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GO CHESS

Was well into the second mile of my walk, just past the local police and
fire stations, when my comment to Gary about Go being just a ferz and
wazir movement away from chess ran through my head, bringing the following
train of thought. Play a game of Go. As you put your stones down, mark them
with either an 'X' for ferz or a '+' for wazir. A stone gets an X if it
is not connected to any friendly stones when it is placed. It gets a + if
it is connected to one or more friendly stones. Captured pieces lose their
markings. When the Go game is over, the captured stones are used to fill
territory, the Go score is calculated, and the captured stones are removed
from the board. Then the chess game starts. White moves one piece either
along a line to the next intersection, W, or diagonally across a square to

the opposite corner intersection, F. Last person with pieces wins the
chess game, and scores one point per piece left. The total score is
figured as the sum of the two. Still not chess, but getting there. Okay,
no king? Make all the pieces pretenders. The last one left on a side gets
promoted to king, with a king's W+F move. Still not chess? Drop the Go
scoring. Play Go only for chesspiece placement, using all the rules of
placement, capture, and when the game ends; but no score. More pieces?
Allow a friendly piece to move onto and combine with another friendly
piece. The N is a W-then-F mover, for example. Combos of Fs could build
alfils, elephants, and bishops. Combos of Ws are dabbabahs and rooks. You
could even set aside a certain number of moves at the beginning of the
movement portion of the game to be used only for combining moves. You
might even restrict all combining moves to this part of the game. You
could have to make a single king, also. Now, you place your piece atoms
and fight to destroy your opponents atoms in the placement stage, build
your complex pieces in the combo stage, then play chess in the movement
stage. This is Go morphed into chess, but where did it cross the line?