By Zied Haddad, inventor of the Musketeer Chess.

It becomes difficult at the highest levels of chess to avoid long theoretical lines. Chess itself becomes more like a game of knowledge, partly due to the internet, computer engines and advances in opening theories.

Many chess variants have been "invented". The most commonly recognized are certainly Capablanca Chess, Fisher Random Chess (FRC) and Grand Chess.

The purpose behind the development of Musketeer Chess was to make chess more fun and exciting and to avoid long, over-analyzed opening lines. Players can now rely on their own inventiveness and creativity. Musketeer Chess is also a way to limit the percentage of draws. In fact, the new "forces" coming with Musketeer Chess, tend to make the fight on the board tough. Usually the games are very tense. The game ends in general one with one side prevailing.

Compared to other Chess Variants, Musketeer Chess is played on a Classic 8x8 Chess Board. This will make the value of the Classic Chess pieces remain close to what we know (even though introducing new pieces always creates imbalance and changes the relative value of all the pieces).

Musketeer Chess is a modern chess variant. It respects the basic rules of chess, using a classic chess board along with a classic chess set.

However, we add two additional pieces. White chooses the first piece, then black chooses the second piece. This will limit the advantage of the white army as the one who plays the first move. The strategy in Musketeer Chess begins from the first move, as white and black will alternatively choose where to put their pieces in reserve. We must be very careful from the first move not to disorganize piece coordination. In fact, a new piece when introduced on the board brings a new strength on the Board, it also limits the possible moves of other pieces.

New tactics and new strategies enrich the game. Nevertheless, the basic fundamentals of chess are respected.

There are 10 new chess pieces. These new pieces are: Archbishop, Cannon, Chancellor, Dragon,Elephant, Fortress, Hawk, Leopard, Unicorn and Spider.

For more details please see the official site: http://musketeerchess.net