Letterbox: May - August 2000 The letterbox is a monthly posting of various emails and letters we receive here at chessvariants.com. If you would like to send us an email to appear on this page, please indicate somewhere in the body of your email that you'd like the letter to appear here. Also indicate if you would prefer not to your email address mentioned at the end of the letter. Quadular May 2, 2000 hi, i seem to remember playing a game called quadular a few years back and was wondering if you all had ever heard of it. it involved a prince who could move 2 spaces in any direction and you could play even if you lost your king, it was completely point based, there was an 8x8 board in the middle with 5x2 sections on each side with a triangular piece behind the 5x2. any info would be greatly appreciated, i'd really like to pick up a copy of the game. thanks matt ingram ((email removed contact us for address) .uky.edu) Raumschach 4 May, 2000 You have an amazing site - congrats! I hope you can help - I have tried every store and every web site I can think of, to find a source that sells the game Raumschach (3D Chess). I do not want to buy a computer game version; I want to buy an actual board game set that includes the (5) 5x5 chess boards and the Raumschach playing pieces including the unicorns. Do you know which web site offers this product? Thanks for your time, Dave Baschiera ((email removed contact us for address) ility.com) Three-dimensional Chess: 8 x 8 x 3 29 May, 2000 I am writing about "Three-dimensional Chess", the 8 x 8 x 3 game. I once saw a game like that which you described, however it was on tv and I only remember a little about it. It is a game with 3 levels. On the middle level you have a normal chess board with all 6 different pieces. The upper and lower levels are a similar set up with different yet similar playing pieces. By this I mean that the commonly known pieces are reshaped and renamed as follows: Normal pieces Alternate pieces Rooke = Cannon (like the weapon) Knight = Galleon (like the ship) Bishop = Abby (like its female counter-part) Queen = Princess King = Prince Pons - retain the same name but with a slightly different shape to distinguish them from those on the middle level. The pieces on the middle level stay on that level, where as the Alternate pieces move like the Normal but can also jump between levels. The game is won by capturing the king and not the two princes as one might think. I do not know how the alternate pieces moved, which is why I was looking at your site. I was hoping to find such a game online, or at the least find the rules so that I could recreate the game. However I am having no such luck in doing so. I hope this helps you out and any information you receive on this game would be welcomed. David ((email removed contact us for address) la.gulf.net) Shatar 6 July, 2000 I was wondering if you could give me any insight into where the term "Berse" for the queen in Shatar (Mongolian) Chess comes from. I am particularly interesed because it is my Surname and I have been trying to find the origin of it. Thanks in advance, Ryan Berse ((email removed contact us for address) elio.rutgers.edu) Sceptre 1066 10 July, 2000 Hello, folks! I am looking for information on a chess variant game published in the late 70's or early 80's called Sceptre 1066. It was a four player chess game, that had nine boards which would be arranged adjacent to another as the players desired, and each of these boards had different terrain on them. Have you heard of it? Peet ((email removed contact us for address) patico.ca) Editor's note December 2001: We purchased a copy of this game. Information is now posted on our Sceptre 1027 A.D. page. Excellent Chess Rules August 2, 2000 Just wanted to say that I think your site is excellent. My Grandson (9 years old) wants to learn to play chess so I told him I would try and find a set of rules on the Internet. Your site was the most easy to use as well as the most comprehensive. Thank you. Dick Kolb Archaeolgical Mystery August 18, 2000 In the July '99 mail I saw a letter by Edward Strickland with a link to a large Korean CV with the strange name Dlyouk Janggi (). There is a program there that I downloaded and got some vague idea of the game, but my attempts to open the PDF manual failed. Has anyone been more successful? [The page has since added an English language web page describing the rules. --D. Howe] In the same month J.L. Cazaux mentions a site on the origins of chess. Page http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-jostenge/commen.htm of that site contains a riddle described as `Archaeological discovery, dated 2.400 - 2.300 BCE, and experiment of reconstruction. Who does it better?'. Underneath a 5 by 10 board with pieces of two colours and various shapes, plus four 3-sided dice. The text doesn't seem to say, however, where the game set been found. What do people know about it? Ivan A Derzhanski ((email removed contact us for address) h.bas.bg) Previous Letterboxes Letterbox Index Page