1999 Large Chess Variant Contest Index

Entry 1 -- Chesseract

Jim Aikin
January 5, 1999
Chesseract

This four dimensional variant is modeled after a tesseract (the four-dimensional analog of a cube). Simply picture a cube and then simply extend it's volume into the 4th dimension. Jim has supplied ample descriptions and two-dimensional diagrams in his submission. Not for the spacially challenged!

Quote from the author:

This is a serious contest entry only in the sense that I hope it will inspire others to try out their loony ideas. It has been "tested" in only one sense: I'm fairly sure none of the pieces in the starting lineups can directly capture one another (not a trivial problem, as you'll see).

Entry 2 -- Eight-Stone Chess

Jim Aikin
January 7, 1999
Eight-Stone Chess

This variant adds an extra row along with 8 movable stones to the board. Players use the stones to block enemy pieces, protect their own pieces, or position their pieces.

Quote from the author:

Here's a large variant that's actually playable, and might even be fun! It's an outgrowth of my Amoeba variant.

Entry 3 -- Centennial Chess

John William Brown
January 20, 1999
Centennial Chess

Quote from the author:

The Centennial Chess board has 100 squares--one for each year of our now departing century. Such 10x10 games, often called decimal chess, have been the holy grail of game designers for ages. Many scholars felt that the move to a 10x10 board would be the next logical step in the chess’s continuing evolution. Centennial Chess was created with this thought in mind. A number of experienced players now consider it to be the best decimal variant known to date. It is my sincere hope that you will come to appreciate the game as much as they have.

Entry 4 -- Nahbi Chess

Quote from the author:

Some chess variants are named for a feature that distinguishes them from standard chess. Likewise, this variant is named for a particular piece - Nabi. The Nabi in this game is a shorter range version of a piece that was originally devised for Ackanomic Party Chess. While I was writing the original rules for that one, and through later amendments, a player, whose nickname in Ackanomic was Mohammed, made significant contributions. I decided it would be appropriate to name a piece in honor of this player. I called the piece il-Nabi - Arabic for "the Prophet". Later I considered that a similar piece could be used in a more "traditional" variant as well, and I came up with this one.

Entry 5 -- Edge of the World Chess

This game is similar to Momentum Chess. It is played on a 12x12 board with the normal chess pieces arrayed in the inner 8x8 board. Pieces continue to move each turn according to their momentum (velocity really).

Entry 6 -- Jester Chess

Jester Chess appears in John William Brown's Meta-Chess book. It features the Jester, a piece which takes on the move of the opponents most recently moved piece. Also featured is the Archer which has a ranged attack move.

Entry 7 -- Omega Chess

Omega Chess is a commercial chess variant which features two new pieces, the Wizard and the Champion. It's played on a 10x10 board with four extra corner squares.

This game should not be confused with Omega Chess by Gabriel Vicente Maura.

Entry 8 -- Scirocco

Quote from the author:

To me, Scirocco has a sort of "antique" feel, like the chess variants from the medieval Islamic world. I named the game (and the most important piece in the game) for the wind that blows from the Sahara into Europe because that wind seemed like a good emblem for the Arabic influence that brought to Europe the game of Shatranj, which evolved into the modern Orthochess.

On first glance, the profusion of pieces in Scirocco may make the game look absurdly complex (then again, if you're a Chu Shogi player, it may look ridiculously simple). It is true that I put more different kinds of piece into this game than most chess inventors do, and I blatantly defied D.B. Pritchard's advice in his Encylopedia entry for "Designing a Variant":

An elegant game combines minimum rules with maximum strategy.... Many inventors assume that making a game more complicated will make it better but usually the opposite is true.

Entry 9 -- Maelstrom

Quote from the author:

I can only claim half the credit for this game, as I created this game with a friend called Richard Winn several years ago; the game is quite fun to play especially against a computer as the extra pieces can be added if you have a suitable set up programme. Originally the game was called "Full Board Chess". I have re-named it Maelstrom.

Entry 10 -- Mammoth Chess

Quote from the author:

Though this game is intended to meet the modern requirements of a game (less opening based, more favorable to human creativity), I have specifically chosen pieces (and rules) which, I believe, honor the ancient origins of the game. At the same time, I've made every effort to keep a similarity with Standard Chess.

This game represents my view of how Chess could evolve:

Toward a more complex, more balanced, simpler, more imbalanced Middle- or End-game, where somebody almost always wins.

Entry 11 -- Quang Trung Chess

Quote from the author:

Quang Trung Chess is invented by Vu Q. Vo, which was started in July of 1992 and finally completed on March 3rd, 1999. The game is named in honor of Vietnam's late 18th century military hero, Emperor Quang Trung.

