Chess
BY PHILIDOR
No. 28.
W. A. EHINKMAN (2nd Prize. Montreal Spectator, 1880).
WHITE, meu.
mate in 2 moves: solution next week.
THE LUNATIC FRINGE
Assuming one is foolish enough to play chess at all, a change from the normal game is some- times refreshing. New pieces are one way of changing it, but on the whole rather a dull way, I think: new rules are much more intriguing. In this article I can only giye one or two. Les Jens d'Echecs non Orthodoxes, by Prof. J. Boyer, is a learned and fascinating description of the nightmare world of chess fantasy.
Losing chess is worth an occasional game: moves as in ordinary chess, captures compulsory, king taken like any other piece (you will find this horrible regicide difficult to commit without a shudder, first time), object to lose all pieces, stalemate a win or draw according to taste. Beware your own bishop: with the queen or rook you have usually a choice of captures and can thus force a recapture, but when the bishop gets under way it may be forced to capture every hostile piece but the opposing bishop of opposite colour.
`Blitz' is a favourite variation of mine. White has one move, then Black two, then White three ...; if you check, your turn ceases immedi- ately (this is to prevent capture of king), and when checked a player must get out of check on his first move. Example: 1 P-K 4, 1 . P-Q 4, P x P; 2 B-B 4, Q Kt-B 3, K Kt-K 2. 2... B-Kt 5, B x Kt, B x Q, B x P. 3 Kt-Kt 5- Q 4-B 6-K 5, 13 x P mate. Very entertaining game and good for one's powers of combination; K and R v. K is a draw in this game, incidentally.
Finally (for real mental gymnastics), 'Aliciate or Looking-glass chess. This needs two boards, though you can play it with two sets of men on one board. First board starts full, the second empty, and you always play from one board on to the other: thus, if you play P-K 4, the K P appears on K 4 on the second board—play it now to K 5, and it reappears on the first. The same square may not be occupied on both boards at the same time, and to get out of check you must move king to a square that is not attacked on either board. Example (letter after move indicates board to which piece has played: all start on board A): 1 P-K 4 (13), P-Q 3 (B); 2 B-K 2 (B), Kt-Q B 3? (B); 3 I3-Kt 5 (A) mate—because any piece Black attempts to inter- pose automatically disappears on to board B!
Postscript.—You can make any of these games a little trickier if you like by treating the board as a cylinder, so that pieces playing off the king rook's file reappear on the queen rook's file. Or, of course, by having eight boards and playing three-dimensionally.
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