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 or the King's Game Chess or the King's Game Chess or the King's Game () is a book on chess. It was published in Leipzig in 1616 under the name of "Gustavus Selenus" ("Gustavus" being an anagram of "Augustus" and "Selenus" referring to the Greek moon goddess Selene, linked to the Latin origin of the name "Lüneburg"), the pen name of Duke Augustus of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1579–1666). As a young prince, Augustus probably had learned of the game during his voyages to Italy and purchased numerous chess books from the Augsburg merchant and art collector Philipp Hainhofer. The first textbook on chess in the German