Three-Way Chess (Micheal Version)

Several years ago, I came up with a version of TWC on a triangular board with hexagon cells. I was bored with regular chess and wanted something more interesting. After designing a board and establishing piece-move rules, I tried to publish and copyright the game. The Copyright Office would copyright the rules but not the board design. An interesting historical note is that Monopoly is perhaps the only game that was patented in the States. Anyways, I contacted a company about getting the game “out there” (sold and distributed). They required some cash which I did not have at the time. After some time, another company (related?) sold another version of TWC. Needless to say, nobody made any money off the game so it wasn’t very upsetting..

As far as I know, my version is unique. The version at dixoncstd.com is similar but with a different cell. I have a set of rules in a box somewhere but likely in a different country than my current residence. I’ll try to briefly write the rules here from memory..

Pawns move away from their king’s home position. They move in two directions and capture in three. Pawn promotion produces a rook (since there’s no room for them initially). Bishops stay on their color (moving through cell corners). Knights basically move on an “L” (a “hockey stick” in 12 directions). Rooks move through cell faces/sides. And kings and queens can move through corners and faces with kings limited to one adjacent cell.

Three pictures of a board follow. It was much easier to construct cells with a glass and marker. Cells were filled with permanent marker. Brown pieces were made red with a red marker. Another set of brown were made pink with hot-pink nail polish (two coats).. When I initially came up with the game, I got some friends to help test the game and rules. A problem came up with king-capture: do the remaining pieces belong to the player who captured the king or can the original player control his pieces with no chance to win? I decided on the former to motivate attack and resolution. Two players can “gang up” on the third but whoever captures his king gets control of the game so cooperation is a bit risky. The game was made for fun – not to exercise strategy. I envisioned the game being played in bars and pubs.

If you have any questions or ideas, please write to me at 8P at unc dot edu.