Caissa's Daughter
This is my new fantasy short story about Syzygy, Caissa's daughter. First, who is Caissa? She is the goddess of chess. If a player wins a chess tournament, he might say that Caissa smiled on him today. If he lost, he might say that Caissa didn't find favor with him today.
For Caissa to have a daughter, that daughter must have a father. Enter Hermes--the god of checkers.
In the story Caissa and Hermes have a chess and checkers match. It turns out that each wins in their own domain by the same amount over the other, and so the match is declared a draw. During the match, Caissa and Hermes fall in love and marry.
In short order, they have a daughter named Syzygy. She was named Syzygy by Zeus. So, if you have a problem with her name, take that up with Zeus (and good luck!!).
Syzygy winds up going into a cave to develop Fighting Chess, Fighting Checkers, and Hybrid. She shows her three games to her parents. Caissa and Hermes begin to promote Syzygy's games. Syzygy goes back to the cave to develop Go-12, Tines and Barbs, and Pythagorean Tic Tac Toe.
She gets Zeus to hold a big tournament featuring her six board games on Mount Olympus. The tournament was going well until she faced Poseidon. Poseidon winds up trying to kill her, but discovers he can't. He recruits Atlas and Hercules to help him kill Syzygy. This fails also. Zeus steps in to kill Syzygy with his lightning bolts, which also fails. But, Syzygy does not want to become Queen of the Gods. She just wants to have fun playing and promoting her board games.
A powerful intruder comes into our universe who has the power to kill Syzygy, but he gets outwitted by Syzygy and dies in the battle to the death with her. Then, she falls in love with the creator of our universe. But, the murder of the intruder forces her to leave our universe to go the creator's realm for trial. What happens there is where this snapshot of the story ends. You can get Caissa's Daughter at Amazon now in two formats: a paperback book, and an Amazon Kindle book.
You can check out my other books as well as this one from my Amazon.com author page www.amazon.com/author/tonyberard
Some of these games as well as my new deck of cards are available in a physical form on the game crafter website at www.thegamecrafter.com.
Modern Colors Bridge: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/modern-colors-bridge1
Fighting Checkers: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/fighting-checkers
Just the Colors RSP Deck of Cards: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/colors-rsp-deck-of-cards
Go-12: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/go-12
Thanks, and enjoy the games!!
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Fighting Chess
Fighting Chess by Tony Berard
Fighting Chess is a new chess variant I invented last year. It's purpose is to reduce the number of draws over that seen in regular chess. This is sorely needed as the most recent world championship ended with twelve straight draws. The need for a new variant is not obvious even though many have been invented. I guess the right one hasn't come along yet to overthrow chess--until now, that is. Enter Fighting Chess.
Fighting Chess is played with the usual chess pieces and board with the following alterations.
1) The rooks, bishops, and knights gain the ability to move and capture one space in any direction, like a king.
2) Pawns can now also capture straight ahead, but not on their two square initial advance.
3) The king is no longer inviolate, which means it can be captured if player endangers it.
4) The pass option is implemented, which means a player may elect to not make a move and punch the clock to start the opponent's turn.
5) Castling is now legal while in check, across a check, or even into check.
6) The object of the game is now to capture the opponent's king, and a checkmate is now an actual guarantee of this, so a checkmate ends the game as well.
The above set of rules are actually deep and profound. They change chess quite dramatically!! I shall briefly provide a few such observations.
The first observation is that stalemate and zugzwang are no longer present in the game. They were a scourge anyway, so good riddance to them.
The next observation is that the pieces are much more powerful. Any piece in isolation can deliver a checkmate against the lone opposing king with just the help of its own king. Thus, draw by insufficient material has been reduced to just the two kings.
Next, pawns are substantially more powerful, too. They cannot be "blockaded" anymore. And, they can forcibly promote against the bare king if protected by their own king. Thus, winning a single pawn now translates into a win if that material advantage continues all the way to the end of the game (barring an error like walking into a checkmate, of course).
Finally, opening theory is turned on its head as well as what constitutes effective middlegame and endgame tactics and strategies.
Fighting Chess is a new chess variant I invented last year. It's purpose is to reduce the number of draws over that seen in regular chess. This is sorely needed as the most recent world championship ended with twelve straight draws. The need for a new variant is not obvious even though many have been invented. I guess the right one hasn't come along yet to overthrow chess--until now, that is. Enter Fighting Chess.
Fighting Chess is played with the usual chess pieces and board with the following alterations.
1) The rooks, bishops, and knights gain the ability to move and capture one space in any direction, like a king.
2) Pawns can now also capture straight ahead, but not on their two square initial advance.
3) The king is no longer inviolate, which means it can be captured if player endangers it.
4) The pass option is implemented, which means a player may elect to not make a move and punch the clock to start the opponent's turn.
5) Castling is now legal while in check, across a check, or even into check.
6) The object of the game is now to capture the opponent's king, and a checkmate is now an actual guarantee of this, so a checkmate ends the game as well.
The above set of rules are actually deep and profound. They change chess quite dramatically!! I shall briefly provide a few such observations.
The first observation is that stalemate and zugzwang are no longer present in the game. They were a scourge anyway, so good riddance to them.
The next observation is that the pieces are much more powerful. Any piece in isolation can deliver a checkmate against the lone opposing king with just the help of its own king. Thus, draw by insufficient material has been reduced to just the two kings.
Next, pawns are substantially more powerful, too. They cannot be "blockaded" anymore. And, they can forcibly promote against the bare king if protected by their own king. Thus, winning a single pawn now translates into a win if that material advantage continues all the way to the end of the game (barring an error like walking into a checkmate, of course).
Finally, opening theory is turned on its head as well as what constitutes effective middlegame and endgame tactics and strategies.
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