3177: Chessboard Alignment
| Chessboard Alignment |
 Title text: Luckily, the range is limited by the fact that the square boundary lines follow great circles. |
Explanation
|
This is one of 53 incomplete explanations: This page was created BY AN ALIGNED BISHOP. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
The comic shows an overhead view of three chess boards side by side, with two players facing each other across most of the boards. Yellow squares (used to show the available or actual movement of a given piece) have been marked leading from the starting position of the middle board's right bishop (F1) to the upper-right. The path continues beyond the edge of the middle board, across four columns of empty space or unseen table, and ends in the top left corner (A8) of the right board. The right board has only one rook (black rectangle) while the other two boards each have two, so it is implied that the bishop has captured the rook. The text below jokingly claims that if you align chess boards exactly, pieces can cross the boundary like this. This is not legal in normal chess [citation needed], but fits into Randall's long history of comics about unusual chess rules or boards.
The title text refers to the fact that chess boards are normally placed approximately level (parallel to the surface of the Earth). A perfect line of chessboards placed end to end on the surface of an Earth-sized sphere (or on perfectly placed tables on that sphere) would form a "great circle" - the longest possible path around that sphere. While nearby boards would appear to be in the same plane, the curvature of the earth would cause boards more distant than 3.57 meters away to be in planes so different that the squares would be more than a micrometer off from the ideal straight lines leading off the board. It is thus implied that each infinite-range piece's valid path is a straight line of virtual squares that eventually leads into space. Otherwise, the alleged rule would allow chess moves between boards that were kilometers (or even whole countries) apart in any vertical line. If following the great circle along the ground was considered a straight line, then it would also be possible for each side's rooks and queen to capture their counterparts in the other color's back row, just by moving backwards around the planet. This does not rule out motion to another board on another celestial body or spaceship, though delivery of a chess piece across this distance would be impractical[citation needed]. This is thus the second comic in a week about distances extending past typical boundaries.
Transcript
|
This is one of 28 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
It doesn't happen often because it requires micrometer precision, but if two chess boards are perfectly aligned, it's actually legal to move pieces between them.
Add comment 
Create topic (use sparingly) 
Refresh Discussion
...Honestly, kinda don't get this one... --DollarStoreBa'alConverse 02:27, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
- ohhhhhh... --DollarStoreBa'alConverse 02:28, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
wait how do comments workAvrayter (talk) 02:52, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
I don’t understand what the title text is saying. Can someone explain it to me? Logalex8369 (talk) 03:05, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
when I read the title, I thought of D&D Alignment, and now I want one 93.36.184.70 07:31, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
Chess Notation?
I think a funnier title text would've been: Bfi8(!!!) Fephisto (talk) 06:22, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
Modern physics?
I suspect allusions to modern physics. The exact alignment of chess boards reminds me of the exactness needed to build laser resonators. The chess piece hopping from one board to another reminds me of quantum tunneling. The title text reminds me of light following geodetic lines in general relativity. There might be a specific quantum effect that is meant here, but I don't know. 195.52.146.164 06:29, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
For anyone wondering: This is not legal, because even though "The bishop may move to any square along a diagonal on which it stands" FIDE defines a diagonal as "A straight line of squares of the same colour, running from one edge of the board to an adjacent edge", meaning it always ends on the edge. 85.76.137.112 07:29, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
Moving from one board to another reminds me of a variety of chess variants. You know the ones: bughouse chess, Alice chess, 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel. (I'm still trying to find a way to get Randall to try out that last one.) ISaveXKCDpapers (talk) 10:01, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
Category
Should this comic go inCategory:Comics_with_color? --175.34.54.104 11:33, 6 December 2025 (UTC) Add comment
