Sovereign Chess Sovereign Chess Sovereign Chess is a commercial chess variant designed by Mark Bates and produced by Infinite Pi Games. The game is played on a 16 x 16 board and begins with 112 pieces—a normal complement of white and black pieces (16 each), and 80 other colored pieces (8 each of 10 different colors). The colored pieces are considered “neutral” at the beginning of the game, and can not initially be moved nor captured. The center of the board contains an arrangement of 24 colored squares (2 each in every color, including white and black), which determine control of the
Hive (game) prefers. It confers little or no advantage to conceal the faces of unplaced pieces; both players have "perfect information" about the state of the game, and thus by process of elimination any piece not on the board is yet to be played. The official rules do not specify that a specific player color begins; either white (similar to Chess) or black (similar to Go) may play first and players may alternate first turn between games without swapping pieces. On each turn, a player may place a new piece from their supply, or, if their Queen Bee has been placed, move