Chessvariants.com -- What's New?

What's new in 2002?

Week of January 8 - 14:

Goal Box Chess. Game on 42 squares with no King and the goal of placing pieces into 2 special squares. By Kevin McPartland.
The Seeping Switchers. An army for Chess with Different Armies based on pieces that change color when they move. By Jörg Knappen.
Chaturanga 4-84. An updating of Chaturanga for Four Players with modern pieces on an 84-square board. By Peter Aronson.

Week of January 1 - 7:

Play.Chessvariants.com, a new subdomain of this site, devoted to the playing of Chess variants.
84 Spaces Contest begins.
Dimensionalized: 3D version of checkers, chess and shogi (Link.)
Shifting Sands Chess. Special squares -- which can be dropped and moved -- change the types of the pieces that land on them. By Tony Quintanilla.
V.R. Parton. A page with information on V.R. Parton. By Jean-Louis Cazaux.
Neutral King Chess. V.R. Parton's game where two armies share a King both must try to mate.

Week of December 23 - December 29:

Photos of Handmade Magnetic Chinese Chess Set. By Fergus Duniho and David Howe.
Piececlopedia Guidelines. How to write a Piececlopedia entry. By Fergus Duniho, the new piececlopedia editor.
Print Your Own 91-Space Hexagonal Board. Useful for many hexagonal Chess variants. By Fergus Duniho.
Stevenson's Four-Player Chess. A game for two 2-player teams on a regular Chess board with the object of capturing all opposing pieces. By Jake Stevenson.

Week of December 16 - December 22:

Photos of Homemade Symbolic Shogi Pieces. By Fergus Duniho and David Howe.
Kung Fu Chess. Simultaneous movement in chess variant as an action and thinking game. (Link.)
Thinktank Chess. Frank Maus' game where most pieces move differently when capturing from how they move without capturing.
Honorable Horse, the Knight in Shogi, added to the Piececlopedia.
Cows and Butterflies. A simple Chess-like game of exchanges and promotions. By Jennifer Aronson.
Modest Variant added:
- Pawn Massacre Chess. A Modest Variant by Jeff "Cavebear" Stroud.
Centaur added to Piececlopedia. Moves as Man or Knight.
Dragon Horse added to Piececlopedia. Promoted Bishop in Shogi.
Dragon King. added to Piececlopedia. Promoted Rook in Shogi.

Week of December 9 - December 15:

Sceptre 1027 A.D.. Large, commercial, multiplayer chess variant.
shat2diag. A Javascript tool to include uncheckered chess variant (e.g., Shatranj) diagrams on webpages.
ABC Chess. A variant with 8 armies of pieces generated by combining 1, 2 or 3 simpler pieces. By Jeff "Cavebear" Stroud.
John Savard's Three-Dimensional Chess (Link.)
Advanced Chess. Pawns move in a similar fashion to the pieces they start in front of. By Este.

Week of December 2 - December 8:

A book on Rithmomachia, (chesslike game from the Middle Ages, based on arithmetic and mathematics), has appeared.
Mysterious Chess. Use cards to place your pieces on the board. By Sergey Sirotkin.
Interdependent Chess, a 42 square variant in which pieces borrow capturing ability from other pieces. By Fergus Duniho. (A submission in the contest to design a Chess variant on 42 squares.)
Tim's 3d Chess. On a 5x5x5 board with two kings per player. By Tim O'Lena.
Chess Assistant Light. Freeware for publishing chess diagrams. (Link.)
New letters in our letterbox.

Week of November 25- December 1:

Chaotenschach. Players start the game by making a secret setup on their own half of the board. By Jörg Knappen.
Interview with Robert Abbott, inventor of Ultima.
What is wrong with Ultima? A webpage on Ultima by its inventor Robert Abbott. (Link.)
Chess Piece Discs. Chess variant pieces on wooden discs. By David Howe.
Revisiting the Crooked Bishop. Ralph Betza discusses his latest thinking of the value of the Crooked Bishop (Boyscout) piece.

