3D chess

Way back when in the old days, I had a friend who was into the Star Trek TV series. I remember him saying that in some scene(s) Spock (?) played three-dimensional chess. What I don't remember him saying is how many layers high the boards are stacked. Three levels? Eight levels?

And in the real world, does anybody play 3D chess? How is it annotated? How do the pieces move when they change levels?

I remember in high school somebody had a board with 3d chess. It was a stack of glass (plastic) chessboards and I supposed the moves were the same except with the added dimension. I think there were three boards, but i may be mistaken. All I remember is thinking, this game is hard enough without any additional complications. Anyway, the whole set was cheap and shaky and the people playing barely knew the moves.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac
Way back when in the old days, I had a friend who was into the Star Trek TV series. I remember him saying that in some scene(s) Spock (?) played three-dimensional chess. What I don't remember him saying is how many layers high the boards are stacked. Three levels? Eight levels?

And in the real world, does anybody play 3D chess? How is it annotated? How do the pieces move when they change levels?

A much better set of rules

http://www.chessvariants.com/3d.dir/startrek.html

I didn't know about the movable levels. Also, one of those links makes reference to 4x4x4, 4x4x8, 8x8x3, 5x5x5 variations of board layout.

I know other variations of regular 2D chess have been considered, if only briefly. Someone proposed adding another two (or four, maybe) files to the board, along with the extra pawns on second rank and new types of pieces that would start behind the pawns on the new files. The new pieces did things like combine the moves of queen and knight, I think.

There was supposedly even a four-player version of chess. I don't know if the board for that was bigger than 8x8.

At any rate, Buddy's point that "this game is hard enough without any additional complications" is well taken.

I believe it was Capablanca who suggested to play on 100 squares.

About the 4-player version Dirac mentioned,I think that's how chess started out and only later developed into a 2-player game.

I know there are four-person card games where people on opposite sides of the table cooperate to defeat the other two. I wonder if the four-person chess game was two against two, or every player for himself. Maybe that is something that is lost in the mists of time.

http://www.chessvariants.com/multiplayer.dir/4players.html

Check this out.Looks freaky

http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/chaturang4.html

The links to four-handed chess speak of "partners" and "teams," so maybe that is the classic way to do it, rather than each for himself.

In the first link, the central 8x8 core is surrounded in some versions by four 8x2 rectangles, in others by four 8x3 rectangles, and in yet others by four 8x4 rectangles.

I noticed while going through Public Games at RHP that two folks are playing a set piece game where they start out with bishops where the pawns should be and knights on their first ranks except for a queen and king in their usual positions.

Game 592986