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Older Chess Variants News

This www-page contains various short items of old news on chess variants. For newer news, see our News page.


Oct. 6, 2000

Darell Ashley emailed and asked to post the following request:

SEEKING Partners in venture capital investment for a new board game...SUPERIOR-CHESS ! SUPERIOR-CHESS is the chess variant game with seven intriguing games in one package that has tons of potential for expert and beginning chess players alike. SUPERIOR-CHESS coincides with all the rules and pieces of standard chess to be acceptable by the World Chess Federation,(WCF). Research and development has been completed and we seek persons with experience in the marketing field to help set up the corportive foundation. Knowledge of international legalities and contacts a plus. ... contact Darrell Ashley ((email removed contact us for address) sm.com) or call 219 962 2314.


Feb. 22, 2000

MSOWorld.com To Provide Live Coverage of Cambridge/Oxford Chess Rivalry

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 22, 2000-- Mind Sports Organisa

For over a century, two of the most prominent universities in the world have held a competition to determine which institution contains the best chess players. This year, new technology will make the old rivalry even more interesting. MSO Worldwide (www.msoworld.com) joins forces with the former World Computer Chess Champion program ``Fritz'' to give live coverage. Fritz will be joined in the commentary box by human chess Grandmaster Julian Hodgson who will be seen and heard by the site's visitors thanks to video and audio streaming technology.

``Live reporting on the internet is something our users have definitely wanted to see,'' said MSO CEO, David Levy, ``It is our intention to report on many more games in this fashion. We'd like to see it become a necessity rather than a trend and we fully intend to have MSO Worldwide's website lead the way.''

MSO Worldwide Ltd. is no stranger to ``leading the way'' when it comes to Mind Sports. The company is responsible for creating the Mind Sports Olympiad, a board game, puzzle, memorization & creative thinking extravaganza in London England and is attended by thousands of mind sports enthusiasts from around the world every year. The Fourth Mind Sports Olympiad will take place at the Alexandra Palace in London, August 19th to the 28th. An estimated 15,000 people will attend the 10 day event.

The Cambridge/Oxford match will be broadcast live from the MSO Worldwide web site at http://www.msoworld.com on March 4th, starting at 12:30 pm UK time, 7:30 am EST, and running for approximately 6 hours.

ABOUT MSO

Mind Sports Organisation Worldwide Ltd. of London, England, is the organiser of the Mind Sports Olympiad. This annual event encompasses more than 30 classic games including Chess, Bridge, Backgammon, Go as well as several mental skills such as Memory Skills, Creative Thinking, Intelligence and Speed Reading. Players compete for the honour of winning Gold, Silver and Bronze medals, rankings and titles, and for cash prizes. The company was founded by well known mind sports personalities, Tony Buzan, Raymond Keene and David Levy. MSO Worldwide's website at http://www.msoworld.com/ was created to help achieve their goal of spreading Mind Sports throughout the real and virtual worlds. That web site is now well on its way to becoming one of the premier mind sports sites on the web, having recently won a Netscape ``Cool Siting'' award.


November 26, 1999

GLE'X International is organizing a Z-Chess World Open Tournament to be held during the first half of the year 2000. For more information go to their web page. Also see the Z-Chess web page.


August 19, 1999

Bishops is holding a Bishops Tournament running eight (8) weeks each Sunday beginning September 5, 1999. Entrants must arrange their own games with opponents of their own choice. Entrants must use printscreen and send an email attached zipped copy of their winning position. Only screenshot .zip files that unzip to .bmp format will be acceptable. One entry per person. Our judges will determine a winner each day from the winning positions sent in. The 8 finalists (one each day) will be entered in a playoff to be completed before the end of 1999. The winner of the playoff will receive a free Bishops Game value $49.95 CAN delivered. The losers may purchase a game at half price, shipping included. Please forward this message to anyone you feel will be interested. Visit www.bishopsthegame.com for online game.

(Announcement from our Yahoo Club at: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chessvariants.


August 6, 1999

1999 ICC/World Progressive Chess Championship is underway!!

A LIVE (via internet) championship is now taking place for progressive chess on the Internet Chess Club. The tournament is being organized by Steve Cohen and the UPSCL. The time control for the event is 45 minutes per side with 3-minute increments. Games will be transmitted live via the internet as they are played. The first round started August 5th. The URL for this tournament is http://chess.jumpsports.com.

