Chad is a chess variant

Chess variant

A chess variant is a game related to, derived from or inspired by chess. The difference from chess might include one or more of the following:...

 created by Christian Freeling

Christian Freeling

Christian Freeling is a Dutch game designer and inventor of various chess variants, notably Grand chess, invented in 1984.Other game inventions by Freeling include:...

 in 1979. It is played on an uncheckered 12×12 gameboard

Board game

A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

 and consists of one king

King (chess)

In chess, the king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that its escape is not possible . If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be...

 and eight rooks

Rook (chess)

A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...

 per side, with rooks able to promote to queens

Queen (chess)

The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...

.

The inventor's aim was "to create a game of tactical and strategical depth that was both simple and elegant to express the concept of mate—the 'pure' chess game". The game was played for many years at the Fanaat games club in the Netherlands and was featured in The Gamer 6 periodical in May–June 1982.

Game rules

Each player owns a castle consisting of 3×3 squares surrounded by a wall of 12 squares. A king may not leave its castle, but the rooks are free to move unimpeded by castles or walls.

• A king can move and capture like a chess
  Chess
  Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
  
   king, or a chess knight
  Knight (chess)
  The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
  
  .
• A rook moves like a rook in chess, and if ending on a square in the enemy castle, automatically promotes
  Promotion (chess)
  Promotion is a chess rule describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches its eighth rank into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color . The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move. Promotion is not limited to pieces that have...
  
   to a queen.
• A queen moves like a queen in chess, and is unimpeded by castles or walls.
• A rook or queen may capture an opponent's rook or queen only when one of the two pieces is on the enemy's wall, and the other piece is in its castle. Then either player having the turn to move may capture. (So, in other situations rooks and queens cannot capture, and simply serve as blocks to one another's movement. Plus, a queen in an enemy castle will be capturable only by the king.)
• Check occurs to a king whenever the king is in the path of an enemy rook or queen. (Castle walls do not block checks.)

As in chess, White

White and Black in chess

In chess, the player who moves first is referred to as "White" and the player who moves second is referred to as "Black". Similarly, the pieces that each conducts are called, respectively, "the white pieces" and "the black pieces". The pieces are often not literally white and black, but some...

 moves first, a capturing piece replaces the piece captured, and checkmate

Checkmate

Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...

wins the game.

External links

• MindSports.nl official site
• "Chad" by Hans Bodlaender, The Chess Variant Pages
• Pathguy.com a simple Chad program by Ed Friedlander