This is the first of four parts on Spartan Chess:
1. Spartan Chess – The Dream
2. What makes Spartan Chess Different?
- Waiting for the other Shoe to Drop
3. Spartan Chess – The Process
4. Spartan Chess - The Business
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SPARTAN CHESS – THE DREAM
Some people count sheep to get to sleep...
Having played tournament chess when I was in college, back when Bobby Fisher was winning a World Championship, a few years ago I started thinking about creating a chess variant. The variant needed to have two completely different sides with different strategies while still being fun and balanced. Must already have been done I thought as I poked around the internet and “Zounds!” found the Chess Variants web site. Yahoo!
There was the very fine Chess with Different Armies and others but not too terribly many such variants. And I found none at all that featured the pawns on one side moving differently from the pawns on the other. My conclusions were that making a play-balanced chess variant with different armies was difficult and that putting different types of pawns on both sides was perhaps impossible. Otherwise someone would have already done it.
What to do, what to do? I would go to bed, think of chess, and would soon be asleep dreaming of chess pieces and chess variants. I dreamt of pieces called legionnaires, bodyguards, berserkers and the pawns, always different types of pawns, what to do about the pawns? The sleep was good but progress was slow.
After having watched the highly entertaining although grossly ahistorical movie “300” and the Military Channel’s “Thermopylae, the Real Story of 300” I awoke one morning. A voice whispered to me “Two Kings. The Spartans had two Kings!' 'Would that even work; chess with two Kings on one side?” I asked myself. Well it would certainly be unusual, maybe even unique. Chess with different pieces, different pawns, two Kings on one side? After at least five years of dreaming it suddenly had become just too appealing to me. I had to try it.
After some design, some research, several rules reworks and a lick of play testing a version of Spartan Chess was created that was playable. The dream was over and the period of rational analysis was well underway.
Spartan Chess has been the stuff of dreams, a small labor of love, and it’s been fun. Hope its fun for you too.
I am retired now and have the time for this sort of thing and I’m still not counting sheep to get to sleep.
This is the first of four parts on Spartan Chess: 1. Spartan Chess – The Dream 2. What makes Spartan Chess Different? - Waiting for the other Shoe to Drop 3. Spartan Chess – The Process 4. Spartan Chess - The Business -------------------------------------------------------------- SPARTAN CHESS – THE DREAM Some people count sheep to get to sleep... Having played tournament chess when I was in college, back when Bobby Fisher was winning a World Championship, a few years ago I started thinking about creating a chess variant. The variant needed to have two completely different sides with different strategies while still being fun and balanced. Must already have been done I thought as I poked around the internet and “Zounds!” found the Chess Variants web site. Yahoo! There was the very fine Chess with Different Armies and others but not too terribly many such variants. And I found none at all that featured the pawns on one side moving differently from the pawns on the other. My conclusions were that making a play-balanced chess variant with different armies was difficult and that putting different types of pawns on both sides was perhaps impossible. Otherwise someone would have already done it. What to do, what to do? I would go to bed, think of chess, and would soon be asleep dreaming of chess pieces and chess variants. I dreamt of pieces called legionnaires, bodyguards, berserkers and the pawns, always different types of pawns, what to do about the pawns? The sleep was good but progress was slow. After having watched the highly entertaining although grossly ahistorical movie “300” and the Military Channel’s “Thermopylae, the Real Story of 300” I awoke one morning. A voice whispered to me “Two Kings. The Spartans had two Kings!' 'Would that even work; chess with two Kings on one side?” I asked myself. Well it would certainly be unusual, maybe even unique. Chess with different pieces, different pawns, two Kings on one side? After at least five years of dreaming it suddenly had become just too appealing to me. I had to try it. After some design, some research, several rules reworks and a lick of play testing a version of Spartan Chess was created that was playable. The dream was over and the period of rational analysis was well underway. Spartan Chess has been the stuff of dreams, a small labor of love, and it’s been fun. Hope its fun for you too. I am retired now and have the time for this sort of thing and I’m still not counting sheep to get to sleep.