a	b	c	d	e	f
9							9
8							8
7							7
6							6
5							5
4							4
3							3
2							2
1							1
	a	b	c	d	e	f

Chessence gameboard and starting setup, each player is given three extra men in reserve which they can place on one of the starting squares during there turn in lieu of moving a man

Chessence is achess variant invented by Jim Winslow in 1989.^[1][2] Theboard is a 6×9 rectangle of squares with eight squares missing. Each player has aking and nine men with initial setup as shown, including three men initially not yet in play at the side of the board. To win, a player mustcheckmate orstalemate the opponent.

In Chessence, kings do not move and must remain fixed on their starting squares the entire game. (Thus, a king is unable to move out ofcheck.) Aman has capability to move based on its relative position to other friendly men on the board, as follows:

• If a man isorthogonally adjacent to a friendly man, then both have the ability to move as arook in chess.
• If a man isdiagonally adjacent to a friendly man, then both have the ability to move as a chessbishop.
• If a man is aknight's move away from a friendly man, then both have the ability to move as aknight.

A man with more than one position relationship has the ability to move in more than one way. Likewise, if a man hasno position relationship defined above, that man cannot move. The king has no bearing on how the other men may move.

A man may not move to, nor through, a non-existent square; except that a man moving as a knight mayjump over a non-existent square. For a turn, a player may move a man on the board, or alternatively, they may put one of theirreserve men in play by placing it on any of their six initial starting squares that are currently open.

Checks, checkmate, and captures are as instandard chess. If a player has no legal moves, they lose the game.

• Beirut Chess – another chess variant by Jim Winslow

Bibliography

• Pritchard, D. B. (1994).The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Games & Puzzles Publications.ISBN 0-9524142-0-1.
• Pritchard, D. B. (2007). Beasley, John (ed.).The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. John Beasley.ISBN 978-0-9555168-0-1.

• Chessence by Peter Aronson,The Chess Variant Pages
• Chessence a simple program by Ed Friedlander(Java)

• Chess variants
• 1989 in chess
• Board games introduced in 1989

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata