The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (D. B. Pritchard, ISBN 978-0-9555168-0-1, 2007)

David Pritchard's The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants is now out of print, and with the agreement of his daughter Wanda we are posting the text here as a set of PDFs. Please note the Warning regarding proprietary games on page 18. Attention is also drawn to a supplementary paper Towards ECV3, which recapitulates what appeared in issue 64 of Variant Chess (August 2010) with a few subsequent notes.

Composite file (362 pages, 16MB)

Frontpapers (title page, copyright page, etc)

List of contents (pages 5-12)
Introduction (pages 13-15)
Acknowledgements (pages 16-17)
Warning regarding proprietary games (page 18)

Introduction to Part 1, Games using an ordinary board and men (page 19)

Chapter 1, Two or more moves at a time (pages 21-32)
Chapter 2, Games with concealed information (pages 33-39)
Chapter 3, Unorthodox ways of capturing (pages 40-45)
Chapter 4, Compulsions and restrictions (pages 46-51)
Chapter 5, Introduction of new or captured men during play (pages 52-57)
Chapter 6, Unorthodox pawn properties and powers (pages 58-60)
Chapter 7, Moving the opponent's men (pages 61-64)
Chapter 8, Transporting and teleporting (pages 65-70)
Chapter 9, Games using unorthodox initial arrays (pages 71-80)
Chapter 10, Different objectives of play (pages 81-92)
Chapter 11, Multiple boards (pages 93-96)
Chapter 12, Miscellanea (pages 97-107)

Introduction to Part 2, Other games using square lattice boards (page 109)

Chapter 13, Larger and smaller boards (pages 111-119)
Chapter 14, New pieces (1) : Combination pieces (pages 120-127)
Chapter 15, New pieces (2) : Pieces with limited range (pages 128-137)
Chapter 16, New pieces (3) : Pieces with unlimited range (pages 138-146)
Chapter 17, Unorthodoxy relating to capture (pages 147-160)
Chapter 18, Mutation games (pages 161-174)
Chapter 19, Changed or multiple kings (pages 175-183)
Chapter 20, Games presented as families (pages 184-187)
Chapter 21, Miscellanea (pages 188-199)

Introduction to Part 3, Boards of other kinds (page 201)

Chapter 22, Boards based on hexagons (pages 203-212)
Chapter 23, Other planar boards (pages 213-220)
Chapter 24, Cylindrical, toroidal, and spherical boards (pages 221-224)
Chapter 25, Boards with three and more dimensions (pages 225-235)

Introduction to Part 4, Regional and historical games (page 237)

Chapter 26, The Near East, Europe, Africa (pages 239-247)
Chapter 27, China, Korea, Vietnam (pages 248-251)
Chapter 28, Japan (pages 252-261)
Chapter 29, India and the rest of Asia (pages 262-272)

Introduction to Part 5, Games using dice and cards (page 275)

Chapter 30, Dice games (pages 277-280)
Chapter 31, Card games (pages 281-286)

Introduction to Part 6, Games with non-chess objectives (page 289)

Chapter 32, Playing to reach a fixed goal (pages 291-300)
Chapter 33, Other objectives of play (pages 301-307)

Introduction to Part 7, Partnership and team games (page 309)

Chapter 34, Games using a single square or rectangular board (pages 311-316)
Chapter 35, Games using non-rectangular boards (pages 317-325)
Chapter 36, Games using more than one board (pages 326-328)

Introduction to Part 8, Every man for himself (page 331)

Chapter 37, Games for three (pages 333-341)
Chapter 38, Games for four or more (pages 342-355)

Heading to the appendix, etc (page 357)

Appendix (pages 359-366)
Notes on principal sources (pages 367-368)
Index (pages 369-382)

The remaining pages (20, 108, 110, 200, 202, 236, 238, 273-274, 276, 287-288, 290, 308, 310, 329-330, 332, 356, 358, 383-384) were blank in the book as printed, and are not included here.