Week of November 18- November 24:

Hitchhiker's Guide to Chess - Part II. Several chess variants in the context of a Socratic dialog. By João Pedro Neto with help of Claude Chaunier.
The Chess Variants Play-by-Mail System now also allows games of hexagonal chess variants.
Thoughts on Chess with Different Pawns. Ralph Betza explains the difficulties of composing Chess with Different Pawns.
Mini Thunder Chess, a small-scale hybrid of Metamorph Chess, Fusion Chess, and Assimilation Chess. By Fergus Duniho. (A submission in the contest to design a Chess variant on 42 squares.)
Floppy Board Tiles. An example of a chess variant board construction set. By David Howe.
Spacious Torus Chess. Chess on a toroidal board, using Ralph Betza's spacious pieces. By Jianying Ji.
Klin Zha. Chesslike game played by Klingons from Star Trek on triangular board.
Evolution Chess. 42-square game where each player starts with 20 Knights that evolve and a King. By Jason D. Wittman. (Submission in the contest to design a chess variant on 42 squares.)

Week of November 11- November 17:

Modest Variants added:
- Sacred King Chess and Knightmate Relay Chess. Two Modest Variants by Peter Aronson.
- Restricted Shooting Chess. A Modest Variant by Sergey Sirotkin.
The Pizza Kings. An experimental army for Ralph Betza's Chess with Different Armies, with lots of calories (but no anchovies). By John Lawson.
Build your own Chess Variant Construction Set. By Fergus Duniho.
Crafts index page set up. Submit your own crafts pages.
Sylph. A new entry from the Piececlopedia, which moves forwards and downwards occasionally.
Keeps and Moats: A four-player chess variant (Link.)
Proteus: A Chess Army that Changes at your Command! (Link.)

Week of November 4- November 10:

Dragon. The piece from DragonChess - moves like a combined bishop and King, with capturing from afar.
Worse than Worthless. A discussion of pieces with negative value, and the Nattering Nabobs of Negativity! By Ralph Betza.
Dabbabante Chess. Game of V.R. Parton on a 10x10 board with Super Dabbabah pieces.
Logic Mazes (Robert Abbott's Webpages) (Link.)
Chessapawn. Game where all pieces move forward and a win is by promoting. By Robert Price.
Fighting Fizzies. An experimental army for Ralph Betza's Chess with Different Armies. By Peter Aronson.
Ideal and Practical Values (part 6): A Case Study in Piece Values. A study of the value of the Furlrurlbakking piece. By Ralph Betza.

Week of October 29- November 3:

Hexapawn. Martin Gardner's miniature game of three pawns vs the pawns.
A game in the train with Euwe. Story of a chess game where pawns promote to kings.
A Xiangqi Problem.
Spacious Pieces. Pieces that need a bit more open space to move. By Ralph Betza.
Speedchess: Small variant playable online (Link.)
News: US Chess Federation now sells Omega Chess sets.
News: US Chess Federation now sells Millennium Chess boards.
Platform Chess. Pieces move normally or ride on 2x2 platforms that move themselves. By Robert Price.
Ideal and Practical Values (part 5): Modified Jumpers. A study of the value of Cannon-style jumpers. By Ralph Betza.

Week of October 22 - 28:

Pot-Hole Chess. Game where pot-holes open up on the board at random times. By Peter Spicer.
By Rook Or By Crook. Chess in the round on a hexagonal board with 42 trapezoidal squares. By Jeff Rients.
Ideal and Practical Values (part 4): Odds and Ends. Additional details on the values of Chess pieces. By Ralph Betza.
Mastery: A Game of Skill for Two Players (Link.)
CHESH RULES: 3 player, hexagonal chess (Link.)
New pieces for the Piececlopedia:
- Crowned Rook. Can move as Rook or Man.
- Zelig: piece that takes its capabilities from the file it's on.

