Chess on a Really Big Board an awful idea. Each player has 256 Pawns and 256 pieces. The average length of a game is likely to be more [than] 2000 moves." Betza also considered starting positions with 16 (one chess set) or 64 (four sets) pieces instead of 32 (two sets), but eventually rejected them. They are as follows: Betza also suggested "Four Board Great Chess", which would have more pieces than the rose that could not make their full moves on smaller boards, and having pawns on the third rank and about 24 pieces in the two rows behind them; and similarly, "Four Board Great
How Many Miles to Babylon? In the 1824 edition of "The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia" there's a description of the rhyme and the game, giving the distance as "six, seven or a lang eight". The rhyme was originally accompanied by a singing game in which two lines face each other, with one player in the middle. At the end of the rhyme the players have to cross the space and any caught help the original player in the middle catch the others. The game seems to have fallen out of use in the twentieth century. In literature In film In music How Many Miles to Babylon?