Wacky Wednesday - Brain Teaser!

As mentioned before, I have switched the Tuesday and Wednesday topics for this week.

This one's kind of silly, but here it goes...

Monkeyopolis has a population of 12,345 monkeys. To regulate such a large group, Monkeyopolis' head monkey, Guyrilla, has made a new rule regarding 'monkey do chess' (http://www.pathguy.com/chess/MonkeyDo.htm). If a game is won, the losing monkey must give two bananas to the winning monkey. If a game is drawn, the monkeys must exchange one banana each in good faith. Fred Isachimp decides to play in a 'monkey do' tournament. He comes in with fifteen bananas. After all five games, his score is 3.0/5.0. Exactly two of his games were drawn. Assuming no bananas are consumed, created, destroyed, or given away outside of what is required by the new rule, how many bananas does Fred walk home with?

Answer below
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If you said seventeen, good try, but Fred got a 1 point bye in his first game. He took home fifteen bananas. Since tournaments don't award byes to the same person (or monkey) twice, "fifteen or seventeen" is the most logical answer. That is, assuming Fred was in the pairing system every round, with no 1/2 point byes or withdrawn games.

Okay that one wasn't a very fair trick, so I'll have more brain teasers from Monkeyopolis some other time...

Twisted Tuesday - Variant

Try 'Anticipation Chess'!

After making each move, you must immediately decide what type of piece you will move next. This leads to crazy scenarios where the king can be in check, but is not necessarily entitled to move away. Even so, you cannot capture the king - the game ends when one side checkmates.

It's a lot of fun to try:

http://www.pathguy.com/chess/Anticipa.htm

Combining Two Great Games in One

A fun variant to try - pieces cannot move backwards until they reach the other side of the board.

http://www.pathguy.com/chess/CkrChess.htm

The image above occurred in my game (I was white).

Checkers vs. Chess strategy:

http://boardgames.lovetoknow.com/Checkers_Vs._Chess_Strategy

Summer Boredom?

Try these free games:
http://www.funny-games.biz/

Who Knew There Were So Many Bizarre Boards?

Star Trek 3D Set http://www.chess-theory.com/encprdo3886_chess_practice_reflections_debates_arts.php

(visit this site for more 3D boards)

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"Maze" http://www.familypastimes.com/Multi-Age/maze.html

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"Grand Chess" http://www.zillions-of-games.com/NewFeatures.html

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"Engagement Chess" http://www.quadibloc.com/chess/ch0204.htm

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"Grid Chess" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_chess

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"Gothic Chess" http://www.chessville.com/gothicchess/gothicchessintro.htm

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"Neo-Chess" http://ancientchess.com/page/10.htm

(more variants on this site)

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"Shuuro" http://www.chesshouse.com/Shuuro_Chess_Set_p/e070.htm

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"Shogi" (Japanese Chess) http://www.chessvariants.org/shogi.html

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"Citadel" http://www.quadibloc.com/other/bo0104.htm

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"Hexagonal Chess" http://www.answers.com/topic/hexagonal-chess

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"Mini Chess" http://www.gamedujour.com/3995-mini-chess

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"Four Seasons Chess" http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/4seiz.html

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"Toroidal Honeycomb Chess" http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/toroidal-honeycomb-combined-courier-chess

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More variants:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Chess_variants
http://www.bunkahle.com/Schach/pieces.html

Other Bizarre Chess Boards!

"Trichotomy" http://sandfly.net.nz/blog/2006/12/trichotomy-a-chess-varient/

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Played with marbles http://homepages.di.fc.ul.pt/~jpn/gv/dob.htm

(this site also has other variants)

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Played with cards http://www.gamedev.net/columns/events/gdc2003/view.asp?SectionID=2

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"Melee" http://www.castlepointgames.com/melee.html

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Nine knights? http://www.quadibloc.com/chess/ch0402.htm
(this site also has many other cool variants)

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Four player corner chess http://blogs.indystar.com/geek/2008/08/

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Six player chess http://www.endprod.com/chess/6a.htm

(this site also has other variants)
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Three player hexagonal board http://www.mastersgames.com/cat/board/chess-3-player.htm

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"Waider's chess" http://www.quadibloc.com/chess/ch0501.htm

(this site also has many other variants of three-way chess)

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Star-shaped chess http://newton.umsl.edu/philf//nplchess/

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Four player chess http://www.academicchess.org/contact/linkspages/chess-variants.htm

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Expanded board "Super Chess" http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6702287.html