Week of October 15 - 21:

Xiangqidiag. A javascript tool to make Xiangqi diagrams on webpages. By Hans Bodlaender.
Xiangqi 42. A minature version of Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) on 42 squares. By Robert Price.
Ideal and Practical Values (part 3): The Rider Problem. Musing on the value of rider pieces. By Ralph Betza.
Ideal and Practical Values (part 2): Atomic Pieces and Subatomic Movements. More on the value of Chess pieces by Ralph Betza.
Chess with Cyclical Armies. Whenever a piece moves, it changes to another type of piece of vaguely similar value. By Peter Aronson.

Week of October 8 - 14:

Zelig Chess. Game where the power of the pieces varies based on their position. By Stan Druben.
Ideal and Practical Values (part 1). A discussion of the values of chess pieces. By Ralph Betza.

Week of October 1 - 7:

New pieces for the Piececlopedia:
- Berolina Plus Pawn. Improved Berlonia Pawn that can also capture to the side.
- Crowned Knight. Can move as Knight or Man.
- Man. Moves like a Ferz or Wazir -- a nonroyal King.
- Raven. Can move as a Rook or a Nightrider.
- Sergeant. A combination of the Berolina and usual Pawns.
Taasen - Tryslmaistan Chess. Fictional chess variant on board made of 24 triangles. (Link.)
Moves of some games, played in round 1 of the Chess with Different Armies competition.
Training Chess: Rook, Bishop, Queen moves. Simple chess variant for training moves of pieces for children that start to learn chess.
Training Chess: Knight moves. Simple chess variant for training the move of the knight for children that start to learn chess.
Jack Be Nimble Chess. Jumping pieces have to learn how before they jump tall pieces. By Ralph Betza.
Cannons and Crabs. The Cannon's move has been slightly changed, and ZRF updated to match.

Week of September 24 - 30:

The first round results for the Chess with Different Armies Tournament are known.
New version of ffen2diag. Javascript tool for easily including diagrams in your webpages. Now labeled columns and rows possible and corrected description how to use the tool.

Week of September 17 - 23:

Theme Index. A new index page which organizes chess variants by the theme upon which they are based. By Brett Ward.
ffen2diag. A javascript tool to include chess (variant) diagrams on webpages.
Chess Morality IV: Dialogue. A poem on Falcon chess, by George William Duke.

Week of September 10 - 16:

List of novelty pieces sent in by Wayne VanWeerthuizen.

The Variant Chess Website (Link.)

Nardeshir - Chess on multiple boards (Link.)

German Xiangqi Federation. Includes problem solving contest. (Link.)

Week of September 3 - 9:

Tag Chess. A two player per side team game where each player moves for half the board. By Robin Wells.
Mega-Chess. A chess game where each piece is a chess game! By David Howe.
Who's who on 8x8? A compilation of Zillions-estimated piece values on an 8x8 board. By Ivan A Derzhanski.

Week of August 27 - September 2:

Super-Chess. On a 12x12 board with slightly more powerful pawns and knights. Armies start back-to-back. By Prashant Sawant.
Two Kingdoms. A decimal variant with a more powerful knight, and an added Archer piece. By Nuno Cruz.
Illustrated rules of Chess. Added translations to the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Edgehog Chess. Three Chess variants featuring John Driver's edge-loving piece the Edgehog.
New entries for Piececlopedia:
- Edgehog. Moves as a Queen, but only to or from an edge.
- Kangaroo. Moves on Queen lines to first square after second jumped over piece.
- Locust. Jumps over opposing pieces on Queen lines to capture.
- Reflecting Bishop. Moves as a Bishop, but can also reflect off of multiple sides of the board.
Insect Chess. On a 12x12 board. All pieces are insect and arachnid representations, with some unique pieces. By Tim Bostick.
Building Chess. Variant that starts with a board of 25 squares, but each player adds a square after their move. By Sergey Sirotkin.

Week of August 20 - 26:

rubble-chess.zip. A Zillions of Games implementation of Rubble Chess. Implemented by Peter Aronson.
Arena Chess 42. A non-competing entry in the 42 Squares contest. By David Howe.
AAUUGH! Chess. After every move, there's a 1 in 18 chance of the rules switching to another in a list of variants. By Adam Norberg.
Zelda Chess. Sword-wielding pieces capture adjacent pieces with or without moving. By Adam Norberg.

