if you know

I wonder what moves would a gnome be able to do, if there existed such a piece. Anyway, I guess one useful strategy against it would be to let it die of starvation, if you know what I mean...

Yep. I love this thread.

I always thought it would be cool if a piece had a fairly complicated movement determined by the position of other pieces on the board. For example, it could move only diagonally when there were bishops but not rooks within two squares of it, only orthogonally when there were rooks but not bishops within two squares of it, either if there were both, and like a knight if there were neither.

OK, maybe not that complicated, but something along those lines.

You're in luck! There is a recognized chess variant called Omega Chess with two new pieces: the Champion (moves orthogonally) and the the Wizard (moves like an exaggerated knight and diagonal):

Omega Chess starting squares:

Related links:
Official Omega Chess site
Omega Chess rules
More Omega Chess info

You might want to visit chessvariants.com to find other interesting variants if you're wondering what's out there already.

As for pieces complicating other pieces, the closest that I found was called Magnetic Chess. White and black pieces have positive and negative charges except the Kings. That means that moving pieces would either repel or attract nearby pieces. It could involve moving more than one piece per turn. See here.

I'd like a piece called a SPY, moves like a KIng, cannot make captures, but can be captured, and can pass on the move, essentially losing a tempo.

Interesting, a piece with negative value.

Made me laugh...

There's a variant in which your objective is to get checkmated, while avoiding checkmating your opponent...

I never played it, but I guess it needs a whole new mindset, very different tactics and strategy...

How about creating a piece called "The Joker" - perhaps he could have bells and whistles, his sole purpose being to cause general mayhem and serve as a distraction - not sure how he would move though - perhaps mount him on a spring and you could always bump the board when your opposition is about to make his move...

This sounds more like selfmate problems. I can't imagine how an actual chess game like that would go.

However, a common variant of chess called suicide chess is somewhat similar. The goal is to lose all your pieces (the king is treated like a regular piece), and whenever you are able to capture a piece, you must. Generally the game starts slowly with each side trying to maintain a material advantage (except it's often good to throw away your bishops and some pawns) and surround the other. Eventually a long sequence of forced captures will quickly lead to an endgame.

Draws are very rare. I am not very good at it.

what's happen borgqueen?,why you didnt answer my question yet?

this is my question borgqueen. and im gonna add some question again,my question is ''i been playing chess for all most 10 years now,and i didnt no yet why they called this game a ''chess''.is there's a meaning of chess?,i mean like for example usa means united states of america right?.i wait again to your response borgqueen.

I am not Borgqueen, but I can help answer.

The game of chess was brought to the western world by the Persians who at the time called it chatrang. They called the king shah (which meant "king" in Persian), and this was a common exclamation during the game. Most Western countries named the game after that word, which became chess in English, echeque in French, and so on.

All right, whose bright idea was it to show kurogkug how to quote?  

If the ACF doesn't use an Elo rating scheme, what do they use?

I think to solve some of these Saturday puzzles I need a CHESS.

A Creative Heuristic Endgame-Solving Suite.

LOL

thank you tonydal.but this is just a theories.i need a right answer of this guys.imagine where playing this game guys but we didnt know what is the meaning of what were playing for.this gonna be a weird and hilarious to some people who playing different game.is there some one who knows what is the meaning of chess?.we need to work this guys!!!.i wait again to your response guys.

Clever acronyms aside, my earlier post should explain the historic meaning of chess well enough.