3 Man Chess-Variant In The Round

[Are_grits_groceries]

Finally, a Chess variant board has been developed that accommodates three players, without compromising ANY of the rules, strategies, or competitive challenges that make Chess the best board game in the world. 

The only changes from conventional chess are some protocol issues that must be followed to maintain order where the teams border each other, which is simple and necessary.  Also, please notice that the trajectory lines orienting from the outer rank, are simply visual aids to help guide diagonal moves passing through the center.  If the path is clear, a diagonal move starting from the outer rank can pass through the center and sweep back around to where it originated. 

The complexities of the third player are infinite.  Your threatened piece may be allowed to maintain occupancy as your position is beneficial to the threatening player.  But how long can it last?  This scenario may exist all over the board.  There are multiple trust and doubt situations between all players.  An unexpected move might well result in a cascading massacre.  Defense is crucial since a diagonal move through the center, or a horizontal move around the center can sneak up behind you.  A player can be checkmated by a combination of both other players or ultimately one player can checkmate both other players at the same time.

More info with more detailed articles about the game:
http://3manchess.com/

Muh! I have a headache just looking at it.
Send it to the White House.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

1. now THAT looks like fun...

gonna look into picking one of those up!

sP

[dipsydoodle]

2. And there's me still trying to work out

how many beans make five.

Yes - headache or what.

[Scuba]

3. If I only knew two other People who played!

[RufusTFirefly]

9. Indeed. It does seem to appeal to a specialized clientele

[xchrom]

4. Cool. Very cool. Nt

[SpiralHawk]

5. Looks like old-fashioned Pizza Chess

ideal for teh Hermy (R)

[geckosfeet]

6. When one player is checkmated, are all the pieces removed?

Ahh. Reading the rules - the pieces remain dormant on the board which is essentially the same a removing them as they cannot do anything and the other pieces can occupy their squares at will.

[sofa king]

7. If you wish to make it much more complex....

It is possible to play a 1v1v1 (or "3-way free-for-all") match of Starcraft II, with each player playing a completely different "race" with different abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Movement is in real-time rather than turn-based, and the map is comprised of thousands of tiles, while some units can fly, some can burrow underground, and so on.

Unfortunately, 1v1v1 is not all that popular in Starcraft II for the same reason that Clausewitz dismisses 3-way wars in a single sub-chapter of his multi-volume work on war: almost invariably, two players overtly or tacitly ally to crush the third, then settle their own differences as a more traditional 1v1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGpeh7dAPrI

The only real way to avoid a quick-dispatch of the weakest is some sort of agreement between all players to temporarily delay that eventuality. It appears to me that the setup of this chess board already incorporates that idea by not allowing adjacent players to jump the two-space "wall" at each border, which is a nice touch.

Here also is an example that goes a step further, a four-player free-for-all, cast by the world's most popular Starcraft II "caster," HuskyStarcraft. If Husky hates FFAs, there's a good reason for it. Once it gets to that level of complexity, the rule actually becomes simpler and more immutable: the first person to attack becomes the instant target for the others (as that player's defenses are necessarily out of position); the person he attacks is the next to go (because he is weakened by the attack of the first), and the one who manages to stay out of combat the longest usually has a walkover to victory while the others weaken themselves, which is widely agreed to be not that much fun, even for the winner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzY_AFl9y4Y

[LWolf]

8. Interesting;

might make a good gift for my chess-playing adult son, if he had real challengers to play him.

He doesn't play much any more, since nobody but his brother can really challenge him, and his brother is 1200 miles away.

I have an alternate version called "PI Chess," which can be played with up to 8 single players, or with teams, along with a bunch of traditional boards, in my classroom; the more advanced players in my school's chess club enjoy it.