CHESS II

Setup

This game is a variant of chess wherein two additional chess pieces called "princes" and two additional pawns per player are incorporated in play. To accommodate the additional pieces, 16 more squares are added to the traditional chessboard.

satellite=chessii files=10 ranks=8 holdingsType=0 promoZone=1 maxPromote=1 promoChoice=QNRB royal=7 graphicsDir=/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/ squareSize=50 whitePrefix=w blackPrefix=b graphicsType=png darkShade=#CF8948 lightShade=#FFCC9C rimColor=#000000 coordColor=#FFFFFF useMarkers=1 borders=0 firstRank=1 symmetry=mirror pawn::::a2-j2 prince:E:K:duke:d1,g1 knight:N:::b1,i1 bishop::::c1,h1 morph=# rook::::a1,j1 queen::::e1 king::KisO3::f1

Pieces

The princes, which are positioned on either side of the king and the queen, move in the same manner as the king and are promoted to kings when they succeed in reaching the other side of the chessboard in the same manner that pawns are promoted to queens in traditional chess.

The princes may be played like an ordinary chess piece - to threaten, capture or defend - or else be preserved for the endgame in order to be promoted to kings. All other aspects of the game of chess, including castling of the king on either side of the board in the usual positions are retained.

Rules

The objective of the game is to either checkmate the enemy king or promote one of the two princes. The first player to promote a prince or checkmate the enemy king wins. Draws occur in the same manner as in ordinary chess, if neither side has the forces to promote the prince or checkmate the enemy king.

Because of the two modes by which a player can win, it is possible for both sides to launch double-pronged attacks on all flanks aimed at promoting his prince and checkmating the opposing king. Both players may find themselves simultaneously attacking and defending in strategies and combinations not possible in traditional chess.

The game actually incorporates two games in one. To play ordinary chess, the princes and the four extra pawns are simply eliminated from the board and the 16 excess squares on either side of the board excluded from play.

Other variations of the game include the following:

1. A player wins only if he is able to checkmate all his opponent's kings. Thus, if a player is able to promote his princes to kings, his opponent has to eliminate all these kings in order to win. The player who still has a king at the end of the game wins. Two or three kings may combine to checkmate a single enemy king. In this variation, mere promotion of a prince does not win the game outright for the player.

2. The prince moves and captures like a combined rook and bishop (or queen) but its moves are limited to two squares either diagonally or along/across files. In this variation, the princes may not be promoted to kings but are used like any other ordinary chess piece.

3. The prince may only move sideways or forward one square at a time either diagonally or along a file but not backwards in the same manner that a pawn cannot move backwards. In this variation, promotion of the prince wins the game.

4. Another variation is that the pawns may or not be promoted in this game.

Major selling points

1. Any chess player can learn to play the game in a matter of minutes. Thus, all chess players as well as potential players constitute a huge and almost unlimited market for the game.

2. It is actually two games in one, incorporating the old game of chess as well as the new one with the mere addition of four new pieces such that any player would have the option of playing either game with the same set any time he wants.

3. Although not much harder to play, it is much more complex than traditional chess and opens a whole new world of chess theory, opening variations, mid-game and end-game strategies, etc. that many jaded chess players would be hard put to resist, specially with the advent of sophisticated computer chess programs that have taken the challenge out of traditional chess.

4. Unlike other new board games that quickly catch the imagination of the gaming public and just as rapidly fade from view, this new game can be expected to endure for as long as chess itself, from which it is based, endures.

5. The new game is more representative of romantic reality wherein kings are succeeded by their descendant princes and die in battle rather than resign before they are actually defeated. The game offers the spectacle of kings and princes and allied kings ganging up on enemy kings and gives vent to a player’s "killer instinct" more than the old game of chess does.

6. Because of the two modes by which a player may win, the new game offers opportunities for simultaneous offensive and defensive strategies that are not possible in traditional chess.

7. The new game offers software developers in the saturated chess market new opportunities to develop Chess II programs more complex and challenging than traditional chess software.

Jesse A. Obligacion
Inventor/Maker

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