Amusement devices: games – Board games – pieces – or boards therefor – Piece moves over board having pattern
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-04
2002-01-08
Layno, Benjamin H. (Department: 3711)
Amusement devices: games
Board games, pieces, or boards therefor
Piece moves over board having pattern
Reexamination Certificate
active
06336632
ABSTRACT:
INTRODUCTION
The present invention relates generally to products and methods for playing a game, termed “Next Chess.”
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Publications and other reference materials referred to herein are incorporated herein by this reference. The following description of the background of the invention is intended to aid in the understanding of the invention, but is not admitted to describe or constitute prior art to the invention.
Orthodox chess is a game for two players, played upon an eight-by-eight square, checkered game board. Chess rules and movements of the chessmen have been largely the same for about five hundred years. The game uses six types of chessmen. The King moves any direction one square at a time. The rook moves in a straight direction (vertically or horizontally) any number of squares. The bishop moves diagonally any number of squares. The knight's movement is “L-shaped,” two squares in one straight direction, then one square sideways (this piece alone can jump, or leap, over an intervening piece). The queen has a choice of movement like a bishop or a rook in any one turn. The pawn moves one square forward, with the option of two squares on its first move. A pawn must be promoted to any other piece except a king when it reaches the last rank.
The pawn captures diagonally forward one square, whereas the other chessmen capture in their ordinary movement. A capture removes one of the opponent's chessmen from play, and thus no two chessmen occupy the same square at the same time and a player may not capture his or her own piece. Pawns may also capture other pawns “en passent”. This rule applies when a first player's pawn is adjacent to an opponent's pawn that has moved two squares forward on the previous move. On the next move, the first player may then capture the adjacent pawn by moving diagonally and removing the opponent's pawn.
The castling move simultaneously moves a player's king and rook, whereby over unoccupied and unthreatened squares, the king is moved two squares horizontally, right or left, toward a rook, and that rook is moved over the king to the adjacent square.
Turns alternate between the two players, also called opponents or sides, white or black, until one player checkmates the other. In checkmate, a player's king cannot successfully move out of a check, where it is threatened with capture. Alternatively, one player may resign and lose at any point during play or the players may agree to a draw or tie during the game. Finally, a draw or tie is also declared if a player is in “stalemate”, which means it is the player's turn to move but has no legal move that may be made. Briefly, these are the rules for movements and play of the chessmen in orthodox, or classical, or standard chess, all three terms being used synonymously.
A thirteenth century Turkish Great chess, played on a thirteen-by thirteen board has a gazelle that has a one-diagonal, two-straight move.
A fourteenth century historical variant played in Persia, Timur's Chess utilizes an eleven-by-ten board. Only the rooks, knights, and king have moves congruent with orthodox counterparts. Eleven pawns initial position are in the third rank, and they can never move two squares at once. Three different bishop-like chessmen move respectively one square at a time, two squares at a time, and two or more at a time. Two other rooklike chessmen move respectively one-square and two-square. All the foregoing moves are required to be in the same direction, and some of them include leaping ability.
Created in 1899 by Ben R. Foster (U.S.A.), Chancellor Chess has a nine-by-nine board and one new piece for each side. A chancellor can move either as a rook or as a knight in one play. With symmetrical initial positioning, all the bishops start on the same-colored squares.
In the 1920's, world chess champions, Jose Raul Capablanca and Emanuel Lasker together advocated an expansion of chess, now termed Capablanca Chess. This variant entails adding two new chessmen for each player, one between each knight and bishop, on an eight-by-ten board. A chancellor moves either like the rook or the knight, and a cardinal moves either like the bishop or the knight.
Created in 1922 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jetan, or Martian Chess is played on a ten-by-ten game board. No piece has a role of movement just like an orthodox piece.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,033586, Jul. 5, 1977, to Michael J. Carinthios, discloses a variation called Grandchess. It is played on a nine-by-nine board with the elimination of the queen as such and the introduction of two princes for each side. The prince moves the same as the ordinary queen.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,582, Jun. 6, 1995, to Carl E. Ritter, discloses a modified chess game played upon a large octagonal board. This version of chess introduces a new piece, a viceroy, with a new manner of movement. The viceroy moves two squares at a time in the same straight or diagonal direction. The game retains the six orthodox chess chessmen and otherwise follows most of the standard rules of chess and the large board of one hundred thirty-six squares encourages indirect, diversionary play.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,793, Apr. 30, 1996, to James S. Watt and Hi Kapaa, discloses variations of chess on square boards ranging in size up to twelve by twelve. New chessmen obtain their moving ability from combinations of four pieces, rook, bishop, knight, and bowman. The bowman extends a knight's potential movement by traveling two “linear dog-legs,” as the inventors term it.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to a new game, termed “Next Chess” and related products and methods. Next Chess is played on a board similar to a conventional chess board (8 files wide and 8 ranks deep), but instead being 10 files wide and 8 ranks deep. Notation is like a standard algebraic chessboard (files a to h and ranks 1 to 8), with two files added between the d file and the e file. The new files preferably are designated y and z. The files a through d, and e through h have the traditional pieces and Pawns placed on them. Each side has 10 Pawns: for White all on the second rank, for Black all on the seventh rank.
All the rules of traditional chess apply. There are no new rules. For example, to castle, the rule remains that the King moves two squares toward the Rook, and the Rook is placed on the other side of the King. Therefore the result of Kingside castling is the same as in traditional chess, but castling Queenside results in the King moving to the y file, and the Rook moving to the z file.
There are several advantages to Next Chess compared to conventional chess or existing variations thereof, including: (a) it uses only existing pieces; (b) it uses only existing rules; (c) the huge increase in complexity means there will be fewer draws; (d) it will take another century for openings to become known, therefore book knowledge will not be a safe refuge; (e) the opening is the most complicated part of chess; now even Grandmasters will be completely on their own; (f) computers will not be as strong as they have been, but may be much stronger than humans—at first; (g) it is easy to give Black compensation for White's first move advantage by giving Black an extra Bishop to White's Knight; (h) being a Pawn behind is not as serious as in traditional chess because there is so much extra material that must be traded off in order to get to the endgame; (i) the attacker has more material available to sacrifice, so attacks are harder to defend against, and therefore games are more interesting; and (j) the first move is not as important as in traditional chess.
Thus, in one aspect, the present invention provides a game set. The game set includes: (a) a rectangular board with a grid of eight squares of a unit dimension on two opposing sides of the board and ten squares of the unit dimension on the other two sides of said board; and (b) two sets of twenty chessmen, each set being a different color and consisting of ten pawns, a king, a queen, two rooks and fou
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