Written towards the end of the 15th century, the Catalan poem ‚Scachs d’Amor‘ is famous for its documentation of chess moves distinguishing modern chess from that of the Middle Ages. The focus here, however, is on a striking anomaly the poem’s versification displays. Its 64 stanzas consist of 9 verses each, a number which does not harmonise with the chess arithmetic. The number nine can be linked to the religious subtext hinted at by “Apocalipsi”, the last word of the poem, as well as to a hitherto unknown literary tradition of religious poetry, rooting in Dante’s veneration of the number nine.