Check out Balbo's Chess, our featured variant for October, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, George Duke.

Baseball Chess

Major Leagues. Let's Play Ball by the Rules. [dust-up. The scene is any park in the Americas from Tierra del Fuego northwards. fade-in. Ball-players and chess-players congegrate in opposite fields.] Wanting to investigate why so many 9x9s are great, notwithstanding Shogi is so bad, I seredipitously invented Baseball Chess. 9 innings on 90x90 feet bases, squares all around, 9 player-pieces, 9 nonants of 9 squares each, 9x9 Baseball Chess. These are the comments from which Baseball originates: Baseball. In reverse chronological order are major Mutators: the DIAMOND, HIT BY PITCH, BUNTS, The BATTERY, FLY BALLS, GROUNDBALLS, TAKING THE FIELD, EXTRA INNINGS & ONE-RUN LEAD, STOLEN BASES, RELIEF PITCHERS, PINCH HITTERS, STRIKES & BALLS, and HITS & HOMERUNS. I hope to break this up into several articles, in order to add annotations for suggested combinations of Mutators best employed. They appear progressively later, for example, Hits&Homeruns follow Mutator 's'. Let's Play Ball! The starting lineup: LeftFd/3rd Base/Shortshop/Catcher/Pitcher/CrFd/2ndBase/1stBase/RtField Rook/Knight/Bishop/King/Queen/Cardinal/Bishop/Knight/Rook A_____B_____C_____D_____E_____F_____G_____H_____I. From a1 to i1 the players are nothing but a Carrera-Capablanca array, omitting Champion alone (RN) behind 9 Pawns. See Carrera. Now each piece has a corresponding ''nonant.'' Quadrant (1/4) and Sextant (1/6) usually of a Circle are well understood. Mathematical nonant (1/9) on 9x9 is a 3x3 subset of squares. Obviously the nonants fall into the pattern to the right, so that LF___CF___RF the Pi(=Qu) has control where Pitcher herself situates SS___PI___2B on any of the squares d4, d5, d6, e4, e5, e6, f4, f5 or f6. 3B___CA___1B Finding the corresponding 3x3 matrix, Right Field (=Rook) has nonant g7,g8,g9,h7,h8,h9,i7,i8,i9; and so on. Only 3B(N) and 1B(N) are initially in their nonant at array position, being mirror-image RNBKQCBNR each side and the Pawn row in front. One nonant is inactive initially and normally, the Catcher-King's. The Baseball schema throws off a family of untold millions of games. Differing effects depend on whether pieces must be within their nonants or not. Each Mutator named later will have its own 10 or so subvariants, creating in combinations the millions of ways of Baseball, Baseball Chess. Here begin many alternative complete games lettered, CVs of Baseball Chess: (a) OrthoChess with also that any piece within his nonant immobilizes adjacent enemy units (after Ultima); (b) any piece on one of its 9 squares reduces adjacent pieces to one square only (after Altair). (c) any piece so within her nonant is immune to capture.

Setup

LF__CF__RF Rook-Cardinal-Rook Nonant1 Nonant2 Nonant3 SS__PI__2B Bishop-Pitcher-Bishop Nonant4 Nonant5 Nonant6 3B__CA__1B Knight-Catcher-Knight Nonant7 Nonant8 Nonant9 Set-up repeated is 9x9 and usual array RNBKQCBNR, where C is Cardinal being BN. Thread 'ChessboardMath3' from August and September 2008 has slightly more material on Baseball Chess than appears in this article. Continuing sequentially with subvariants, (d) Any piece within its nonant may remove one Pawn of choice from each side, in lieu of turn. (e) Any piece, without itself being within the nonant 3x3 may move one opponent piece or Pawn positioned on one of that nonant 9 in any otherwise legal move, instead of regular move. (f) Any piece not actually in nonant may move (jump, drop) to any vacant square there as a replacement turn. (g) Any piece passing through its nonant, considered to be any one square of the 9, may change directions once, according to its movement. (after Gala). (h) Any piece on a nonant 9 may move himself twice. (i) Any piece within its nonant may teleport another friendly piece to vacant square within that nonant. (j) Any piece in nonant may move opponent King one square normally, in place of move.

