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
Chess "!!" an excellent move, "?" a mistake, "??" a blunder, "!?" an interesting move that may not be best, or "?!" a dubious move not easily refuted. For example, one variation of a simple trap known as the Scholar's mate (see animated diagram) can be recorded: The text-based Portable Game Notation (PGN), which is understood by chess software, is based on short form English language algebraic notation. Until about 1980, the majority of English language chess publications used a form of descriptive notation. In descriptive notation, files are named according to the piece which occupies the back rank at the