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Five stars chess

Chessclub `Promotie' (`Promotion') in Zoetermeer, the Netherlands has for many years each year between Christmas and New Years Eve an `Oliebollen'-tournament. (Oliebollen are a traditional Dutch treat for the end of the year.) In this tournament, several chess variants are played - some existing ones, but also several new ones, just invented for the occasion.

One of such variants, described in a booklet called `Bloemlezing Humorschaak', written by Henk Breugem of SV Promotie, is this variant, called `Five stars chess'. The variant is probably invented by Henk Breugem or another member of Chessclub `Promotie'.

Rules

A normal game is chess is played, apart from the following rule: one can win in two different ways. One is to mate the opponent, as usual, but the other is to create `five-in-a-row': if one moves such that there are five pieces in a horizontal row (but not one of the first three rows), a vertical row, or a diagonal row, then one wins the game. White must start the game with a move with a knight.

Variants

The description is the booklet does not clearly state whether one may have pieces of the opponent in a row that one creates. Of course, both options here would make a light funny game, worth to try out, preferably with fast play (the booklet mentions 10 minutes time per player for the entire game, which was used in the tournament - this seems indeed about the right speed for this game.)


Written by Hans Bodlaender, based on Henk Breughem's booklet.
WWW page created: January 26, 1997.