(Thanks to Doug Hyatt for informing us about this tournament.)


June 23, 1999

FIRST SATURDAY chess tournament organization introduces The first international OMEGA CHESS tournament on 9th-10th-11th of July in Budapest, Hungary

FIRST SATURDAY organizes a 3 days 9 rounds Swiss system event with $250 U.S. prize fund $100-$50-$40-$30-$20-$10.The prize fund will be valid with a minimal of 20 players, if less, proportionally decreases. Games start every day at 12:00 a.m. Registration until 11:45 a.m. 9th of July

Register personally or by a phone or written contact with the organizer. Thinking times: 2 x 25 min. per game. Venue: Hungarian Chess Federation, Budapest, Falk Miksa Str.10. Omega Chess sets will be provided.

Monthly Omega Chess tournaments are planned the year round with regular chess tournaments.

(Communicated by Daniel MacDonald, inventor of Omega Chess. Follow this link for more information on Omega Chess.


June 5, 1999

From Chris Dickson, we received the following announcement:

3rd MIND SPORTS OLYMPIAD

Olympia, London, August 21-29 1999

Preliminary Announcement

We are delighted to announce that the venue for the 3rd Mind Sports Olympiad will be the Conference Centre at Olympia, one of London's premier exhibition and conference sites.

The dates, as announced at the end of last year's event, are August 21st-29th. By extending the event to nine days we have made it possible to accommodate more players and to organize more tournaments.

We plan to have events for most games throughout the Olympiad. Typically, for each game, there will be some tournaments on the first weekend, then some 5-day events on the middle Monday-Friday (August 23-27) and finally some more tournaments on the final weekend. But every game will have its own requirements and at this stage we are still flexible in our tournament planning. For example, we are organizing a very strong chess tournament with 9 rounds, extending thhroughout the Olympiad, in which players will be able to obtain norms towards international titles. This tournament is in addition to the quickplay and 5-minute chess tournaments which we have held in the past.

This year there will be a substantial prize fund. We will be dramatically upgrading our web site over the next few months. We are also opening a full time central London office on May 14th.

(The website of this Olympiad is http://www.mindsports.co.uk/.)


June 2, 1999

New "Lotus" Chess Book Now Available

Lotus-39, a chess variant game invented for the 1998 worldwide chess variants contest, is now a book. Invented by longtime chess editor and organizer D. Moeser, Lotus-39 is chess played on a board of 39 "squares" arranged in a pattern of interconnected lotuslike circles.

"Lotus Chess: The Book" collects more than 56 pages of articles dealing with the theory and practice of playing chess on the lotus- patterned board. As future artceles are published on this subject they will be added to this compilation.

The articles currently included provide all the rules and instructions needed for playing chess on the lotus board. (A regular chess set can be used.) With 50 diagrams, the book explains and profusely illustraties the lotus board's directional concepts and provides examples of movements for 26 different chess pieces. Included are descriptions of all the regular chess pieces as well as other pieces invented by people in the chess variants field.

The book is spiral-bound in 8.5x11-inch size, and includes a full-sized, pull-out board printed in color that can be used for playing the game. Copies are available for US $14.95 each (includes postage and handling to USA addresses only). Payments may be sent to the author at 6255 Beechmont Avenue, #22, Cincinnati, OH 45230-1927. E-mail inquiries may be addressed to: erasmus at iglou dot com.

Copies are also still available for US $5 of "Neue Chess: The Book," a compilation of more than 50 pages published in Cincinnati chess periodicals on the subject of chess variants. (Interested chessplayers outside the U.S. should contact the author for quotes on shipping costs for these items.)

(News release, sent by David Moeser.)


April 22, 1999

THE WORLD CIRCULAR CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 1999 SPONSORED BY LINDUM GROUP

The Circular Chess Society based in Lincoln UK is pleased to announce the forthcoming World Championships. The competition, with a top prize of £200, will be held on Sunday 16 May 1999 in Lincoln Castle.

Circular Chess is great fun. Anyone with a basic knowledge of chess can play. As there has been little analysis of openings each game is different from the start and newcomers are at less of a disadvantage than normal. The same principles apply but the battleground is different. At the championship there will be a complete range of players from highly rated normal boarders, to complete novices. The emphasis, as ever with Circular Chess Competitions, is that everyone has an enjoyable relaxed time, free liquid refreshments for competitors will no doubt assist.

