Description

Ball's Chess, also known as CU-BONO (Romanian for "Who benefits?"), is a chess-like game designed by Albert Edward Ball from Wrexham, Wales. He patented the game in 1933 and once again (with slightly altered rules) in 1969. It was described by the Czech game expert Miloš Zapletal in his book "Velká kniha deskových her" published in 1991. The game is played on a 10x10 square board with 10 flags, two missiles, two 4-jet planes, two field guns, two tanks and two generals per player. |In the 1933 patent, the flags were called "regiments", the missiles "airships", the 4-jet planes "aeroplanes" and the generals "commanders".

The object of the game is to conquer one of the opponent's "capitals", that is, one of the squares the opponent's generals started on. Today the patent specifications (GB19330001481 19330117 and GB19690023908 19690510) are freely available on the internet so that the exact rules can be studied there. The game has at least as much strategic depth and tactical choices as ordinary chess, but draws are much less frequent due to the specific architecture of the game's design.