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.

• Index to older `whatsnew' files.

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Last modified: Monday, December 22, 2008