Almost Chess chess pieces, which culminated in the development of Chess with different armies. 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
Smothered mate Kg8 28.Nh6++ Kh8 (28...Kf8 29.Qf7#) 29.Qg8+! Nxg8 (or 29...Rxg8) 30.Nf7 still mates.) This technique is so common as to have its own name: "Philidor's Mate" or "Philidor's Legacy" (after François-André Danican Philidor). This is something of a misnomer, however, as it is earlier described in Luis Ramirez Lucena's 1497 text on chess, "Repetición de Amores e Arte de Axedrez", which predates Philidor by several hundred years. Occasionally, a smothered mate may be possible in the opening of a game. One of the most famous, and most frequently occurring, is in the Budapest Gambit. It arises after 1. d4 Nf6 2.