Kaissa, anyone?

John Norman’s Gor series includes as background a chess-like game named Kaissa. In its first incarnation it has no more than allegorical significance, but it gains some substance in later books, especially Beasts Of Gor and, to a lesser extent, Players of Gor. At no time is enough information given to make a definitive statement of the rules of the game possible, but the synthesis below makes a playable game that incorporates as much as possible of what the author wrote and contradicts as little as possible. (Some pieces of nonsense such as “Ubar’s Tarnsman to Physician Seven” as the first move of the terrible “Centian Opening” can’t be slotted into a rational description of the game.)

The game is played on a chequered board ten squares by ten with the squares and the pieces coloured yellow and red rather than black or white (though I personally would find that colour-scheme an eyestrain). Yellow moves first and the object of the game is to capture the enemy’s Home Stone, for which see below.

The pieces and their powers are as follows:

Initiate (I) – A member of Gor’s religious caste. Moves as a bishop.
Builder (B) – Also includes practitioners of most of the physical sciences. Moves as a rook.
Scribe (S) – Also includes most clerical professions. Moves as a bishop but with a 6-square range limit on any given move.
Tarnsman (T) – A warrior mounted on a giant raptor. A (3,2) leaper (cf the chess Knight, a (2,1) leaper) that while in its own half of the board can instead make a non-capturing move as if it were a King. This is known as a “positioning move”.
Ubar (U) – Warlord, similar in function to the Tyrant of Earth’s classical era; supposedly appointed only for the duration of a military emergency. Moves as a queen.
Ubara (A) – Ubar’s consort. Moves as a queen but with a 7-square limit.
Physician § – Moves as a rook with a 4-square limit.
Rider of the High Tharlarion ® – A warrior mounted on a bipedal dinosaur. Moves as a king but with no game-losing significance (cf. the “Mann” of fairy chess).
Spearman (O, or no symbol in algebraic notation; the letter represents the warrior’s shield) – Moves and captures as a pawn. Its first move may be up to 3 squares, except: the spearmen that begin on the edge files (“Flanking Spearmen” ) start on the third rank, and have no multi-square option. Promotes to Tarnsman or Rider only. A Spearman on the ninth rank may make a diagonal move to the tenth, even as a non-capturing move. (Note: The author makes one reference to the Spearman being able to move sideways or diagonally ad lib, but I beg leave to override him on grounds of playability. There is no intimation of any en passant capability.)
Home Stone (H) – National flag, crown jewels and Stone of Scone all rolled into one. Begins off-board and must be placed on-board after the player’s first move and before his eleventh. (I think, from context, it must be placed on the back rank, which would explain this stipulation.) A Home Stone moves as a chess King but cannot capture.

The initial array looks like this:



+= = = = = = = = = =+
|i b s t u a t s b i|  (h)
|p r o o o o o o r p|
|o . . . . . . . . o|
|. . . . . . . . . .|
|. . . . . . . . . .|
|. . . . . . . . . .|
|. . . . . . . . . .|
|O . . . . . . . . O|
|P R O O O O O O R P|
|I B S T U A T S B I|  (H)
+= = = = = = = = = =+


(Yellow pieces are in caps.)

The books use descriptive notation throughout but algebraic notation, either short or long, works just fine… unsurprisingly the files are lettered from a to j instead of a to h as in chess, and the ranks numbered from 1 to 10 instead of 1 to 8. There is no equivalent to castling and hence no need for any such special symbol.

Any takers?

I haven’t the wherewithal to pay attention to an involved online sorta-chess game (though I’m sure others here do), but aren’t the Gor books the ones with the rather, ah, limited take on female agency?

Lux, it depends on what you mean by limited. :wink:

But if you want me to start up an “Ask the Gor fan” thread so you can ask any questions you like about it, I’m yer man. It doesn’t seem worthwhile hijacking this thread for it, not that this one looks like going anywhere in particular sigh

I’m assuming that while many Dopers are interested in new chess-like games, they’re wary of so publically challenging somebody whose spent considerably more time thinking about the game and is more familiar with the rules. Most Dopers are also wary of being in any way associated with Gor.

