Chessvariants.com -- What Was New in Oct - Dec 2000?

• Week of December 17 - December 23, 2000:
  • Hidden Target Chess, Double Blind Chess, two new modest variants invented by Matthew Ackroyd.
  • Chessnuts 1999. Chessnuts is the newsletter of the Circular Chess Society. This is the 1999 issue. By Rob Stevens.
  • Dien Bien Phu Chess. Unequal armies chess variant: FIDE chess against Quang Trung Chess. By Vu Q. Vo.
  • Quang Trung Chess (4th edition). Variant with standard equipment, with different moving pieces, and elements of Xiangqi and FIDE-chess. By Vu Q. Vo.
  • Thoughts on judging. Comments of jury member Ben Good on the 40 squares chess variant design competition.
  • Graphics: A file with several empty chess (variant) boards of different sizes, by Derek Nalls.
  • Chessnuts 2000. Newsletter of the Circular Chess Society for the year 2000. By Rob Stevens.
  • Nomic Chess. Combination of Peter Suber's Nomic with Ralph Betza's Chess For Any Number of Players. By David Howe.
• Week of December 10 - December 16, 2000:
  • Pascal Reysset and Jean-Louis Cazaux, L'univers des Échecs. Information on a new French book on chess variants.
  • Zillions file for several large Chess variants played on a 10x8 board, including Gothic Chess, Capablanca's Chess, Bird's Chess, Janus Chess, and a few more. By Fergus Duniho.
  • Chess on a 12 by 12 board. orthodox chess but with additional squares around the setup. By Doug Vogel.
  • Intrigue. Players each select a pawn which holds the king's secret position. By Nigel Chapman.
  • Little Dragon Chess. Modern small variant of Xiangqi on board of 41 squares. By Peter Aronson. Submission for the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares.
• Week of December 3 - December 9, 2000:
  • Mi Arena Chex. Hexagonal chess variant, by Brent Thomas. Revised version.
  • Fantasy Grand Chess. Variant of Grand Chess with different armies and fantasy theme. By Peter S. Hatch. New version.
  • Laser Chess. Link to website on Laser Chess, with programs, rules, and history of this game.
  • Zillions file for John Leslie's Hostage Chess, a game David Pritchard described as the Chess variant of the decade. ZRF by Fergus Duniho.
  • Heraldic Chess Review. A review of Modest Solans' game Heraldic Chess. By David Howe.
• Week of November 26 - December 2, 2000:
  • Baseline chess: switching positions. Chess variant proposal where one can start with switching pieces on the baseline. Variant of Baseline chess.
  • Chancellor Chess (Book): chess problems featuring a chancellor are added. Solve some more than 100 year old problems!
  • Action Man's Chess. A small (5x6) board and simple pieces ensures lots of easy-to-understand action. By Francois Tremblay.
  • Gothic Chess. Ed Trice's improvement to Capabalanca's chess, played on a 10x8 board with the Archbishop and Chancellor as new pieces. (Link.)
  • David B. Pritchard, the well known author of several chess, chess variant, and board game books, including the Encyclopedia of Chess Variants will be the judge for the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares.
  • Interview with Darren Izzard, winner of the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 40 squares.
• Week of November 19 - November 25, 2000:
  • Review of Winning Chess: Tactics and Strategies, by Ted Nottingham, Al Lawrence, and Bob Wade. Book for improving chess for children.
  • Tapestry Chess. Chess on a four-color 6x6 board, with a 5 square control board. By David Howe.
  • Chancellor Chess (Book). In the late 1800's, Ben R. Foster created a chess variant called Chancellor Chess, and also published a book on it. By Ben R. Foster.
  • Handicap Chess. Pieces can capture only certain types of other pieces. By Francois Tremblay.
  • Chess Variant Quotations: Burroughs. A quote from the Chessmen of Mars, by the author of the Tarzan books.
  • Chess Variant Quotations: Asimov. A quote from Asimov's Pebble in the Sky about chess variants. Please email us when you know more nice quotes from books that mention chess variants!
  • Three Player Hex Shogi 91, a hexagonal Shogi variant for three players. By Fergus Duniho. Zillions file for playing it with Zillions of Games.
• Week of November 12 - November 18, 2000:
  • Winners of the 40 squares chess variant design contest. Congratulations to Darren Izzard, who won the contest with Philosopher's Chess, and the other winners. And many thanks to judges Ralph Betza and Ben Good.
  • Hex Shogi 81, a hexagonal Shogi variant on an 81-space board. By Fergus Duniho.
