Anonymous wrote on Mon, Nov 22, 2004 09:08 PM UTC:
I have played a chess variant, that was called War or Alliance chess,
where
four players were on the same board, either as individuals or as teams of
two. It had four additional pieces, two financiers and two sabatuers
(sp?)on each side. The finacier moved like a mini queen, except it had a
range of three squares. the sabatuer moved like a knight, except it was
one square more - thus one would move about on white squares and the
other
on black squares. It also had a unique feature in that if you captured a
piece with it, then you could either remove the captured piece or elect
to
have the captured piece move in its normal fashion and therefore could
use
it to capture or attack the opponent with their own piece. The opponent
could not simply move it back to capture your sabatuer on their turn.
The board was 12 by 12 plus a wing on each side of 3 by 12
squares, hence 288 squares to move about on.
I was introduced to this variation by a fellow who had a board that had
been made by his grandfather, who had seen it in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada; The rules of play were only given to me verbally, and so I would
like to find the official rules. A few years ago I tried finding
information about it throught the writters of chess varaiants in Britain,
but with little success. Can you provide information on this for me?
Arni
