illinois chess!!!

I’ve got a lot more stuff about the ancient hidden treasure cave I could tell you. There’s other variants to this game we could play too. Like there’s an expansion set where if you land on Chicago, the game transfers to another board that represents Cook County. And you’re awarded a new type of piece called the Councilman who like, you roll a set of dice and however many you roll is how many spaces the Councilman moves. Personally I don’t think it’s a very strong piece, but there are some strong players who play up in the Rockford chapter who have found some interesting ways to utilize it. Since the Vizier moves both horizontally and vertically, it’s a good way to establish control of a given rank or file, especially in the early game, when you typically haven’t developed your Rooks yet. The Vizier, on the other hand, starts the game on the second rank with the pawns, so you can immediately seize control of a rank or file, even if you can’t do so with much precision. There’s no way of knowing how many spaces the dice will let you move, but it does discourage your opponent from stepping into its field of attack. Of course, the Cook County board is about ten feet wide and even though you get 304 pieces and 304 pawns, you only get one Vizier. So essentially it’s a gimmick option in the vast majority of options. I usually just sacrifice my Vizier early in the game so I can set up a strong pawn structure in the Cicero area of the board. Or Skokie, depending on how the game’s going. Or wait, I’ve been saying Vizier instead of Councilman. Did I say Vizier? Anyways, it used to be called the Vizier but it’s the Councilman in the new version. I’ve actually got both versions at my house so we could play either one. There’s no actual difference between the two versions except in one of them the special piece is called the Vizier and in the other newer version, it’s called the Councilman.