Gess

Gess is an abstract strategy board game for two players that blends elements of chess and the game of Go, a debt reflected in its name. It was created by the Puzzles and Games Ring of the Archimedeans, the Cambridge University mathematical society, and first published in their journal Eureka in 1994, before the mathematician Ian Stewart brought it wider attention through a column in Scientific American. The game is played on an eighteen by eighteen grid, matching the line spacing of a standard Go board, with each player starting with forty three stones of their own color. Rather than moving single stones, players move pieces defined by overlaying a three by three window on the board, where the pattern of stones inside that window determines both how far and in which directions the piece may travel, echoing the movement of chess pieces. A piece captures any opposing stones its footprint passes over or lands on, and a player loses once none of their stones remain arranged into a ring, a formation of eight stones surrounding an empty center square.