Chad (chess variant) Chad (chess variant) Chad is a chess variant for two players created by Christian Freeling in 1979. It is played on an uncheckered 12×12 gameboard with one king and eight rooks per side, where rooks are able to promote to queens. The inventor's aim was "to create a game of tactical and strategical depth that was both simple and elegant to express the concept of "mate"—the 'pure' chess game". The game was played for many years at the Fanaat games club in the Netherlands and was featured in the periodical "The Gamer" 6 in May–June 1982. Each player owns a
John Littlewood (chess player) siblings. He did not start playing chess until he was 13, when he was introduced to the game by a friend. He kept on losing to his friend, so he went into the school library and checked out every single chess book. He then read a lot of chess tactics, and eventually beat his friend. At 16 he had improved and joined the local chess club. As he had not played that many people, he was surprised when he found he could beat everyone in the club. At this point he became very keen on the game. While at Sheffield