[HPforGrownups] Re: Chess Flint?

[Dave Hardenbrook]

No: HPFGUIDX 19242

At 12:20 AM 5/23/01 +0000, rja.carnegie at excite.com wrote:
>I don't know chess contest rules, never learned to play at all well,
>so I don't know whether the move is official as soon as Ron leaves
>his home square.

The official rule is that as soon as you touch a piece, you must move it,
and when you let it go, that's the move and cannot be taken back.  The
only known instance of a tournament player violating this rule and getting
away with it is Garry Kasparov (Slytherin in a past or future life?), in a
match against Judith Polgar (Seeker for the Hungarian Quidditch team in a
past or future life?) -- The referee (Snape in a past or future life?) ruled in
Kasparov's favor, even though most people agree he took back the
move after letting go of the piece.

>As to the arrangement of pieces, at the start of the Christmas holidays 
>JKR unfortunately says wizard chess is "exactly like
>Muggle chess except that the figures were alive."

But that's normal Wizard chess, which McGonnegal's chess seems to
deviate from, i.e. the pices are faceless; and perhaps some form
of "Fairy Chess" rules was adopted to make it all the harder.  Maybe
McGonnegal saw that exhibit at the Pompidou Center in Paris in
the mid-80's that included a life-size chess game with rules no one
could figure out.

>Or it's on PC, perhaps.  There's been at least one animated character
>chess game, but I forget the name.

_Battle Chess_, which I never liked.  Hopefully the Hogwarts version
will be less violent.



                         -- Dave