Live Chess
From SWILwiki
Live Chess has been traditionally played at the Activities Fair and Parents' Weekend, as an opportunity for SWIL to show off how cool and nifty it is to people who haven't had the opportunity to associate with us much yet, and to get other people to participate. Carpet squares for playing Live Chess are stored in piles in George.
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SWIL chess basics
The chess board consists of 32 carpet squares, and masking tape around the edges of the board where there are no squares. The carpet squares can be either black squares or white squares, depending on their colour in relation to whatever is underneath them. A good rule of thumb is: set the board up one way and then, when someone points out that you have it oriented incorrectly, just reverse the colours rather than moving carpet pieces. Also, there are currently more than 32 carpet squares, so don't be alarmed if there are squares left over once the board is finished.
I think that, if the board is set up correctly, the white side should have a white square on their botton right. Queens go on their own colour.
The kings are in charge of deciding where to move pieces, though they may solicit advice. Someone should have a miniature chess board that the kings can pass back and forth, since it's hard to tell which pieces are which. If there are not enough human players, people should remove their shoes and put them on the board. Generally, it is helpful if black shoes stand in for black pawns and white shoes play white pawns, but as long as there's a miniature chess board, it doesn't really matter.
Players who know in advance that they will be either black or white pieces should dress appropriately in dark or light clothing. If possible, it's good to have staffs for bishops and swords (plastic light sabers work well) for knights. For spring challenge chess, a signup sheet for pieces should be sent around at a couple of meetings before the game. For fall chess, it's only necessary to select kings in advance; everyone else can sort it out when they get there (though no one will object if you pass a list around at meeting.)
Sometimes challenge chess is played. This means that captures are not deterministic. When a player moves into a square occupied by another piece, the "attacker" chooses a category, and the two players engage in a challenge. The challenge used should be chosen at random from that category. The winner remains in the square, the loser is removed from the board. When a king is placed in checkmate, the two kings should engage in a foam sword duel, with the winner taking all. In recent years, there hasn't been enough interest for challenge chess, but challenge tic-tac-toe has worked well, and requires both less time and fewer people.
Chess at the Activities Fair
SWIL traditionally runs a game of Live Chess at the Spring and Fall Activities Fairs, in an attempt to recruit frosh. So, any frosh who come to meeting on the day of the fair should be recruited to play chess, and there should be loud shouts of "live chess!" and other such things immediately before the game. Activities fair tables are usually arranged in a line along Parrish walk; the chess board can be set up on the grass behind SWIL's table.
One problem with chess at activities fair is that the game often goes on for too long, and the pieces get bored. Use your judgment: if people are getting bored, one of the kings should play badly to end the game. Also, it seems unfair to stack the deck against one team or the other, but i played a game one year in which one of the kings was a significantly better chess player than the other, and the game ended naturally in an appropriate amount of time, and no one seemed upset.
Chess at Parents' Weekend
Chess at Parents' Weekend takes a little more preparation than fall chess, since it's challenge chess, not just Live Chess. This means that, when two opposing players are occupying the same square, they must perform a challenge to see who gets to stay on the square. Appropriate challenges fall into general categories of physical challenges (hopping on one foot, pole balancing, limbo contest) and verbal challenges (ghost, smurf-naming, alphabetical insults, animal imitations). Judges are needed for some of the challenges. Recruit parents. Try to recruit unbiased parents.
Someone needs to organize challenge chess. This means finding some way to get people to submit challenges. I don't know how to do this, but the organizer should think of something, or simply come up with a list of their own challenges. A list for challenge suggestions can be sent around with the list of pieces at SWIL meeting. Challenges should be somewhat SWIL-appropriate where possible: naming star wars characters is better than naming countries in the former soviet union. Kyla Tornheim '01 wants to play snort.
There is a schedule for Parents' Weekend which appears on programs or something. The challenge chess organizer should keep an eye out for a reserved-students e-mail asking for items to add to the schedule, and should send them the time for challenge chess. Usually, chess takes place on Saturday after the folk dance demo.
Challenges
Challenges were grouped into four categories by Rebecca Sela (nee Paul) '02. These categories are physical, naming things, vague skills, and amusing. If someone wants to redefine the categories, there's nothing wrong with that. Some of the challenges require props - they include some foam swords, some paper, a yo-yo, play-do, and napkin balls. If you don't have the props, just skip the challenges requriring them.
Physical
- Who can stand on their head for longer?
- Who can balance a foam sword on one finger for the longer?
- Who can balance longer on one foot?
- Who will win at thumb wrestling?
- Who can turn in circles longer without falling over or stopping?
- Who will win the "stand facing each other, palms touching, and try to unbalance the other person" game?
- Who can hop on one foot for longer?
- Who can run faster from the front doors of Parrish to side doors of Tarble?
- Who can execute a longer standing broad jump?
Naming Things
- Naming Things
- Who can name more SWIL presidents (past and present, not future)?
- Who can name more Supreme Court justices (past or present)?
- Who can name more characters of Star Trek?
- Who can name more subatomic particles?
- Who can name more Smurfs?
- Who can name more words of longer than 2 syllables beginning with the letter _ (pick a letter)?
- Who can name more state capitals?
- Who can name more Buffy episodes?
- Who can name more of this semester's SWIL movies?
- Who can name more former USSR republics?
- Who can name more Star Wars characters?
- Who can name more past Spamageddon activities?
- Who can name more Buffy characters?
Vague Skills
- Who can do the most interesting yo-yo trick?
- Whose paper airplane will fly further?
- Who will win Rock-Paper-Scissors? (2 out of 3)
- Who will win a Napkin Ball Duel?
- Who can factor a number (between 50 and 250) into primes the fastest?
- Who can recite "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers" 20 times faster?
- Who can make the best play-dough sculpture in 30 seconds?
- Who can win Buzz (counting, where any number either containing or
- divisible by 3 or 7 is replaced by "buzz")?
- Who can juggle for longer?
- Who can hold a continuous shout for longer (without taking a breath)?
- Who can say "Toy Boat" 10 times, more successfully?
Just Amusing
- Who can recite pi more dramatically? (Number of digits does not matter FEELING does!)
- Who can do the best impression of a current SWIL president (who is not you)?
- Who will win at Snort?
- Who can create a more impressive "silly walk"?
- Who has the more evil laugh?
- Who can persist longer with alphabetical insults?
- Who can do the best impression of EITHER a coffee mug or a donut?
- Who can improvise the better limerick?
- Who can tell the worst joke (judged by vigor of groans)?
- Who can persist longer with alphabetical praise?
- Who can draw the best caricature of a current SWIL president in under a minute?
- Who will win Rock Paper Anything (one round)?
- Who can do the best animal imitation?
- Who can create the best spontaneous stultiloquy about a topic to be provided?
- Who can create the best "blurb" for an imaginary Schlock movie?
- Who can do the best political imitation?
- Whose death scene is most dramatic?
- Who can do the best impression of a Muppet?
- Who can make a worse face?
- Who does a better job pretending to seduce <amusing person>?
- Who will win at "Questions"?