The standard of chess played by those entering continues to rise with more serious exponents of the normal game becoming involved. Last yearÂ’s champion Francis Bowers from Spalding is a former normal board county champion. He successfully defended his title, winning a tight final game against Dutch representative and former Amsterdam champion Herman Kok. He looks forward to claiming the title for a third year.

Entry forms and information packs are available from the Society (contact (email removed contact us for address) .com or write to: The Circular Chess Society 11 North Parade, Lincoln UK LN1 1LB tel 01522 887666, for how to obtain these). The closing date for entries will be 1 May 1999; late entries can be accepted depending upon available space. Further details will be sent to entrants. The entry fee is £5 for non members. There will be a first prize of £200, a trophy to keep and the title of World Circular Chess Champion 1999.

(Text by the Circular Chess Society.)


March 11, 1999

Wednesday, March 17, 1999, THE FIRST OFFICIAL WORLD EMAIL OMEGA CHESS TOURNMENT will take place on Richard's PBeM Server. For those interested in playing they need to get a free userID from the server and then contact (email removed contact us for address) siah.edu with the subject Omega Chess Entry with their userID in the message part before March 17, 1999. The tournament will be played in pools with each player playing everyone else in their pool. The winner will receive a free Omega Chess set.

(Based upon email of Omega Chess inventor Daniel C. Macdonald.)


February 9, 1999

As of Feb 3/99 Omega Chess can be played by E-mail for free. Goto Richard's Play-By-E-mail Server - http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/. Join up and you are in the game.

Playing Omega Chess by E-mail is easier then you think, a 45 move game can happen in less then 50 min. This is a very fast server, hit send and the board comes back in 12 seconds!

Communicated by Daniel MacDonald. Omega Chess is a commercial chess variant. For more information, you can also visit the website of Omega Chess.


January 25, 1999

Doubles Chess, a commercial chess variant for four players, can now be played online. A file of 7MB size can be downloaded from the Doubles Chess website. Playing online is free.

Communicated by Rick Gillespie from Doubles Chess Inc.


January 4, 1999

The 1999 Fischer Random Progressive Chess Championship is now accepting registrations! This is a free email tournament for Fischer Random Scottish Progressive Chess. To sign up, send an email to (email removed contact us for address) utk.edu before January 31, 1999. Information on Scottish progressive chess and on Fischer Random progressive chess can be found within these pages. Hans Bodlaender has generously agreed to donate a copy of the Chess Variant Pages Offline CD-rom as a prize. Come play one of the most popular chess variants in the world the way it should be played -- FISCHER RANDOM!

Communicated by Doug Hyatt.


January 4, 1999

The first round of the 1998 World Internet Progressive Chess Championship has finished! The following 21 players are semifinalists:
Zoltan Blazsik, Hugh Brodie, Roberto Cassano, Norbert Fogarasi, Norbert Geissler, Doug Hyatt, Marek Kowalczyk, Kevin Leeds, Ville Leppanen, Russell Linnemann, Liong Sauw Ming, Janne Nuopponen, Jori Ostrovskij, Alfred Pfeiffer, Kostas Prentos, Juha Saukkola, Rolf Sicker, Daniel Tilkin, Jouni Tolonen, Ottavio Vargiu, Brian Williams.
Congratulations to the semifinalists! It looks like this will be one of the strongest, if not THE strongest, progressive chess tournaments ever held! Follow all the excitement at http://www.cs.utk.edu/~hyatt/wipcc98/.

The semifinal round begins January 20, 1999. For the latest games and results, visit the WIPCC 98 web site.

Communicated by Doug Hyatt.


December 10, 1998

A newsgroup, devoted to chess variants has been started by Richard Hutnik: dejanews.comm.chessvariants.

If you cannot receive this newsgroup reading the Usenet news, instead you can access it at the World Wide Web: Richards ChessVariants Newsgroup Group is at http://www.dejanews.com/~chess/j.xp?j=chessvariants (Written by Hans Bodlaender, based on posting on rec.games.chess.misc, and information by Stephen Chafe.)


December 4, 1998

Zillions of Games has just been released. This is a program for the PC, that plays hundreds of games, including many chess variants: chess, shogi, xiangqi, small variants, Ultima, and many others. In addition, the program allows the user to expand it by adding new games to it, by describing them, after which the program analyses the rules and then plays the just-defined game against you. Read more on this exiting program on the website of Zillions of Games: