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Welbeck Kriegspiel

Welbeck Kriegspiel is a variant of Kriegspiel. Hubert Philips, who also invented Assassin Kriegspiel (a further modification of Welbeck Kriegspiel) invented this game in 1917, in Welbeck Park. It was invented by Hubert Philips, possibly around 1930. The inventor has played and refereed hundreds of games till over the midst of the 20th century - I do not know whether the game has been played otherwise often. The rules below only tell the differences with Kriegspiel: for the rules of Kriegspiel, see the description of Kriegspiel.

Rules

Similar to Kriegspiel, the game is played by two players, with help of a third person: the referee.

At the start of the game, the players set their pieces secretly on the first four rows of the board, i.e., white deploys his pieces on rows 1, 2, 3, and 4, and black deploys his pieces on rows 5, 6, 7, and 8. These setups are shown to the referee. In this deployment, a player must put his bishops on differently colored squares, but may place his pawns on the first row.

Then, the referee tells both players the position of the king of the opponent.

After that, the game proceeds like Kriegspiel, but pawns may never make a double step.

Information based on The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants.

Written by Hans Bodlaender.

WWW page created: September 15, 1997.