Fair enough. I have, fwiw, played this game or something very like it exactly twice, ever.

Of course. Tolerance is the watchword hereabouts, but one must be careful of what one tolerates. :slight_smile:

Whenever Gor is mentioned here, I get the sense people object not so much to the bondage and sadomasochism. Obviously, there are some women who enjoy these things. I mean who hasn’t been shopping in center city while wearing a long black coat and mumbled to yourself that you’d like some kefir and vatrushkas and had a small group of bisexual women tell you that you remind them of Rasputin and then taken back to their apartment where they dress up as nuns and ask that the Mad Monk tie them up and punish them for all their wickedness? It’s the misogyny and the idea that ‘being made a slave is what all women really want.’

I’ve realized another reason no one has taken you up on your challenge. If a Doper engaged in a play by post chess game wants to look at possible moves and strategies, chess boards and pieces are easy to find. But for kaissa, you need new pieces and a new board. While a piece of graph paper and pennies with bits of tape on them will work, no true Doper would accept this. They’ll begin photoshopping textures to print out a board. They’ll search the web, and their libraries like crazy, for pictures to print out as pieces. Or maybe they’ll feel compelled to make a 10x10 board out of squares or pine and oak and whittle the pieces. Or perhaps they’ll begin curing hide for a leather board. Or making molds to cast pieces out of lead.

Since most of us are in the middle of a dozen projects as it is, nobody wants to start a new one.

I would be interested if I had the time and as mentioned above, a physical board to look at. Even when playing online chess (pbem usually) I’ll set up a board to view. While I can play chess in 2d, I much prefer to think for long periods with a physical board.

I should also note I have read the first two Gor books. I picked them up while looking for other author created worlds that had more than 3 books based in them. I don’t hold anything against the Gor fans, they’re just like any other fan. shrug

Intuitively I’d thoroughly agree - the whole exercise sounds like nothing but adolescent fantasy. This is why I was profoundly surprised to discover how many female slaves there are out there. Delete “all” from your last sentence, and appreciate that to the woman who really does want to be a slave, “misogyny” is not applicable, and you’ve about got it. No, I’m not a practitioner myself, nor likely to be one, nor disappointed that I am not. I merely report facts. :cool:

This is, I suspect, fairly close to the literal truth. :smiley:

I don’t think I would want to devote the time and resources to learn how to play Kaissa, I just wanted to pop in and let you know you’re not the only Gor fan here.

I’m sorry not to take you up on this. As DocCathode said, it’s a lot of work to set up new pieces and board. In addition, there is no reason to think the author ever played the game (or discussed it with a chess player).

My favourite chess variant is Madrasi chess. Whenever two pieces of the same type can capture each other, they are both paralysed instead. They don’t move and can’t even give check.
I’ve played this against a variety of opponents.
It leads to quite a slow game, as the pawns tend to block each other. it’s also risky to rush in with a powerful piece in case it is first paralysed, then captured.

Example:

  1. e4 d5 (both e4+d5 pawns now paralysed)
  2. Nc3 e5
  3. Nxd5 Nf6 (both d5+f6 knights now paralysed - Black threatens c6, winning the hapless knight on d5)
  4. Bg5 c6
  5. Bxf6 (releasing the d5 knight)…

I can’t even play chess without losing horribly, I can’t even begin to figure out Kaissa…

Can I be a spectator, ring-side? :wink:

A bit like J K Rowling really. (And Stephen Fry, of all people, made an egregious blunder in “The Stars’ Tennis Balls”.) Norman made use of one or two chess stereotypes: coming up with the “Center Defense” as a cognate to the Centre Counter and with a similarly ill-starred reputation, and it’s certain that the “Ubara’s Gambit” and “Jarl’s Ax’s Gambit” are intended as cognates for the Queen’s, and King’s Knight’s, respectively (the JAG is the Gorean-Norse equivalent of a “Ubar’s Tarnsman’s Gambit” - they name the pieces differently in “Torvaldsland”), but the parallels aren’t warranted in terms of what can be gleaned from the books’ pages about how the game actually works. :slight_smile:

nods to Phedre There do seem to be a few about, though it’s less fashionable than some other lifestyles, ideologies, whatchacallums.