  • Hex Shogi 91, a hexagonal Shogi variant on a 91-space board. By Fergus Duniho.
  • Detailed description of Hex Shogi, a new family of hexagonal Shogi variants by Fergus Duniho. Zillions files Hex Shogi 41, 81, and 91.
• Week of November 5 - November 11, 2000:
  • A. Dickins, A guide to fairy chess. Short information on out-of-print book on fairy pieces and conditions from fairy chess problems.
  • Foreign Policy Chess. Three player chess variant on 8 by 8 board with different armies. By Francois Tremblay.
  • Hex Shogi 41. Hexagonal shogivariant on board with 41 squares. By Fergus Duniho. Submission for the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares.
  • ChessWar: chesswar.html (Link.)
• Week of October 30 - November 4, 2000:
  • Spatial Chess 14 x 14. Each player has 16 bishops, 22 rooks, 4 queens on 14 by 14 board. By Derek Nalls.
  • New pieces for the Piececlopedia:
    • Xiangqi Pawn. Moves and captures one square straight forward.
    • Minister (Xiangqi). Moves two squares diagonally (non-jumping).
  • ZRF-file for Chess in the Fast Lane. You can now play this game when you have Zillions-of-Games. Game of Francois Tremblay, ZRF-file made by Peter Aronson.
  • TouchdownChess. Commercial chess variant. orthodox chess pieces on big board, where you can win by scoring touchdowns: moving pieces across the goal line at the other side of the board. (Link.)
• Week of October 23 - October 29, 2000:
  • ZRF-file for Trubix. You can now play this game when you have Zillions-of-Games. Game of David Short, ZRF-file made by Peter Aronson.
  • Subway Chess. In a turn, player moves first middle subway part of board and then a piece. By Francois Tremblay. Submission for the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares.
  • Chess in the Fast Lane. Squares on an 8 by 8 board are grouped together to form one position. By Francois Tremblay. Submission for the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares.
  • Monkey Do Chess. A modest variant which involves making limited double moves. By Ed Friedlander.
  • Penguin Chess. A modest variant in which pieces can move to any empty square. By Anders Ebenfelt.
  • Baseline chess with Fischer rules. Start with dropping major pieces on baseline, a variant that uses rules from Fischer Random Chess but is not random. By Ken Regan.
  • Trubix. Chess variant on board with 41 squares, by David Short. Submission for the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares.
• Week of October 23 - October 29, 2000:
  • Placement. Only kings start on board; other pieces are dropped to home square and then moved.
  • ZRF-file for Sudden Death Chess, by Doug Chatham. With this file, and the Zillions-of-Games program, you can play Sudden Death Chess.
  • Two Pipe Chess. Setup on 41-squares board looks like two tobacco pipes. By Doug Chatham. Submission for the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares.
  • Snark Hunt. Variant with unequal armies on board with 41 squares, inspired on poem of Lewis Carroll. By Peter Aronson. Submission for the contest to design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares.
  • Zillions of Games version 1.2.1 is now available!
  • VOTE! Voting is now open in the 100 Square Contest! Rate the games, make comments, and read the comments and ratings of others!
• Week of October 16 - October 22, 2000:
  • The Chess Variant Pages moved to a new server. Some updates were lost.
• Week of October 9 - October 15, 2000:
  • The 41-squares chess variant design contest. First announcement of our new contest: design a chess variant on a board with 41 squares, and win a nice prize! Closing date: March 31, 2001.
  • Two Man Team, Five Board, 5-Minute Chess: twomanteamfiveboard.html (Link.)
• Week of October 2- October 8, 2000:
  • FIDE-like rules for 3D Chess: 3d-fidelikerules.html (Link.)
  • The Games Journal: thegamesjournal.html (Link.)
  • Chessence: chessence.html (Link.)
  • Varying Chess: varyingchess.html (Link.)
  • World War Chess: worldwarchess.html (Link.)
  • Nalls' Hex Chess. Large chess variant on a hexagonal resembling board with squares. By Derek Nalls.
  • Request for (financial) help for Superior Chess. (News item.)
  • Heraldic Extinction Chess. Win by taking a pair of pieces that started on the same line in the opening setup. By Hans Bodlaender.
  • Eight Kings. This game has analogy to a puzzle, in which it is necessary to place the king so that they attacked all free squares of a board, but here are added pawn. By Sergey Sirotkin.
  • Imitating Chess. Pieces moves as the last moved piece. By Sergey Sirotkin.
  • Chameleon Chess. On each turn the rank of the moved piece changes. By Sergey Sirotkin.

• Index to older `whatsnew' files.