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Pierre Menard's Chess Variant

This is a rules file for Zillions of Games, a Windows program that will let you play any puzzle or strategy board game you can feed it the rules to. With Zillions-of-Games installed, this rules file will let you play this game against your computer.

This chess variant is based upon a passage in the short story ‘Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote’ by Jorge Luis Borges.  The narrator lists the documents found in the private archives of the deceased title character.  Among them is found ‘A technical article on the possibility of enriching the game of chess by means of eliminating one of the rooks’ pawns.  Menard proposes, recommends, disputes, and ends by rejecting this innovation.

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By Jeff Rients.
Web page created: 2010-11-23. Web page last updated: 2010-12-04