...three of the seven pieces from Quang Trung Chess were adopted from other chess variants. Each piece came from a different variant: the bishop from (FIDE) Chess, the elephant from Tamerlane Chess, and the knight from Chinese Chess. The remaining four pieces are uniquely Quang Trung Chess. The rook is designed so that it could be safely blocked. The king is designed to give check. The pawn is designed to eliminate the need for promotion. The queen is added since it is simply beautiful in its simplicity, geometry, and function.

Entry 12 -- Pick-the-team Chess

Quote from the author:

Many people think that chess is a simulation of warfare. However, it actually is a highly stilized form of `tag' by teams. There are two teams of players, and when a player tags a player of the other team, that player is out of the game. The team that first tags the captain of the other team wins.

Usually, the abstract form of tag called chess is played by two teams that are the same, and are also fixed at the start of the game. However, remember the team sports games we played as children? Then, two captains were chosen, and the captains got to choose the other members of the teams - alternatingly, the captains chose one player from those that were not yet assigned to a team.

Unfortunately, chess teams were never picked in this way and my skills in ball-sports were not so large, so I always had the experience to be among those that were chosen last ...

Entry 13 -- Tamerlane II

Quote from the author:

Tamerlane 2 is a genuine Large Chess Variant with a large board, a large number of different pieces and the typical flavor due to several unique rules like color conversion for bounded pieces, promotion for other than pawns or king replacement. To my opinion, the major trap of such a Large Chess, having too many powerful pieces which turns the game into a boring massacre, as been avoided by rejecting the inclusion of Queen or equivalently ranked piece on the initial setup. Well, this is just an opinion...

Entry 14 -- Shako

Quote from the author:

In this contest, Shako belongs to a sub-category of Decimal Chess which is very popular probably because the board is easily available from International Draughts. I consider that its strongest points are: 1) Respect of the internal arrangement of the Orthodox pieces which makes it familiar even for the fresh player. Main FIDE chess principles are therefore still valid: openings, etc. 2) Introduction of two new pieces, both kind of leapers, one orthogonal, one diagonal which is a balanced choice. The orthogonal is the well known Xiang-Qi Cannon while the diagonal is a "modernization" of the old Alfil. I noticed that these two points are also endorsed by many more recent CV, apparently with no direct inspiration between each other. I'm pretty happy of that, it shows that we are on the good way.

Entry 15 -- Chess99

This variant utilizes various progressive concepts to create new pieces. Pieces gain increased progressive capabilities when they promote.

Entry 16 -- Camblam

Quote from the author:

In the game of Camblam I have taken ideas from two previous games I have invented (Chivalry and Agis)

I have taken the name of the game from the legendary last battle of King Arthur who fought against his nephew Mordred. Which legend has it was fought at Camblam.

Entry 17 -- Spinach Chess

Quote from the author:

As we all know from already half a century old cartoons, Spinach can make you very strong. In this chess variant, most pieces can do special `strong' moves, called spinach moves. A spinach move consists of making a series of two or more normal moves with the same piece in succession in one turn. Only the last of these moves may be a capturing move.

Entry 18 -- Ultra Chess

Quote from the author:

I developed this variation following the same philosophy of "Real Chess" that I proposed previously.

In the past "Xianqi" had to move from Asia to the Aristocracy in Europe. People of that times felt the necessity to introduce "King" and "Queen" to fit the spirit of that age. What they did, was to create nowadays chess as we know it.

In "Real Chess", I tried to reproduce "Xianqi" as it was, a War game, with a General ("King"), two powerful warrior at his side ("Queens") and so on. There is another possibility, I think also reasonable and logical. Introduce the King and Queen as our ancestor wanted.

The only way to do that without removing one of the "powerful warriors" - and then create the nowadays 8x8 chess game - is to leave al the war pieces as they are, and introduce a King and a Queen instead of the "General". In this way the board gets 10x10. Everything is symmetric as in "Real Chess".

Entry 19 -- Conveyor Chess

Quote from the author:

Conveyor Chess is a chess variant I came up with as an entry in the Large Variant 99 Contest. Its main feature is the central "conveyor belt" that takes pieces places.

The center of the board has two areas where pieces' moving abilities are ignored. These areas form the conveyor belt. If a piece moves onto a square which has an arrow pointing from it the piece must do two things:1) the piece must end its move immediately, and 2) when the piece moves again, it will move to the square the arrow points to, regardless of what type of piece it is. Movement on the conveyor belt is vountary and takes up one turn.