Pair go and pair chess

[John Fairbairn]

Can someone more familiar with the chess world than me shed light on something that piqued my curosity?

The recent Caissa awards in Moscow featured pair chess (man-woman versus man-woman, taking turns). I have never heard of this in chess before (and, after all, pair go is relatively recent). I was wondering whether it was an idea chess had picked up from go. Many Russian chess writers seem to make passing but invariably favourable references to go.

[BigBadBuu]

Well how old is pair go? I have read a small tournament report on pair chess from about a 10 year old magazine.

[TMark]

I played in the Pair Go tournament at the Canterbury European Go Congress in 1992, and there were other similar events before that.

Best wishes.

[schawipp]

I have never heard of this in chess before (and, after all, pair go is relatively recent). I was wondering whether it was an idea chess had picked up from go. Many Russian chess writers seem to make passing but invariably favourable references to go.

In chess I am aware of "Tandem Chess" or "Bughouse Chess", which is described e. g. in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess.

But this is a different concept from pair go or "Rengo" since in Tandem Chess you can - instead of doing a regular chess move - insert pieces which were captured by your team partner before.

Regarding pair chess in the sense of Rengo, I have never heard of it even if I am actively playing in a chess club.

[Bill Spight]

The first I heard about pair go was in the 1970s. It was played in the Kansai region in Japan with pro-am pairs, not male-female pairs. Instead of alternating players at every turn, each partner got five moves before switching. (I subscribed to a Kansai-kiin magazine at that time. )

Rengo, OC, has a very long history.

We played it a little in Los Alamos, where we first called it Tandem Go, and later Random Go. To make pairs roughly even, my partner was usually around 7 kyu. I enjoyed the challenge of unanticipated positions when it became my turn to play. Unfortunately, it actually caused a lot of strain on my partners. They would say to themselves, I know that that group is alive because Bill tenukied, but how does it live? (By contrast, bridge is a partnership game, and weaker partners say to themselves, my partner will carry me. )

[Mef]

(By contrast, bridge is a partnership game, and weaker partners say to themselves, my partner will carry me. )

Aha! Next time I'm playing pair go I will grab a handful of stones and lay them out in 4 columns...My partner can play them as needed.