Chessence is a chess variant devised by Jim Winslow in 1989. It is played on a small board of six columns by nine rows with eight squares blacked out, so the playing area is irregular rather than a plain rectangle. Each side has a king and nine ordinary men, but only six men begin on the board and the other three wait in reserve beside it. The king never moves and cannot step out of check, which makes the men do all the work. A man gains the power to move like a rook, bishop or knight only through its position relative to a friendly man: orthogonal neighbours both move as rooks, diagonal neighbours move as bishops, and a pair a knight's move apart move as knights. A man with no such partner is frozen. A turn is either a move or the entry of a reserve man onto one of the six starting squares. Checks, checkmate and captures follow chess, and a player with no legal move loses.
Facts
Sport
Game Type (category) Classification
Player Count Connections
Derived From
Chess, Games Source Chessence game record at the Ludii Portal
Sources
1. Chessence (Wikipedia)
Lead paragraph, objectiveQuote, Lead paragraph, objective
To win, a player must checkmate or stalemate the opponent.
2. Chessence game record at the Ludii Portal
Description, creator and year
Chessence is a chess variant invented by Jim Winslow in 1989.
Description, board
The board is a 6×9 rectangle of squares with eight squares missing.
Derived From: Chess, Description, lead sentence
Chessence is a chess variant invented by Jim Winslow in 1989.
View the SourceReader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.