A Croatian legend is that the Croatian king Suronja beat the Venetian doge in a chess game for a number of Croatian islands. The Croatian coat of arms was supposed to have been evolved from the chess board of 64 squares. The first written trace of chess in Croatia dates to 1385. A Croatian merchant had an inventory of a small table and a chess set. Correspondence chess was being played between Croatian and Venetian merchants as early as 1650. The first Croatian chess column appeared in 1875. The first chess tournament was played in Zagreb in 1886. The first Croation chess club was founded on March 11, 1886. The first chess book published in Croatia occurred in 1893. The first book in Croatian was published in 1909.The Croatian Chess Federation was formed in 1912.