Breaking news: "Chess 2" set to launch

by Avathanshu Bhat
4/1/2023 – Chess is set to move forward to a fresh new experience. At the New Delhi Women's Grand Prix FIDE's secretive Game Division has finally announced a sequel, Chess 2, built on brand-new mechanics, with new pieces and abilities. The intention is to bring an all-new chess angle to the competitive E-Sports scene and provide fans with a game that builds on ideas that make it more active and dynamic. More information can be found in this ChessBase India article below.

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On 30th March 2023, history was made when the first release poster was unveiled. Immediately, nearly 83 grandmasters from around the world erupted in denial and rejection of the change. However, it was short-lived, as a bullet-pointed slide containing all the features was flashed on screen, to great awe. Here are some of these features below:

An expansion of the playing field

We all understand the balanced playing area in the historical 64 squares. As Fischer once said, it’s not enough. So, the inventors have decided to make the ambitious upgrade to a 10x10 board that allows for two brand new pieces on the newly formed corners of the board. The new piece is called the "Ship".

This new piece can only move forward, one step at a time. However, at any point in the game, it can capture material of the opponent directly horizontally on the same rank while remaining on the same file. And any piece that comes in contact with the front face of the Ship will be captured, regardless of its colour. This brings us to our next Quality of Life Change:

New UI and Matchmaking System

The For the launch of the Chess 2 the online playing software is already fully functional. This is what the beta site looks like:

The playing site includes a "matchmaking queue" that allows players to select a ‘role’ they would like to fill before engaging in battle.

Community Reaction:

On March 30th, Garry Kasparov pointed to Chess 2 in a tweet, which garnered 2M likes:

Indian grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi expressed his opinion in a private, confidential phone call he requested not to be shared. Here are his words from that call: "I just don't see the point...all those years of work, preparation, theory, for nothing. I will not touch this game."  

We greatly anticipate the release of Chess 2, and hope to see the change that we in the chess community believe in. We look forward to seeing you in the arena! 

 


Avathanshu is a 17-year-old chess player from Mumbai. Apart from being a chess fanatic, he is a voracious reader and his favourite books include Wonder by R.J. Palacio, Lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and the complete adventures of Feluda by Satyajit Ray. He loves Daniel King and enjoys his Power Play DVDs very much. He maintains his own blog. Like his FaceBook page for more updates!
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Frederic Frederic 4/2/2023 09:22
Some ChessBase April history
https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-chebase-april-fool-s-prank
https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-april-fool-s-tradition
https://en.chessbase.com/post/chessbase-april-1st-entertainment
It became tougher and tougher. And we tried to keep it at least funny.
pshuk pshuk 4/2/2023 06:07
april fool :-)
karavamudan karavamudan 4/2/2023 05:00
April Fool. Could immediately see it. Better to have tried a prank which had some element of truth in it like Candidates being held in two countries etc.
philidorchess philidorchess 4/2/2023 02:33
Lets see where it goes.AB should be an interesting person.
Frederic Frederic 4/1/2023 11:57
Google destroyed the traditional April Fool's tradition. Now that everything can be instantly checked, the pranks must at least be imaginative and funny. And in this respect the young author has not done a bad job. I especially liked his line "Indian grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi expressed his opinion in a private, confidential phone call he requested not to be shared. Here are his words from that call: ..." My kind of humour.
Frits Fritschy Frits Fritschy 4/1/2023 10:25
Even if this article isn't entirely 'foolproof', it has some historical connection, as in the ancient four-handed chess a piece with about the same capacities as the alfil (the forerunner of the modern bishop) was called the boat. So it moved diagonally, but you can't always have a backwind...
nimzobob nimzobob 4/1/2023 10:14
Lame
agatti agatti 4/1/2023 10:09
Let's remember today is April 1st :-) !
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