A Bear can jump to any square n the 2nd perimeter ...... all 16 of them. On an 8x8 board, I believe it is worth 5.5 or 6 points, slightly more than a Rook. Yet, is is very, very different from a Rook --- which makes Bear vs Rook battles quite intriguing. On a 10 x 10 board, it is probably an even battle, Rook & 6 pawns vs Bear & 6 pawns ....... try it!

(sorry --- corrected spelling) A Bear can jump to any square on the 2nd perimeter ...... Bear Chess is apparently growing in popularity in Russia

Not before you mentioned it. But I poked around and found a java applet to play it at chessvariants.org. (Note to others: it's played on a 10x10 board with bears next to the king and queen). It doesn't look like my cup of tea. The bigger variants without faster moving pieces slow the game down to much for me.

Me, I'd replace the knights with the bears, and put a hawk and an elephant where the bears are now. Hmmm, I may have to try that out.

To Ichabod801:     I am having a game of S-chess with Rob Brown, but after it is finished u & I should play Bear Chess.

"Me, I'd replace the knights with the bears, and put a hawk and an elephant where the bears are now. Hmmm, I may have to try that out."

Sounds like fun. Sure, I would definitely try that  As far as the "slowness" of the game, another way to speed things up is to move the armies closer together ............ The Grand Chess way is to move the White Army up to rows 2 & 3, & the Black army down to rows 9 & 8.

The (modified) Capablanca Chess way is to use a rectangular board ....... 10 wide x 8 deep. Either way you cut down the space between armies from 6 rows to 4 rows.

 Dan Davis