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Recognized Chess Variant: Chessapeak Challenge

If I should give a reward for the best design of commercial chess variant sets, then I would choose Chessapeak Challenge, in particular for their pocket edition, and king-size tournament editions. For a modest amount of money, you can buy the magnetic pocket size set, which has a clever design and looks very good. This is a perfect item in someones collection of chess variant sets. The large tournament edition, made from soft-plastic has a board of size about a square meter large and looks impressive.

Apart being good-looking, the game is also very playable. This game belongs to a family of four-player chess variants on a cross-shaped board. Due some additional rules (in particular around the movement of pawns for which there are specifically marked squares on the board), this is one of the better playable games from that family. It is suitable for more and less serious play. Having a good partner is as important as this is in other team games like bridge, but I still recommend the team variant over the variant where each player plays for himself.

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Chessapeak Challenge

WWW page made by Hans Bodlaender.
WWW page created: March 20, 2000.