A
variant on
the original turn-based strategy game* which is, apparently, actually played in various circles. From what I can gather of it, it follows the regular
rules of chess, with the following additions:
- Each player must be wearing no more than ten pieces of clothing at the start of the match.
- The capture of a knight, bishop, or rook results in the captured piece's player removing one article of clothing. If the piece is taken by a pawn, two articles.
- The capture of the queen always results in losing two pieces of clothing.
- A player can 'win' clothing back if their queen or king takes any of the opponent's pieces. He or she gains as many articles as the opponent loses- see above bullets.
- If a player castles their king (in either direction), they can put an extra piece of clothing back on.
- Checkmate results in the loss of three pieces of clothing by the defeated player.
- Play continues until one of the two players is fully nude upon the end of a game. You cannot go into 'negative articles of clothing'; that is, no penalty comes from losing your knight whilst in your birthday suit.
The sources from where I have obtained this information from also suggest
team play, in which two teams of two or more alternate players between each move. This might be an especially good setup for large groups, chess
novices, and/or
prudes.
There are also various other ways which I have found and (frighteningly) thought up where one could play this game. Since I doubt highly the existence of a World Strip Chess Federation, I suppose these variants would be equally viable:
- One could forget the long-winded rules above and simply have the opponent remove an article of clothing for each captured piece. If you included the pawns, this could get rather interesting very quickly.
- For tournaments or parties, one could alter the rules so that a piece of clothing must be removed only after the loss of a game. As a variant to this, the winning player may be allowed to decide, depending on his/her shrewdness in bribery and the gender of his opponent, whether the defeated chessplayer is allowed to take off an article or put one back on. In either case, draws would obviously have no net result. (But if you were really impatient, the rules could be altered to result in a clothing loss for both.)
Surprisingly, strip chess has actually been a documented
phenomenon in the mass culture. A series of (
PG-13) strip chess games were played in a
London shop window for a week or so in
April 2002. They were apparently carried out to promote a
commercial series for
Gordon's Gin in which the characters played strip chess under the one-piece-per-capture variant. The second source should still have a picture of the
spectacle.
Strip chess has also reared its head in the Sandra Bullock-Hugh Grant film Two Weeks' Notice. Though I can't say I've seen the movie, I know that the game is played between Grant's character and the person played by Alicia Witt, although its rules are never disclosed. Feel free to /msg me if you have any more detail on this scene.
There are also, unsurprisingly, plenty of naughty games available for free online. Though I can't vouch for their quality--I don't plan on playing either the real or virtual versions of the game any time in the near future--I suppose that they, as well, would be quite enjoyable to the person with the perfect combination of libido, intellect, and delayed gratification that would push him or her to play the game of strip chess.
Sources:
http://grapecash.tripod.com/chess.html
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_569826.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0313737
*Alright, so chess does not technically deserve this title. When creating this description, I was thinking more of Civilization and less of chaturanga, since people who would participate in the events described above, I imagine, would be more acquainted with the former than the latter. Thanks to fellow pedant (note lower case) gitm for reminding me that the truth still holds.