Chess Variants/Almost Chess

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Initial position of almost chess.

Almost Chess is a variant that replaces each player's queen with a chancellor, a piece that can move as either a rook or a knight.

Almost chess was created in 1977 by chess variant creator Ralph Betza. The game is almost like chess, hence its name. It was featured in the magazine of the correspondence games club Knights of the Square Table, which mainly played chess variants.

As already said, almost chess is played exactly like the standard game, the only difference being that each player's queen is replaced with a chancellor, a piece that combines the powers of the rook and the knight. The chancellor may slide along ranks or files like a rook, or it may hop in an L-shape like a knight, but not both simultaneously.

The replacement of queens with chancellors imparts a radical change to the nature of the variant, despite the two pieces having approximately equal strengths. For example, bishops are stronger and knights are weaker. Betza commented that almost chess is a good introductory chess variant for players, due to its great similarity to standard chess and the naturalness of the change from queen to chancellor.

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The chancellor may slide to any square marked with a dot, or it may jump to the squares marked with crosses.

• Sort of almost chess, created in 1994, only replaces one of the queens with a chancellor.