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Here's a little throwaway thought I had on the morning drive: <h3>Card Chess Without Randomness or Hidden Information</h3> People have used cards to add an element of randomness to Chess, probably for centuries. I have no problem with this, but some people do, a fact that led me to wonder if an interesting version of Chess with Cards containing no random elements or other hidden information could be constructed. <h4>The Equipment</h4> Each player starts with 16 cards, 15 of which contain all the possible unordered combinations of two pieces, and the last of which is a wild card. Thus: <p> PN, PB, PR, PQ, PK, NB, NR, NQ, NK, BR, BQ, BK, NQ, NK, QK, Wild. <h4>The Play</h4> To move a piece, a player must have a card with either that piece on the card or they must have a wild card. Upon moving that piece, they hand the card they used to allow the move to their opponent, who adds it to their own cards. <p> If a player has no card that would allow them to move any of their pieces, they lose. Other forms of stalemate are also losses. <p> Pieces give check even without their player having a card that would allow them to move the piece. <p> If the King is in check, it may be moved either by playing a card with a King on it, or by playing a card with a piece attacking the King on it. If the King is in check and you have no card that would allow it to move, then it is mate. <h4>Chess with Different Armies</h4> This scheme ought to work OK with Chess with Different Armies, although I am not entirely sure what the consequences are, since the relative strength of pieces from equivalent array positions differ (for example, in the Remarkable Rookies the 'Bishop' is Rook strength, and the 'Rook' is a minor piece; the Colorbound Clobberers are even more oddly distributed). <h4>Comments</h4> Since there are plenty of cards with each piece, openings ought to be fairly standard. Things start to get weird when players lose all of types of piece. If a player has no Knights, Bishops or Queens, then the cards NB, NQ and BQ will never leave their hands. <p> Possibly there are too many cards with each piece on them.