(use the search engine for more chess inventions)

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One player chess http://newton.umsl.edu/infophys/wuzzlers.html

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Five player chess http://www.quadibloc.com/chess/ch0205.htm

(a couple other amazing variants on this website)

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"Martian Chessboard" http://www.ee0r.com/tri-chess/

(this is the three-player version...the site also contains four-, five-, and six-player versions)

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Six player circular board http://kentropic.wordpress.com/

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Three player circular board http://www.douglaswilliamsmith.net/Trinity_Chess/Three_Player_Chess_Comparative_Review.htm (this site has a few other variants, such as trigon chess)

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Three player chess with hexagonal squares http://www.thetoyman.com/top_50_2009.html

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"Pikemen" http://www.playagaingames.com/games/pikemen/

(various setups)

Chess for Three Players!

Interesting concept!

Read more about it: http://somethinbizarre.blogspot.com/2009/10/cool-and-strange-chess-for-three.html

Cool Chess Sets

Great blog. See for yourself: http://somethinamazing.blogspot.com/2009/06/12-awesome-chess-sets.html

"Cool" Chess Variant

Ice Age Chess

In this game, empty squares (those not occupied by pieces) are filled with ice cubes. These ice cubes block the path of pieces until they are captured. However, every 20 moves, a new Ice Age refills empty squares with a whole new set of ice cubes! If the ice cubes completely surround a piece at this time, it is "frozen" and removed from the board (and replaced by none other than another ice cube). If a king is either frozen or checkmated, the game ends. If both kings freeze, it is a draw. This game brings a completely different way to strategize and emphasizes the value of time. Have fun!

http://www.chessvariants.org/boardrules.dir/iceage.html

Play it online: http://play.chessvariants.org/erf/IceAgeCh.html

Egyptians and Chess

Sorry this is so late. I didn't forget to post today, but I had to study for a surprise math quiz.

Anyway, along the lines of my "desert" theme, I thought you might enjoy learning a little about a board game in ancient Egypt.

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/games.htm

http://www.xmission.com/~psneeley/Shareware/senet.htm

Ancient Egyptians played a variety of games before they became popular in the modern era. This included wrestling, tug of war, ball games, ..., and senet! This game was played by two opponents, each controlling seven pieces. The pieces could be maneouvered on a perw, a 3 x 10 checkered board that resembled the 8 x 8 versions used in chess and checkers today. Moves were determined by throwing astragals, or sticks. The stick positions would guide pieces around a track while landing on certain squares (representing good or bad fortune), which would then affect the player's strategy. Simple versions of the game were sometimes marked out on pavement or stone, though more precious boards could be found in the tombs of the wealthy (including Tut's). It was Egypt's national game for 3000 years!

You can play a modified version of the game at:

http://www.humanities-interactive.org/ancient/tut/senet/

Enjoy!

TROYIS!

Bored of standard chess? (hopefully not)

Looking for something new to do with your spare time?

Then try TROYIS! I recently found this game online, and it's quite interesting. The idea is to move your knight around the board, landing on all the white squares (they turn coloured when you land on them) within the time limit. Yes, a new challenge for all you blitz players! The full version is available for a fee (US $19.95, lifetime access), but you can play for free up to 15 minutes per day (which, in my opinion, is more than I can fit in my schedule anyway). Try it for yourself, and if you get really good at it, challenge friends!

TROYIS: http://www.troyis.com/troyis.php

Also try: BLOKUS http://www.blokus.com/ (not chess-related, but involves strategy...play against the computer or real people for free!)

3 X 3 Chess Analysis

Very interesting link!
http://kirr.homeunix.org/3x3-chess/

Fun Chess Variant

Looking for a change? I thought up some fun chess variants for you to try today!

1) Triple Queens: The rooks are flipped over to become queens at the start of the game.

2) Confusion: For a confusing game....bullet/blitz game where rooks act like queens, and queens act like rooks, bishops act like knights and knights act like bishops....trust me, it's not as easy to break out of habits as you think, especially when pressed for time.

3) Special Capture: Captures are only allowed if you have at least two pieces attacking.

4) Restriction: Whatever TYPE of piece you last moved (P, N, B, R, Q, K) can't move on your next turn. Example: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 would not be allowed, because white moved a knight on both move 2 and 3. However, 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. Nc3 would be allowed).

5) What, NO castling???????: No castling allowed. Extension of the game could also include no en passant, no promotion, ...

More chess variants can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant