Almost Chess Almost Chess Almost Chess is a chess variant invented by Ralph Betza in 1977. The game is played using a standard chessboard and pieces, except the players' queens are replaced by chancellors, which combine the moves of a rook and a knight. Almost Chess was featured in NOST magazine "Nost-algia", beginning with issue 205. Other than the replacement of queens by chancellors (notated "C"), the game follows all the rules and conventions of standard chess. The Fool's mate in Almost Chess begins 1.Cc3. Replacing queens with chancellors imparts a radical change to the nature of the chess game, despite the
Null move Null move In game theory, a null move or pass is a decision by a player to not make a move when it is that player's turn to move. Even though null moves are against the rules of many games, they are often useful to consider when analyzing these games. Examples of this include the analysis of zugzwang (a situation in chess or other games in which a null move, if it were allowed, would be better than any other move), and the null-move heuristic in game tree analysis (a method of pruning game trees involving making a null move