Here is some news of tournaments and events for some popular chess variants. I am grateful to Dave Reynolds (Circular Chess), Doug Hyatt (Progressive Chess), Peter Suto (Hexagonal Chess) and Daniel Macdonald (Omega Chess) for the information they have given me.

The best place on the Web to find out background information about chess variants are the Chess Variant Pages of Hans Bodlaender. These pages have an amazing amount of information about hundreds of chess variants, ancient and modern. Other good sources of information are the magazine Variant Chess, produced by the British Chess Variants Society, and of course David Pritchard's renowned Encyclopedia of Chess Variants.

Two organisations which run tournaments of chess variants are the Associazione Italiana Scacchi Eterodossi (AISE) and the Knights of the Square Table (NOST). AISE produce a magazine Eteroscacco and NOST produce one called NOSTalgia. Both organisations' sites also have information about non-chess-related games.

A superb collection of Java applets which play different chess variants can be found on this Chess Variant Applets page of Ed Friedlander. The games you can try here include ancient regional variants like Shatar and Sittuyin as well as modern inventions like Chessgi and Avalanche Chess. The programs may not provide very strong opposition, but this is an excellent way to try out all sorts of different variants.

There are many sites which deal with one particular variant in some depth. One of the best is this Losing Chess site. These pages, with annotated games, history, strategy, etc., were put together by Stan Goldovski who sadly died in 1999.

A really interesting commercial variant is Omega Chess. This is played on a 10x10 board, and uses new pieces called the wizard and the champion. The game has been endorsed by chess GMs Rohde and Sherzer, and played by Judit Polgar! The site includes rules, game records, strategy hints and ordering information.

The current cycle of the World Internet Progressive Chess Championship (WIPCC) began on July 1998, with 64 players divided into 8 preliminary groups of 8. From these groups, 21 players progressed to the semi-final groups which were completed in September 1999.

Progressive Chess is the variant where White begins the game with one move, then Black plays two moves, then White plays three and so on. You must not move into check during your turn and if you are in check at the start of your turn you must get out of it at once. As each player has more and more consecutive moves on their turn, the game ends quite quickly, so it has always been a favourite for postal play.

There are different versions of the rules. The rules used in the WIPCC are sometimes called Scottish Progressive Chess - this is the type of progressive chess where your turn ends prematurely if you give check.

You can find out all about the tournament on Doug Hyatt's WIPCC pages. These wonderful pages tell you all you could possibly want to know about the WIPCC. There are cross tables and game records of all the games played. Ten interesting games from the preliminary stages have been picked out for annotation, and reading through these is a great way to learn more about progressive chess.

The final round, featuring the top 7 players, has recently begun. The qualifiers were Doug Hyatt and Russell Linnemann (USA), Rolf Sicker and Alfred Pfeiffer (Germany), Norbert Fogarasi (Canada), Roberto Cassano (Italy) and Zoltan Blazsik (Hungary).

The previous championship cycle began in 1996, when the winner was Fred Galvin with Norbert Geissler second and Jouni Tolonen third. Geissler and Tolonen competed again in the current event, but both were knocked out in the semi-final stage.

Check out Doug Hyatt's pages to follow how the final stage of the tournament develops. And if you want to know more about how to play Progressive Chess, have a look at Hyatt's Online Guide to the game. This has very clear explanations of the tactics and strategy of the game, with illustrative games and diagrams.

Fans of Hexagonal Chess, the chess variant invented by Wladyslaw Glinski in the 1930s, will be pleased to know that the game is still being played actively in Eastern Europe.

The latest World Championship match took place in Rowy, Poland in May 1999. The players were Marek Mackowiak of Poland and Laszlo Rudolf of Hungary. These were the same two players who tied for the world title when it was first contested in Beijing at the start of 1991. In the 1999 match, Mackowiak defeated Rudolf by a score of 3½-2½.

Qualification tournaments for the sixth European Championships took place in the second half of 1999. The first qualification tournament, held in Minsk (Belarus) in August was won by reigning champion Sergey Kortsickiy of Belarus, with Mihail Ivaniuk of the Ukraine second. The second qualification tournament was held in Zaniemysl, Poland in November. The winner was Laszlo Gados of Hungary, with Peter Suto (also of Hungary) second. Reigning World title-holder Mackowiak was third, after losing to both Gados and Suto. The program Hexodus III played in this event but only won one game against its human opponents.

The European Championships date back to 1980. One of the players in the first event, finishing in fourth place, was Piers Shepperson who later became British Go Champion.

Here is a full history of the European Championship winners:

In this most recent championship, Mackowiak was second and Rudolf was third.

The 2000 World Circular Chess Championship will take place on Sunday May 14 at the Guildhall in Lincoln, UK. The event will start at about 10am, and finish around 6.30pm. To enter, or for more information, contact Dave Reynolds, 11 North Parade, Lincoln LN1 1LB, UK (tel +44 1522 887666).

The 1999 event took place in Lincoln Castle on May 16, with over 30 competitors. The result was a third successive victory for Francis Bowers of Spalding. He and Paul Byway each finished with four wins and a draw, but Bowers then won a play-off game to retain the championship. The tournament was sponsored by the Lindum Group Ltd, and there was a first prize of £200. The opening draw was carried out by the Mayor and Sheriff of Lincoln, and the cameras of TransWorld Sport were there to record the action.

Circular Chess developed from an old variety of chess played on a circular board, sometimes called Byzantine Chess. This was popular around 1,000 years ago, and the moves of the pieces were different from those of today's chess. In 1983 Dave Reynolds from Lincoln saw a description of Byzantine Chess, and came up with the idea of reviving the game. He retained the original board and layout, but had the pieces move in the manner of modern chess pieces. This became Circular Chess, and a Circular Chess Society was founded in Lincoln. The World Championships began in 1996 when the first winner was Robin Stevens.

You can find more about Circular Chess on the Circular Chess Society page on Hans Bodlaender's variant chess pages.

Gothic Chess is played on a 10x8 board. The game uses the additional pieces the archbishop (with powers of bishop plus knight) and chancellor (rook plus knight). These extra pieces are the same as those which Capablanca once suggested should be used in a larger version of chess.

The game is organised by the Gothic Chess Federation who you can find here ...

The Gothic Chess Association is now taking entries for their 2000 play-by-email championship. The total prize fund is $17,000. There are already around 30 registered entries, including players from a dozen different countries. The 1999 event was won by Rafal Furdzik.

On the Gothic Chess site you can find out more about this tournament. The site also has rules and annotated games, and information about how to join the Gothic Chess and buy Gothic Chess equipment.

Bughouse is the popular chess variant sometimes called Exchange Chess. One partnership of two players plays against another, using two chess sets. If you play white on one board, then your partner plays black on the other. You pass each other the pieces you capture and they can later be dropped on the board instead of a move.

A forthcoming event attracting a lot of interest is the 2000 Bughouse Challenge. Andre Nilssen of Sweden (gnejs on FICS, the Free Internet Chess Server) is the highest-rated player on FICS and is considered by many to be the best Bughouse player in the world. He has issued a challenge to Bob Dodge and Wesley Ward, the top over-the-board Bughouse players in the USA. Dodge and Ward, both with ratings of around 2800, have accepted the challenge. The match is expected to take place in Sweden this summer, although the identity of Nilssen's partner is not yet confirmed.

The place to find out about Bughouse is the Bughouse.net site. On this excellent site you will find rules, openings strategy and player profiles. There is also a lot more information about the Bughouse Challenge, including interviews with the players involved.