“Trictrac”, “checkers”, “chess”, so many misleading translations given over time for the Greek word πεσσεία which was actually a form of playful activity practiced with pawns on a board and whose origins extend back to the Trojan War according to traditional stories of ancient Greece. Far from being limited to a question of lexicon and choice of translation, this article aims to understand the specificities of such a form of game from the analysis of the circumstances of its invention and the identity of its author, namely the hero Palamedes. By a detailed analysis of the passages concerning Palamedes and his invention of games, from Gorgias to Philostratus, this contribution is intended to allow a better understanding of how far the πεσσεία was linked to a very particular modality of the divine action of Palamedes, namely his prophetic and mantic power that made him a hero of the semiotic structuring of space.