Week of August 13 - 19:

Capture the Flag Chess. A translation of the classic children's game to a 42-square board. By Thomas Cameron.
Falcon Chess: Patent Text. With nice background summary of the history of chess variants. By George William Duke.
TeraGames: Chess Warriors (Link.)
M-Chess. Pieces change movement capabilities depending on the column they occupy. By Stan Druben.
Total Chess. A type of three-dimensional chess from the 1940's which is played on four superimposed boards. Invented by Charles Beaty.
Exchess. Photo's of a chess of new chess pieces, designed to fit together with Staunton pieces.
New files for Zillions of Games:
- Augmented Chess. Ralph Betza's game where each type of piece has the powers of a different minor pieced added. By Peter Aronson.
- Cambodian Chess. ZRF by Ivan A. Derzhanski.
- CastleChess. Black wins by castling long, white by preventing this. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Coregal Chess. Both kings and queens are royal. Game of V. R. Parton. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Dutch Chess. Different objective and piece movements with orthodox chess set. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Fussball Chess. Win by moving a piece to the starting square of the king of the opponent. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Kinglet. Object: take all pawns. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Robber Chess. The object is to take all enemy pieces. Line pieces can take more pieces in one turn. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Rooksquare Chess. Win by moving piece to corner at opponent's side. Game of Jens Nielsen. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.

Week of August 6 - 12:

Jim Aikin's Chess Variants (Link.)
Modest Variants added:
- Must Capture Chess. A Modest Variant by Roger Cooper.
- A Simple Proposal. A Modest Variant by Ted Clancy.
- Too Many Elephants. A Modest Variant by Peter Aronson.
- Home Columns Chess and Cartridge Chess. Two Modest Variants by Sergey Sirotkin.
Interview with Tony Quintanilla, winner of the contest to design a chess variant on 41 squares.
Short explanations to Pocket pieces TT. Juraj Lorinc comments on the announcement of the Pocket Pieces Chess Problem Composition Tourney.
Mercurial Chess. A variant on 42 squares with a satallite board and the rescure of captured pieces. By Mark Hedden.

Week of July 29 - August 5:

Multiplayer Chess Rules. A discussion of rules issues for multiple player chess games by 'Jason65'.
Every Man a Pawn. Each piece has the powers of a Pawn (except promotion) in addition to its normal powers. By Peter Aronson.
International 3-D Chess Federation Website (Link.)
Kyoto Shogi and Hex Kyoto Shogi Small shogi variants. (Link.)
Tauschach. Each player has one piece off the board, that can be switched every turn with one of his pieces but not the king.
New files for Zillions of Games:
- Coherent Chess. Variant on 9 by 9 board with special knights. Game of Carlos Cetina. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Sissa. Variant on 9 by 9 board with Sissa's. Game of Carlos Cetina. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Symmetric Sissa. Variant on 9 by 9 board with symmetric setup and two sissa's. Game of Carlos Cetina. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Almost Chess. Queen has combined rook-knight moves. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Amazone Chess. Queen can also move as knight. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Anywhere chess. Pieces (except kings) can make teleport moves to any empty square on the board. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Brett rules. Different mobility of queens, rooks, and bishops and a different winning condition. Game of Juraj Pivovarov. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Chess 2000. Chess on 8 by 8 board with knight/rook and knight/bishop pieces. Game of Gerhard Josten. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Paulowich's Chancellor Chess. David Paulowich's proposal to play chancellor chess with chancellors and queens in the corner on 8 by 8 board. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Stationary Chess. First player that moves his king loses. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Sting. Kings have additional grasshopper power. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Tauschach. Players have one piece except the king of board, which can be switched with a piece instead of a normal move. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Tutti Frutti. With bishop-knight, knight-rook, queen-knight and the usual pieces on an 8 by 8 board. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
Toystore Chess. A problem-like Chess variant on a 5x5 board with free placement. By Richard Stack.

