Yalta
(pronounced yawl-tuh or yahl-tuh (Russian))
(1) A seaport in the Crimea, South Ukraine, on
the Black Sea (In 2014, Moscow annexed Crimea).
(2) The second (code-name Argonaut) of the three
wartime conferences between the heads of government of the UK, USA and USSR.
(3) A variant of chess played by three on a
six-sided board.
From the Crimean Tatar Yalta (Я́лта (Russian
& Ukrainian)), the name of the resort city on the south coast of the
Crimean Peninsula, surrounded by the Black Sea.
Origin of the name is undocumented but most etymologists think it’s
likely derived from the Ancient Greek yalos
(safe shore), the (plausible) legend being it was named by Greek sailors
looking for safe harbour in a storm.
Although inhabited since antiquity, it was called Jalita as late as the twelfth century, later becoming part of a
network of Genoese trading colonies when it was known as Etalita or Galita. The Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire
in 1783, sparking the Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792. Prior to the annexation of
the Crimea, the Crimean Greeks were moved to Mariupol in 1778; one of the
villages they established nearby is also called Yalta. Apparently unrelated are the Jewish family
names Yalta & Yaltah, both said to be of Aramaic
origin meaning hind or gazelle (ayala).
Yalta Chess
Yalta Conference, 1945.
Yalta chess is a three player variant of chess, inspired by the Yalta Conference (4-11 February 1945), the second of the three (Tehran; Yalta; Potsdam) summit meetings of the heads of government of the UK, US, and USSR. The Yalta agenda included the military operations against Germany, the war in the far-east and plans for Europe's post-war reorganization. The outcomes of the conference, which essentially defined the borders of the cold war, were controversial even at the time, critics regarding it as a demonstration of the cynical world-view of the power-realists and their system of spheres of influence. In the seventy-five years since, a more sympathetic understanding of what was agreed, given the circumstances of the time, has emerged.
One of many chess variants (including a variety of three-player forms, circular boards and a four-player form which was once claimed to be the original chess), Yalta chess shouldn’t be confused with three-dimensional chess, a two-player game played over three orthodox boards. In Yalta Chess, the moves are the same as orthodox chess, except:
(1) The pawns, bishops and queens have a choice of path when they are passing the centre (the pawns just if they are capturing).
(2) The queen must be put to the left of the
king.
(3) The knights always move to a square of
another color.
(4) All disagreements about the rules are resolved
by a majority vote of the players. It’s
not possible to abstain; at the start of the match it must be agreed between
the players whether a non-vote is treated as yes or no.
(5) If a player puts the player to the right in
check, the player to the left may try to help him.
(6) If a player checkmates another, he may use the
checkmated player’s pieces as his own (after removing the king) but a second
move is not granted.
(7) If all three players are simultaneously in check, the player forcing the first check is granted checkmate.
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