Die Pöppel-Revue Magazine
Issue 1/99, January 1999
Christoph Jaschke
Germany

Chess, probably the world's most well-known game next to Pachisi, is likely older than 2000 years. With the beginning of the Renaissance in the 15th century, the game was changed and the rules that are still valid today were written down. In this context, the queen, who previously was only allowed to gracefully move one square diagonally, rose to be the strongest, the most powerful piece - what emancipation during one of the high eras of patriarchy, especially since this all happened in Italy! The rooks also became more mobile and even the pawns gained some because they were now allowed to move two squares forward in the beginning if they wanted to.

This Venetian turbo-chess became quickly popular with the European aristocrats and kings. In the 18th century with the increasing popularity of coffeehouses, the middle class like Francois Philidor, who was less successful as a musician, began to indulge in this passion. Philidor soon beat Europe's best players and is still today considered to be one of the chess masters. The list of these great masters is long, and the list of the recorded games is almost endless. Today, there is a world chess association, called FIDE and its competitor PCA, the players' ability is noted in so-called Elo values, and chess computers are able to pre-calculate 10 millions of game positions for up to 10 moves in advance.

The pawn was poisoned!

What makes friends of chess different from friends of other games is the fact that since 1927, when the first chess olympiad took place, they are considered sportsmen. Despite many well-meaning attempts from well-known game authors like Alex Randolph or from chess grand master Laska, there has been no successful linking of chess players with normal players. Games like SCHACHJAGD, LASKA or SCHACH DEM SCHLAUKOPF were not able to lessen the normal player's fear of the elitist, they were anyway more like a joke for the serious chess players and therefore they remained on the store shelves like lead, even DREIERSCHACH's existence remains pretty much without a future.

Whoever attempts something new in a situation like this must either be an unwavering dreamer or an American. And the last is the case. A publishing company is founded and is freshly named "Out of the Box", which means as much as "to dump it onto the table and start playing", the German translation is a little less direct and calls it "the game you already know how to play". Finally our game gets the name Bosworth, a name that only means something to Britons but remains a secret for most citizens of the world. Could this be a dream of a success like UNO, which today can be found all over the world as a spiced-up variation of "Mau Mau"?

Smaller is nicer but meaner!

Let's take a closer look! The fact that it is a card game with a special game board definitely makes it special. The card stack consists of four complete, original sets of chess pieces. The game board, however, shows - depending on the number of players - only 24 to 32 spaces instead of the original 64. This makes is pretty obvious that hardly all pieces, i.e. cards, can be placed on the board at the same time. And that is exactly the case: each player starts out with four pawn cards on their baseline, which is called field camp. As soon as one of the pawns moves forward, which in turn frees up one or more spaces in the field camp, other cards are brought into the game. Each player has only a limited choice of cards he or she can play next because after the four pawn cards are placed onto the board the remaining cards are shuffled and placed face-down in a stack from which single cards are drawn so each player always has four cards to choose from in his or her hand. Often, the king who needs to be protected is part of one's hand from the very beginning, while the desired queen doesn't appear until very late in the game. The object of the game, however, has not changed: it is to checkmate the opposing king or kings because here up to four players can play against each other.

Bosworthian Opening

Let's start with the game for two since that is still somewhat comparable to the old classic. In long-standing chess manner one moves toward the opponent, and of course the chess cards should never be without cover. For attacks, combined proceedings are more promising than the eager move forward with a single piece. Anybody who would like more details on this should refer to one of the many chess publications. Since the game board, as mentioned before, is relatively small - the main playing area only comprises 16 fields - space becomes increasingly tight and the more valuable pieces like bishops, rooks or queen all of a sudden have little space to move, which forces them to move.

Small opening lesson When later in the game free spaces in the field camp cannot be used anymore due to the lack of cards, it becomes even more crowded, because those free space are mercilessly covered and therefore blocked by any surplus cards.

Luck plays some part but not the deciding part in the choice of cards. The general ability of the individual player is the more decisive factor. The game for two offers an entertaining, quite different game of chess. It is refreshing to play off the beaten track of the tried and tested succession of moves, because in this game the opening moves will never be written down - how could they be with ever-changing initial set-ups! However, one should never allow an opposing rook to reach the own base line because he would capture everything that's brought into the game and the game would be over.

The funny design of the playing cards add a nice portion of humor. One could possibly argue about the necessity for a game for two, but Bosworth is a really great game when played by three or four players.

Three or four, that's what I recommend

When played by three and especially by four players, Bosworth is a real hit: Similar to halma there is a lot of wild fighting and capturing, according to the motto "If you beat me, I'll beat you too!" Now the pawns also move sideways and all of a sudden they capture backwards. One quickly learns, that one is quite limited in planning a succession of moves, since by the time it's one's turn, everything might look totally different again. But we are still playing chess: attacking, covering - everything according to the rules. The difference is similar to the difference between squash and tennis.

I would have never thought that the old mental exercise classic could be so communicative: Four people are joking and laughing like during an action game: Marion and Gabi were quite successful in keeping themselves from going under, Peter already had to give up several of his pieces and has almost no cards left on his hand. But Robert is really in trouble, he just had to bring his last card, the king, into the game, and now he can expect a quick capture from Gabi. She is already smiling mischievously because her already captured queen will be returned to her as a reward for the capture of an opposing king.

Bosworth is the first chess variation that is really convincing. For me as an occasional chess player, the game is a refreshing, worthwhile alternative to the big game, but at the same time also an excellent exercise for chess technical thinking. The game for three of four players is a lot of fun, that cannot easily be found elsewhere. The game rules, which at the presentation of the game at the recent Spiel show in Essen were also available in German, contain the special rules as well as the initial set-ups and for all beginners graphic descriptions of the chess pieces' movements.

Finally, let me explain the secret of the name, which is explained in great detail on a separate sheet included with the game. The town Bosworth in Middle England was the place where the last battle of the War of Roses was fought, the civil war between the houses Lancaster and York, which got its name because both houses carried roses in their coats of arms.

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