Beyond Omega Chess Review

Beyond Omega Chess, a Review

By Sam Han, contributing Author

In 1992, Canadian, Daniel Macdonald invented Omega Chess. Detailed historical information can easily be found on their company website www.omegachess.com. Omega chess is one of two very successful contemporary chess variants. It has a sixteen year history, over 200,000 players, an official players' federation, numerous expert endorsements and reasonably priced, tournament quality playing equipment. I believe that every serious variant player owes it to himself to give Omega chess a thoughtful look. It's a great game in its own right and its equipment is a worthwhile addition to any chess variant enthusiast's construction kit. The two pairs of unique pieces (the champion and wizard) will be very useful in the multitude of variants that do not have special equipment available. I regularly use them to play an array of different historical variants.

Finding boards for the great variety of variants is no longer a challenge now that we are lucky enough to have Beyond Chess boards. It is an easy matter to create any historical chess variant's board that uses squares or rectangular grids. We no longer have to use old pizza boxes to play variants with more than sixty-four squares. Every time I get the hankering to play Giga chess or Timur's Chess or Wildebeest Chess or any of the dozens of other Great Chess varieties, I only need to grab my bag of Beyond Chess squares. In just a few minutes I have an attractive board with no lingering odor of pepperoni. Thank you, Dave Crockett of Beyond Chess!

Omega chess is a very good partner for Beyond Chess because it adds two unique pieces that are both leapers. They join the formerly lonely knights bounding over rifts to fork their hapless opponents in ways the horsemen of classic chess could have only dreamed. To accommodate the additional four pieces and two pawns, Omega Chess uses a 104 square board. The main board is arranged in a 10x10 grid with one additional square placed diagonally on each of the corners. The designer says that the corner towers of traditional castle plans inspired him to include these unusual spaces which provide starting locations for the game's wizards and revolutionize end game play.

Omega chess's additional pieces are powerful enough to be interesting without destroying the balance of the game. The champion is a leaper that can jump one or two spaces orthogonally or two spaces diagonally giving it the combined moves of Fairy Chess's wazir, dabbaba and alfil. Assuming that board edges and friendly pieces do not interfere, it can move to as many as twelve spaces. It is worth five pawns and sets up just outside the rooks. An extra pawn is stationed in front of each champion.

The wizard is also a leaper. It jumps one space diagonally, or in a 1,3 space pattern like an elongated knight. This gives it the combined moves of Fairy Chess's fers and camel. The wizard is bound to one color like the bishop in FIDE chess. It can move to as many as twelve spaces if it is not interfered with and has a value of four pawns. The wizards begin the game in the extra corner squares.

Because the board is ten squares across, pawns may make a move of one, two or three spaces on their first moves with the extra en passant possibilities you would expect. Promotion takes place on the tenth rank and can be to any piece. The larger board makes sliding pieces like the bishops, rooks and the queen much more powerful. My calculations give the bishop a value of five pawns, the rook a value of seven and the queen equals twelve pawns in value. The Omega Chess website undervalues the bishop, suggesting a value of only three pawns and gives the rook a value of six. Calculated piece values are always open to debate. I will not go to the mat over a one pawn difference on the rook, but I find giving the Omega bishop a value no more than it's FIDE counterpart impossible to understand. The Omega board is 63% larger. How can a bishop that can span this much bigger board not be more valuable? This disparity is especially puzzling, since the Omega Chess website and I agree that the queen is now worth twelve pawns. The queen is a combination of a rook and a bishop. Five plus seven in my system logically equals twelve. The website's math has three and six adding up to twelve. I will gladly trade an Omega Chess knight for a bishop at any time and be convinced that I am two pawns to the good.

In our play tests at the Chess Variant Cookbook, we have found that Omega Chess usually takes a few less turns to reach its conclusion in spite of being considerably more complex. We have yet to experience a single tied game. The Omega Chess website also reports far fewer ties in their tournament games.

Putting this great variant on Beyond Chess's dynamic board gives the variant player a great game experience. The three leaping pieces make a whole new group of forks appear. I found myself besieged by wizards, champions, and knights. Omega Chess is already far more dynamic that FIDE Chess. The Beyond Chess board raises this to a new level. Every square movement needs to be utilized to the max to keep these bad boys at bay. You can no longer get by using every rift to thwart rooks and bishops. Extremely dangerous situations, like the Wizard’s Mate, can develop very quickly. The dynamic resources of the Beyond Chess board are very handy. Give Beyond Omega Chess a try. I think you’ll like it.

Sam Han, Author of the upcoming Chess Variant Cookbook, e-mail him at samhan777@cs.com.

The possibilities are endless ... go Beyond Chess!

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The Champion's movement.

The Wizard's movement.

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Click to enlarge.

For more information on Omega Chess, visit their website at www.omegachess.com.

To learn more about other chess variations, visit www.chessvariants.org.