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Arimaa. Board game playable with standard chess set, hard for computers. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

George Duke wrote on Sun, Feb 9, 2014 09:59 PM UTC:

Warp Point, http://www.chessvariants.org/diffmove.dir/warp-point-chess.html, was invented in connection with CVPage April 2002.  This CVPage article says Arimaa was invented around 2002.  Arimaa USA Patent has filing date October 3, 2003 and priority date October 3, 2002: http://www.patentbuddy.com/Patent/6981700.  That would indicate Arimaa is invented fall or winter 2002-2003.  Though not unprecedented Warp Points are unusual in CVs, and they do have functionality related to later Arimaa Traps.  Unfortunately Omar Syed has never spoken here about Chessic influences and input, but arimaa sites tell of distress over 1996 Deep Blue-Kasparov match prompting new design.

http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/contest84/transporterchess.html -- Transporter squares, four of them, were November 2002 in another CV.

In 1996 Transporters, http://www.chessvariants.org/dpieces.dir/transport.html, one per side, move one step, the same as all the pieces in arimaa.  Follow-up will look at prior art the patent itself cites.  Also to locate are CVs where multiple movements, two or more, in one turn get distributed over two or more p-ts.