Wildebeest chess

Wildebeest chess starting setup. For this diagram, camels are represented by horizontal knights; wildebeests by inverted knights. In this position the white camel on h1 can move to g4 or i4; the white wildebeest can move to f3, f4, h3, or h4.
This example uses algebraic notation.

Wildebeest chess is a chess variant created by R. Wayne Schmittberger in 1987.[1][2][3] The Wildebeest board is 11×10 squares. Besides the standard chess pieces, each side has two camels and one "wildebeest" - a piece which may move as either a camel or a knight.

The inventor's intent was "to balance the number of 'riders'—pieces that move along open lines—with the number of 'leapers'—pieces that jump". (So for each side, two knights, two camels, and a wildebeest balance two rooks, two bishops, and a queen.)

The game was played regularly in the (now defunct) correspondence game club NOST.[a]

  1. ^ Pritchard (1994), pp. 341–42
  2. ^ Pritchard (2007), pp. 134–35
  3. ^ Schmittberger (1992), p. 206
  4. ^ Pritchard (1994), p. 210


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