Chess for Three

As if chess were not complicated enough in its classic format, innovators have over the years developed variations that make the game even more complex. In one version called Capablanca Concentric Chess, the pieces move in spiraling arcs around a circular board. A number of three-dimensional chess games have also made their appearance, including one invented by Russian-born Mathematician Ervand G. Kogbetliantz that was so bewildering that it never really caught on; it is played on an eight-tiered board with 64 pieces to a side. Now, working independently, two other buffs have devised chesslike games for three players, all competing at the same time. Both encourage the formation of alliances in which two players can gang up on the third while at the same time scheming to doublecross each other. The shifting balance of power and Byzantine movement result in a chess contest that a Kissinger or Metternich would appreciate. The new games:

> INTERFACE, developed by Boat Builder Ken Mobert of San Rafael, Calif., is played on a Y-shaped board with 108 squares and 18 irregular quadrilaterals. Six of the quadrilaterals --which are located in the triangular zone, or interface, where the three sectors of the board meet--are colored red and called "transit points." As in traditional chess, each player starts out with a regulation army of 16 pieces --red, black or white--which move in the standard way, unless they land on a transit point. Then strange things can happen. A bishop, for example, can transfer from a diagonal row of white squares to a black row. By moving from a transit point in their regular L-shaped pattern, knights can occupy an immediately adjacent space. They thus acquire power far more devastating than in regulation chess. But what gives Interface its spice is the possibilities of forming shifting alliances. When two players unite against the third and one administers a fatal checkmate, he takes over the eliminated player's pieces and immediately turns them against his erstwhile ally. Thus, even when working together (direct communication between players is forbidden), the two partners must constantly guard against weakening their positions vis-`a-vis each other. The game ends when the second player has been mated. Says Mobert: "It's like real warfare. You cooperate as long as it's to your advantage, then the back stabbing begins."

> THREE-PLAYER CHESS, invented by University of Rochester Sophomore Robert Zubrin, uses a hexagonal board with 96 squares. The pieces are identical to those in regular chess and generally are set up and move in the traditional way, with a few exceptions: the king always lines up to the right of the queen, bishops move in curving arcs, and knights placed in the star-shaped center of the board can cover ten squares instead of only eight. Zubrin's game permits two players to confer and plan mutual strategy against the third and allows any of the players to psych his opponents by announcing his intentions. The first player to checkmate another inherits his pieces for an assault on the remaining opponent. Thus the unallied player can wreck a partnership by mounting a furious attack on one of his two tormentors, gaining a superior position, and then pointing out to the other that he himself would make a far better ally. That strategy often induces one partner to switch sides. In another variation, the eliminated player's pieces simply become deadwood on the board, thereby complicating play. Either way, says Zubrin, Three-Player Chess is "more complex than chess, but not as precise. It is more psychological."

Zubrin is dickering with toy manufacturers for U.S. distribution of his three-handed chess game. Meanwhile, it is being sold in three European countries. Mobert, with two partners, has formed a company that sells Interface to department stores and also fills mail orders (price: $9.95). Hundreds of orders have come in--apparently from people who have a taste for treachery along with their love of the game.

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