Chad was my first Chess system, and an attempt to bring the idea Chess down to its essentials.
Later I stumbled on Shakti
which, ironically, minimizes the idea to the point of becoming the touchstone for it. But that was later.
For the moment I was involved in a number of questions such as 'do I need different pieces?',
'do I need pawns?' and 'do I need mutual capture between pieces?'. Eventually Shakti showed that the
answer to all of these questions is 'no'. Chad comes a long way in the same direction.
I started out with one type of piece, excluding mutual capture from the onset because this seemed
the best way to eliminate the need for pawns. I chose the rook because it is the basic piece on a square board.
I decided for a
confined King for two reasons: a 3x3 castle pinpoints it to a high degree
and adding eight rooks provides a nice initial position.
However, it soon turned out to be possible to force a draw by moving the rooks that were orthogonally
adjacent to the King one square outward, while leaving those in the corners in their place.
Thus the King has room to move and the Rooks form an impenetrable fortress around it.
The necessity of somehow breaking this type of defense created the need of mutual capture between
rooks after all. But having them swarm all over the place, slaughtering one another to a general state
of amputation and impotence, wasn't what I had in mind.
The walls
I'm still extremely happy with the solution I eventually found: the walls
and the rule
that governs mutual capture. It made Chad the most popular of all Chess games at the games club 'Fanatic'
at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, with many high level players, two of whom, Wim van Weezep
and Mark Waterman, were so outstanding that they eventually only played one another.
I never won a game against either, or it must have been during its introduction.
Their superior level of play raises the question whether this might in fact be more of a strategy game than a tactical one.
Chad is featured in David Pritchard's The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants
(G&P Publications, P.O. Box 20, Godalming, Surrey GU8 4YP, UK. - ISBN 0-9524142-0-1).
Chad was first published in 'The Gamer' (may-june 1982).
Chad © MindSports
Applet © Ed van Zon
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