New Form of Chess Invented

This is a strange story out of Vietnam: ThanhnienNews.com Last Updated: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 11:24:10 Vietnam (GMT+07) Man develops new kind of chess, refuses to sell it for $1 mln Vo Bay of the northern Bac Ninh province invented the game which requires players to use four basis operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. He invented the game in the 1980’s and sought recognition from the then State Science Commission. But his license application was turned down because the commission was unable to calculate the total number of possible moves in the game. His repeated requests were subsequently rejected by other agencies and it was not until 2005 that the game was recognized by the Copyright Bureau. Then, a Chinese man offered Bay US$1 million for the game but Bay refused. He said it was because he did not want the Vietnamese features of the game altered or its name to be changed to international math chess instead of Vietnamese math chess. “I do not want the game commercialized,” he added, saying he could make ends meet with his current work as a sculptor. What intrigued him most about the game was its underlying philosophy – a player would lose if he/she sought only to add or multiply. People lived not only to benefit themselves but also to help others, he pointed out. Since the game was recognized, Bay receives a daily influx of people flocking to his house to learn about it. He said he was looking for government backing to promote the game. The province’s education department has sought the Ministry of Education and Training’s go-ahead to incorporate it into the school curriculum. Source: Tuoi Tre – Translated by An Dien