game board. If the ball is hit on a circle, the ball was hit in the air and an out is recorded. If the ball is hit on a number in a cloud, it is a ground ball and that the batter will have to try to reach a base before the defense throws to that base. If the ball is hit to a star-shaped zone, the runner starts to run around the bases while the defence recovers the ball on the star. If the stars are from 27 to 36 it is a home run and all runners score. Every batter who runs around the bases and reaches home plate before three outs scores a run. As soon as three outs are recorded, stranded runners are removed from the bases. The teams trade places: the defense becomes the offense.

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Shatranj (Arabic: شطرنج‎; Persian: شترنج‎; from Middle Persian chatrang چترنگ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as it was introduced to the western world by contacts in Muslim Al-Andalus (modern Spain) and in Sicily in the 10th century. The Persian word shatranj ultimately derives from Sanskrit (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग; caturaṅga) (catuḥ: "four"; anga: "arm"), referring to the game of the same name: Chaturanga. In Middle Persian the word appears as chatrang, with the 'u' lost due to syncope and the 'a' lost to apocope, such as in the title of the text Mâdayân î chatrang ("Book of Chess") from the 7th century AD. In Persian folk etymology, a Persian text refers to Shah Ardashir I, who ruled from 224–241, as a master of the game: Three books written in Pahlavi, Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, Khosrow and ridag, and Wizārišn ī čhatrang ("Treatise on Chess"), also known as the Chatrang Nama ("Book of Chess"), all mention chatrang. In Kār-nāmak it is said that Ardashīr "with the help of the gods became more victorious and experienced than all others in polo, horsemanship, chess, backgammon, and other arts," and in the small treatise on Khosrow and ridag, the latter declares that he is superior to his comrades in chess, backgammon, and hašt pāy. Bozorgmehr, the author of Wizārišn ī čhatrang, describes how the game of chess was sent as a test to Khosrow I (r. 531-79) by the "king of the Hindus Dēvsarm" with the envoy Takhtarītūs and how the test was answered by the vizier Bozorgmehr, who in his turn invented the game Backgammon as a test for the Hindus. These three Middle Persian sources do not give any certain indication of the date when chess was introduced into Persia. The mentions of chess in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan and Khosrow and ridag are simply conventional and may easily represent late Sasanian or even post-Sasanian redactions. According to Touraj Daryaee, Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan is from 6th century. Wizārišn ī čhatrang was written in the 6th century.

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