Pieces

From fall 2008 comments copied to this same article will be clusters of Mutators around: HITS & HOMERUNS, STRIKES & BALLS, PINCH HITTERS, RELIEF PITCHERS, STOLEN BASES, EXTRA INNINGS and ONE-RUN LEAD, TAKING the FIELD, GROUND BALLS, FLY BALLS, The BATTERY, BUNTS, HIT BY PITCH, and The DIAMOND. LF CF RF <====>Rook___Cardinal___Rook SS PI 2B <====>Bishop___Queen____Bishop R___N___B___K___Q___C___B___N___R 3B CA 1B <====>Knight___King___Knight a___b___c___d___e___f___g___h___i To show other further examples one at a time, Left Field for White Kingside Rook is nonant(a7,a8,a9,b7,b8,b9,c7,c8,c9). Left Field for Black Rook starting on i9 is nonant(g1,g2,g3,h1,h2,h3,i1,i2,i3). Teams may decide whether Bishop Adjustment Rule (conversion) applies and what form of castling, neither appearing in any of these lettered Mutators for their simplicity.

Rules

The rules are anything you want so long as availing the nonants. Try it at home; or just use home plate. In Baseball rightfielder does not stray from right field, firstbaseman from first base etc. In Baseball Chess, if and when they get to their ''real'' positions, or stay put there, they gain powers, super-powers at your will. (k) On arrival at his nonant, a piece may immediately bring another friendly piece along adjacent to any vacant square within, called Rallying. The differing modalities of 'k' and 'i' should be apparent on close reading. (l) Firstbaseman-Knight, already in his nonant, gets 'Triple Play' by just remaining there three turns. Hey, there's a lot of the lolligagging in real Baseball too. Triple play requires moving immediately any mix of enemy Pawns fully three times as replacement turn. (m-sub-i) Conflicting nonants. The main shared nonant by same-player-types of both sides is Queen's central d4-d4-d6-e4-e5-e6-f4-f5-f6. Think of it as a parity violation or Xiangqi-like exposed file. Upon entering the nonant, she captures (removes) the other Queen if anywhere within the nonant shared already. (m-sub-ii) Pitcher-Queen arriving at her central nonant, called the 'Mound', if the other Queen situates there too on any others of the 9 squares, gets to ''throw a spitter.'' Throwing a spitter means any one radial lline is chosen (out of the eight) from that Queen's position, and all pieces along it are mowed down and removed (both colours). 'sub-iii' So tossing the spitter is also variously regionally known as ''Rolling the Ball'' or rather illogically ''Curving the ball,'' and m-sub-iii here permits rolling the Ball to remove, i.e. capture King too, i.e. checkmate. (n) The Cardinal-CenterFielder's nonant encompasses the other player's King in the beginning; and these particular nonants are called Home Plate. White's is d7,d8,d9,e7,e8,e9,f7, f8,f9; and Black's Home Plate is nonant(d1,d2,d3,e1,e2,e3,f1,f2,f3). In 'n' Mutator here, when Cardinal-CenterFielder reaches Home Plate, that team wins, regardless whereabouts of King or escape route, except allowance for immediate capture of that C-CF. (o) Cardinal in Home Plate checking also immobilizes, ergo checkmate, unless captured from a distance. (p) Cardinal(BN) to a Home Plate square, any of the nine, promotes to Amazon(BRN). (q) Cardinal to Home Plate removes, unless itself immediately captured, the other Cardinal anywhere on the board. (r) Carrera-Capablanca Cardinal to Home Plate moves again right away, called a relay. (s) Arrival at her nonant Home Plate is Foul Ball, displacing said Cardinal at once to any vacant square on the board at choice; a Foul Ball is thus deliberately advantageous more often than not. [Baseball Chess 'm-subii' and 's' would be a good pair of Mutators, conjoining Spitballs by the Queen on the Mound and Foulballs by the Cardinal at Home Plate. In selective prior agreement by both teams as few as two such Mutators are interesting play of the game.]

Notes

The very last Mutator, The DIAMOND, actually is to become the most critical and interesting one. When combinations of mutators are activated, we would recommend, most of all, The DIAMOND ones, choosing from at least one of them, for the very essence of the invention. Clearly combinations of Baseball (a) to (z) to (aaaa) to (zzzz) to (...zzzzzzz) can go on for billions of neat Variates -- a new class of Mutators -- awarding to pieces certain groups of squares for control or effect exclusively. That would be the broader ''Baseball'' concept hereby. Normally opposing sides would agree on from 2 to 12 Mutators for use in a game. See also FalconChess for Mutators such as Pinch Hitters later in this development. These are the comments from which Baseball Chess originates: Baseball.

This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.

By George William Duke.

Last revised by Fergus Duniho.


Web page created: 2009-07-05. Web page last updated: 2023-02-15