a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k
10												10
9												9
8												8
7												7
6												6
5												5
4												4
3												3
2												2
1												1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k

Wildebeest chess starting setup. For this diagram,camels are represented by invertedknights; wildebeests by dragons. In this position the white camel onh1 can move tog4 ori4; the white wildebeest can move tof3,f4,h3, orh4.

Wildebeest chess is achess variant created by R. Wayne Schmittberger in 1987.^[1][2][3] The Wildebeestboard is 11×10 squares. Besides the standardchess pieces, each side has twocamels 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, twoknights, two camels, and a wildebeest balance tworooks, twobishops, and aqueen.)

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

Pieces and pawns move and capture the same as they do in standardchess, except for two new pieces, and the pawn's ability to advance to the players' fifthranks in a single move from either their second or third ranks. Wildebeest chess differs from the standard game in that a win can be achieved either bycheckmate orstalemate. In both cases the losing side has no legal moves.

Thecamel is a(1,3)-leaperfairy chess piece. It moves and captures like an elongated move of a chess knight – jumping in a 2×4 (squares) rectangular pattern over any intervening men. Each camel is thus limited to squares of one color.

Thewildebeest moves and captures as a camel and a chessknight.

• Pawns move as in standard chess, but instead of the usual double move they may advance orthogonally an arbitrary distance as long as the destination square is still in the mover's half of the board, even if the pawn has already moved. Leapt squares and destination square must be empty.
• En passant captures are possible and work similar as in standard chess. A pawn may move diagonally forward to a square that has been leapt by an opponent's pawn in the directly previous move, thereby capturing that pawn.
• A pawn maypromote only to a queen or wildebeest.

Normal conventions apply whencastling, with the only difference that the castling player can choose to slide his kingone,two,three, orfour squares. As in chess, the castling rook finishes on the opposite side of the king on the square adjacent.

C for camel, W for wildebeest.

1. Wf4 f7?? 2. Wg7#

• Parallel worlds chess – another chess variant by R. Wayne Schmittberger
• Omega chess – a similar chess variant adding two new pieces to equalize the number of jumping pieces (leapers) with sliding pieces (riders)

Bibliography

• Pritchard, D. B. (1994). "Wildebeest Chess".The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Games & Puzzles Publications.ISBN 0-9524142-0-1.
• Pritchard, D. B. (2007). "Wildebeest Chess". In Beasley, John (ed.).The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. John Beasley.ISBN 978-0-9555168-0-1.
• Schmittberger, R. Wayne (1992). "Wildebeest Chess".New Rules for Classic Games. Wiley.ISBN 978-0-471-53621-5.

• Wildebeest Chess byHans Bodlaender,The Chess Variant Pages
• Recognized Chess Variant: Wildebeest Chess by Glenn Overby,The Chess Variant Pages
• Wildebeest Chess atBoardGameGeek
• Wildebeest Chess a simple program by Ed Friedlander(Java)

• Chess variants
• Fairy chess
• 1987 in chess
• Board games introduced in 1987

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata