Aviation chess

Aviation chess was invented in 1913, and played during WW I. In most aspects, this chess variant is identical FIDE chess, but there is one difference: the pawns on the b-file and g-file are replaced by 'aviators'. These 'aviators' fly diagonally, over any number of pieces, to either an empty square, or a square occupied by an enemy piece (which is then captured and replaced). 

As one of my other interests is Spitfires and their history, I decided to adapt Aviation chess slightly by having Spitfires as 'aviators'!

Off eBay, I got a full set of 32 laser cut chess pieces (of course, I don't need four of the pawns) as well as four laser cut Spitfire shapes. They smell really nice as a result of the laser-cutting process!

Then I used two colours of wood stain ('pine' and 'mahogany', respectively) to create the 'white' and 'black' pieces.

I decided to use the board of my Kyrgyz set, as it had the right size squares and also looks relatively old.

So there we go: a Spitfire-inspired set for Aviation chess!

Marble and onyx set

A couple of years ago, I got an incomplete soapstone set plus board for almost nothing. I used some of the pieces as additional pieces for several soapstone sets, but the board remained unusued.

Until I got my hands on a set of 'Mexican' onyx and marble pieces, which came without a board. Seemed to me the soapstone board could well be used for this set!

The pieces themselves are in the 'Aztec' style that regularly pops up on eBay. 

Nothing spectacular, but a nice set to add to the collection, and good that the unused soapstone board has found a purpose.

Mini xiangqi set

Mini xiangqi is a smaller version of xiangqi, invented by Shigenobu Kusumoto in 1973 or 1974. Compared to xiangqi itself, it has no river, no elephants, and no guards. It does still have a palace,  which limits the movement of the king, as it does in xiangqi itself. 

The initial array of the pieces in mini xiangqi is like this:

Why do I bring up this smaller xiangqi variant? Well, some time ago, I got my hands on a wooden xiangqi set, with the pieces similar to, but smaller than those of my varnished set.

Rather than use the paper board provided with the set, or make a board myself, I thought it would be fun to use it for mini xiangqi (simply leave out the elephants and guards) and create a board for that. 

That board consisted of a piece of thin plywood, on which I drew the initial lines.

On the final board, those lines would be made from lollypop sticks ...

... cut to size and glued to the board, which had the edges and palaces covered by a thin layer of pine wood stain.

The board then got two coats of clear glossy varnish.

All that's missing now is the pieces; note the absence of elephants and guards.

I think board and pieces work well together.

Glass-on-velvet xiangqi set

Got this xiangqi set off eBay. 

The box itself isn't very exciting, I admit, but when you open it, you find a small glass xiangqi board, lying on a bed of velvet. The pieces, also made from glass, each have their own little comfy slot to the side of the board.

And this is what it looks like with the pieces on the board in their starting line-up.

Of course, you can take the board from the box, and that may well be the intention, but I really like keeping it on its velvet bed. 

Unique set in my collection, for sure!

Jurassic Park set

I'd seen this Jurassic Park chess set for sale on Amazon, and popping up on eBay plenty of times, but always for prices way above what I was willing to part with. Until one day quite recently ...

The set has the usual fold-out cardboard board, whereas the pieces are high-quality plastic.

Pterosaurs act as pawns, sauropods as rooks, Velociraptor as knights, Dilophosaurus as bishops, spinosaurids as queens and (obviously) T. rex as kings.

Worth waiting for!

Football chess

As with so many of the chess sets in my collection, I saw this American Football set on eBay, for not very much at all. 

Now there is such a thing as 'football chess'! The aim of 'football chess' is not to capture the king, but to get a ball into the goal or over the goal line. The now out-of-print Encyclopedia of Chess Variants actually lists five different versions, one of which uses a standard 8 x 8 board with the standard line-up of pieces. The difference with FIDE chess is just that there is a ball, which must be 'kicked' over the goal line, and each piece 'kicks' the ball the same way it moves. 

So I decided to just add a small ball to this set to turn it into (American) football chess. 

Board is the usual fold-out cardboard, depicting an American football field with two end zones. The 'Rivalry' refers to the Super Bowl where the champions of the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference play against each other. Hence the 'A' and 'N' in the two end zones.

The pieces, made of plastoy, show players with various roles (e.g. the queens are the quarterbacks). Each of the 32 pieces has a different helmet, representing the 32 teams in the League. 

It wasn't so easy to find a miniature American football! Eventually, I found a small acorn of pretty much the right size and shape, and used a permanent marker to make it look more like a real (American) football.

More basic xiangqi sets

Over time, I've picked up a bunch of basic xiangqi sets, and posted on a bunch of them here. Since then, I've added a couple more to the collection, so let me show these to you now. 

First up is a very cheap basic set, with a plastic film as board, and plastic pieces with metallic red / green writing.

Then there is an other magnetic portable set, this time with pieces shaped like small flat stones.

Another magnetic travel set, smaller than the one above, and with simple round yellow pieces

And then finally, a basic set from Vietnam, consisting of a standard paper board and plastic pieces. 

In Vietnam, xiangqi is called Co Tuong. According to one source, Co Tuong is identical in every way to xiangqi, but another source states it is 'mostly similar'. I've never come across any source specifying how Co Tuong differs from xiangqi, so my assumption is that it indeed is the same game under a different name. Unless I see evidence to the contrary, that is ...