Play It for Free! Print Out the Game Tiles
If you already have a chess board and pawns then you're well on your way to playing Chase Chess.
The Deepest Strategy Game Ever Devised... Is Surprisingly Easy To Learn
Chase Chess is a creative strategy game played on a chess board where you restrict the movements of your opponent in order to trap them — without trapping yourself in the process. Your advantages can also be your opponent's advantages. The object of the game is to jump, sweep, and block your opponent, and collect debts, so that their pawns have no more legal moves remaining.
Claim
a space with tiles or gold
Jump or Sweep
your opponent
Pivot
pay gold to pivot any tile in any direction
Taunt
earn gold sweeping across 10 or more of your tiles
Download the official rules for more details on how Chase is played.
What You Need To Play Chase Chess
You probably already have most of the components you need to play Chase Chess: a chess board and pawns.
You can use a standard chess board to play. You'll also use 1-8 pawns per player, depending on the level of difficulty desired. For a simple game, use one pawn for each player.
Each player begins with 24 Chase tokens they can use to fortify their tiles, claim tiles from their opponent, pay fees, and try to block their opponent with.
Try out Chase with coins or felt furniture pads in place of tokens.
There are 72 two-sided cards, called 'tiles'. One side is for each player. Each tile can fit in one of the 64 squares of the board.
Print your own tiles in color or black & white to see how Chase works. (Be sure to randomize them before you play.)
Perform One Of The Following Five Actions On Your Turn
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2
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3
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4
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5
01
Place a new tile upon a square.
could AI or Machine Learning Crack Chase?
(Not In Our Lifetimes)
chess
About 197,281 possible games by the fourth turn, with a typical game depth of 85 turns. In 1997, top-ranked chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov was defeated by the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue.
Go
About 3,906,250,000 possible games by the fourth turn (19,000 times more than chess.), with a typical game depth of 150 moves. At the 2017 Future of Go Summit, the Master version of AlphaGo beat Ke Jie, the number one ranked Go player in the world.
chase
About 57,443,554,795,791,700,000,000 possible games by the fourth turn (14 trillion times more than Go) using just a single pawn, with a typical game depth of 100 moves. The best human Chase players will dominate the best AI players for decades to come. To further increase AI difficulty by orders of magnitude, just increase the number of pawns each player uses from 1 to 2 (maximum 8 per player).
How are Games of Chase Chess Different Than Regular Chess?
Although Chase Chess is inspired by classical chess, a radically different kind of game emerges when we allow a player's possible moves to be completely determined by the choices they make. Each player is also challenged by their every move helping their opponent in a game whose conclusion unveils one clear winner. Further:
Memory Is Irrelevant
A game with 'complete information' (i.e., no private information) is made better when players find it impossible to use moves from other games that the other player may be unaware of. In Chase, taking a best-guess approach is more useful than pattern recognition. It would not be difficult for someone without any knowledge of other Chase games to win against an experienced player.
Possibilities Are Boundless
By the 4th move with a single pawn (out of eight) there are 291 quadrillion times more possible games than in chess.. Mirroring life with such unpredictable possibilities at each moment, memorization of openings and endgames is irrelevant in Chase Chess. Here, the unexpected turn of events becomes commonplace. Flipping the script keeps things fun and reminds players to keep on their toes!
What Chase Teaches Us About Life
Competition
Fair competition is the highest form of cooperation. Something that helps your opponent may also be what helps you.
Possibilities
Each situation in life is full of possibilities. But those possibilities are wasted if you don't navigate your life to make changes happen.
Karma
If you do something to harm others. It could just as easily work against you.
Balance
Find a balance between saving and spending. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, including the savings basket.
Change
Life can change suddenly, and in unexpected ways. Make reasonable choices and assume surprises are for the best.
Solutions
Every problem has a solution, though you never really know what it is until you try.
Cost
Each choice you make has both a cost and a benefit. When people experience the cost of their actions directly rather than just the benefits, they make different choices.
Nuance
Life is filled with nuance. Although something may appear to be one or the other on the surface, the reality goes much deeper.
Defence
Just because someone attacks you it does not mean you have lost. Sometimes surviving means defending yourself.
Invented By a 5 Year-Old Girl
Chase was invented by a 5 year-old girl while playing with ducks in the shower on tiles whose intersections were like circuits for ducks to pass or be blocked by. After some months, her father realized that the novel game could be played on a chess board using pawns. As the game evolved, she would go on to suggest the game’s style, color, directional function, and many of its rules to make it what it is today.
Two Additional Modes Of Play
In addition to a regular game, Chase offers more ways to play..
Without Tiles
To play this mode, remove the tiles from gameplay and use gold to jump to/from and sweep across. Further, you may jump across your opponent’s gold (paying the appropriate fee) but you can only jump to and from gold of your own color. And you may only sweep across your own gold.
Without Gold
To play this mode, remove the gold from gameplay and pay all fees with tiles. If, for example, your pawn is jumped you would turn over two of your tiles to your opponent’s color. If your only tile remaining is the one your pawn is on, you have lost the game.
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