Week of July 22 - 28:

Big Chess. Chess variant on a 14 by 8 square board with extra Pawns, Knights and Bishops. By Sergey Sirotkin.
PieceEater Chess. Yet another game with an indestructible randomly-wandering neutral piece. By Peter Aronson.
Superchess and Monarch. Booklet in English and Dutch and book in Dutch about large chess variants with fantasy pieces. With link.
New files for Zillions of Games:
- Alapo. Game with abstract pieces. Reach opponents first row on 6 by 6 board. Game of Johannes Tranelis. ZRF file by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Demi-Chess. Chess on a 4 by 8 board. ZRF file by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Diana Chess. Chess on a 6 by 6 board. ZRF file by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Elena Chess. Chess on 5 by 6 board. Game of S. Sirotkin. ZRF file by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Extended Half-Chess. Variant on 4 by 10 board. Game of Bryan Lambert. ZRF file by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Hourglas Chess. 38-Square board in shape of Hourglass. Game of Uri Bruck. ZRF file by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Ladder Chess. Variant on 40 square board with ladder shape. ZRF file by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Petty Chess. Chess on a 5 by 6 board. Game of B. Walker Watson. ZRF file by Uwe Wiedemann.

Week of July 15 - 21:

Click and Play (Chess) (Link.)
Multiple Occupancy Miscellany. Various chess variants with multiple pieces per square. By Ralph Betza.
New ZRF-files added, to play these games with Zillions of Games:
- Dunsany's chess. 32 pawns play against a full set of pieces. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Maharadscha, or the Maharaja and the Sepoys. Powerful lonely king against a full set of pieces. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Monster Chess. One player has only a king and four pawns, but makes double moves. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Unirexal Chess. Only white has a king. Game of V. Parton. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Weak! Black has 7 knights, and 16 pawns. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Chazz. Only kings and pawns. Pawns can move backwards. Game of David Moeser. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Pawns Only Chess. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Reduced Endgame Chess. Training chess variant with only kings and three pawns per player. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Separate. Queens start trapped behing enemy lines. Game of Brian Wong. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Transpose Chess. Board is turned 90 degrees. Game of Köksal Karakus. ZRF by Uwe Wiedemann.
- Springermüle. Crossover between Morris and Chess: International Morris with knights. ZRF by Uwe Wiedermann.
- Schachmüle. Crossover between Morris and Chess: International Morris with amazons. ZRF by Uwe Wiedermann.
- Turmmüle. Crossover between Morris and Chess: International Morris with rooks. ZRF by Uwe Wiedermann.
- Cheskers. Crossover between chess and checkers. ZRF by Uwe Wiedermann.
- Byelorussian Cheskers. Crossover between chess and Russian draughts. Game of N. N. Grushevsky and P. A. Shkludov. ZRF by Uwe Wiedermann.
- Schachdame. 19th century crossover between chess and checkers by Heinrich Richter. ZRF by Uwe Wiedermann.
- Knightsbridge. 14 knights against 14 knights on a 7 by 7 board. ZRF by Uwe Wiedermann.

Week of July 8 - 14:

Revelation and Gazump. Two new modest variants by Ian Stirling.
Fairy endgames with 3 pieces. Updated version of Dave McCooey's computer analysis of endgames with two kings and three pieces, including 10 types of fairy pieces.
Play Chess Variants by email!. Fergus Duniho has written a simple but extremely flexible system for playing just about any chess variant via email!
Chess Variant Graphics. A new set of chess variant piece graphics designed by David Howe.
Chess Morality III: Caissa's Comet. A poem on Falcon chess by George William Duke.
Behemoth. Chess with a randomly moving, uncapturable Behemoth piece that can capture multiple pieces in a turn. By Donald Seagraves

Week of July 1 - 7:

Troika. Game on 6 by 6 board with three pieces per player and different movement rules. (Link.)
Peter Leko wins match of Fischer Random Chess against Michael Adams. News item.
A tourney for chess problem composers: Pocket Pieces Thematic Tourney. Closes April 30, 2002. Organized together with Chess Composition Microweb.

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Last modified: Monday, December 22, 2008