Each side has ten flippable pieces, probably best represented
for the frugal player with poker chips or some such, taking care
that pieces are distinguishable by color, but that any upturned
face of a given type is indistinguisable from all others. These
pieces are (with X-Y meaning X is on one side and Y is on the other)
Each player chooses where to place which pieces in the opening
setup, within the restriction that the board must appear as
in the diagram, keeping one piece in-hand.
BASIC BOARD
r
nbn
ppbpp
.......
.......
.......
PPBPP
NBN
R
(for ADVANCED BOARD (untested but neato) see
variant 4 below)
The goal of the game is to remove all four of your opponent's
'true' pieces (those with identical flip-sides). You may
also technically win by preventing your opponent from making
an obligatory drop, but this is extremely difficult to force.
All pieces move and capture as the normal chess counterparts
of their upturned face, with the exception of Pawn faces,
which move one square in any rookwise direction, and capture
one square in any diagonal direction, and also lack a double
move.
Each turn, a player exercises one of four options:
First moves one of their pieces without capturing and
then flips over ANY one piece, provided their opponent
did not flip or drop this piece immediately before.
This flip is mandatory if a non-capturing move is made.
Drops a piece in-hand into one of the nine squares occupied
by their pieces in the opening setup. This action
may not be used to capture a piece (the square must be
unoccupied)
Makes a capturing move with one of their pieces, returning
the captured piece to its owner's hand. This may not
be used against one's own pieces
Making a capture with one of their pieces, declares a
Reality Check, in which both the capturing and the
captured pieces are publicly flipped. If both pieces
are 'true' (they are identical on both sides) the
captured piece is removed from play completely.
If the capturing piece is not 'true' (oops. ^_^) the
piece reverts to its status before being flipped
after being shown to the opponent.
White may do only the first half of #1 on their first move.
Neither player may hold more pieces in-hand than the number
of 'true' pieces they have in play minus one. Thus, at the
start, each player may have up to three pieces in-hand at once,
though this will be reduced as play proceeds. If for any reason
they find themselves over this limit, they are obligated
to use their move to drop a piece. If they are unable to
do so (the enemy has completely overrun your home zone) they
lose the game.
When a captured piece would return to a player's hand, and in this way make
the number of captured pieces larger than the limit of three pieces, the
player owning the piece may choose whether to have the piece in his hand (and
hence to use his next move for a drop) or to refuse to take the piece to his
hand, in which case the piece is removed from play.
Variant Zero (the way the game should really be played):
This game is meant for fairly quick-paced over-the-board play.
Looking at a move list is cheating. Now I recognize that
this will be impossible to enforce in net play, and probably
really shouldn't apply at all to postal play, which is supposed
to give you time to do thorough analysis and what-not anyway
(and which gives you way too much time to forget). You can
feel free to ignore this rule under those circumstances
(not that I could stop you anyway) but the game is at its best
when it's possible to forget where you put your own pieces.
("Anyone remember where we parked?")
Variant One: Strategic Retreat
You may now capture your own pieces, returning them to your
hand, provided that this does not cause you to exceed your
in-hand limit (still number of 'true' pieces left in play-1).
Now why the heck would you want to do that, I hear you ask...
If you could drop pieces anywhere that's one thing, but you
have to lose a tempo just to drop back at the start!
OK, imagine you've just made a Reality Check. Hopefully,
a quarter of your troubles have been permanently disposed
of, but either way you've left your opponent with some
disturbingly exploitable information regarding the location
of one of your true pieces... Step into the shoes of your
opponent for a second. If you happen to be sure that you have
a 'true' piece ready to counterattack, you're in luck.
(I mean you were very foresightful to have put it there...^_^)
But if you don't, you probably don't want to take the risk
of immediately capturing the offender, because then it
regains the protection of anonymity and may spend any amount
of time in-hand. You want to be sure that you get it good,
so you take the time to set up a Reality Check you know
will be successful. Back to the first player again...knowing
what your opponent will be trying, you would REALLY like to
get your 'true' piece somewhere safe, but assuming your
opponent has a decent memory, you're in a situation where you
can run, but you can't hide. Capturing your own piece lets
you 'hide'. This will tend to make games last longer, and
be a bit more dependent on 'blind fate'.
Variant Two: Memory
Each player now has a fifth option for how to use their turn.
They may select two of their opponent's pieces on the board,
and flip them. If their formerly hidden sides match, both
pieces are sent to the opponent's hand. If they do not, the
flipping player must reveal one of his 'true' pieces and
remove it from play. A risky maneuver, but hey, knowledge
is power in this game.
This rule was not motiviated by any underlying
strategy, it's just fun that's all...
By the way, it's not a good idea to do this to two of your
opponent's pieces with identical upturned faces...^_-
Variants Three and Four: Flexibility, and a *gasp* Original Board!
Set up a screen between the two players, and they may set up nine
pieces in their half of the board in any manner they please. White
may not capture on the first move, but may use a flip in addition
to making a captureless move. An obvious potential problem with this
is the likely very large number of captures which are possible right
off the bat, but given the nature of the game this will likely only
cost the worse-off player a few tempi of development (besides, you
should have planned that he might have put that bishop there!) As
an attempt to circumvent this before it becomes a problem, a new
Board is provided, which can also of course be used in combination
with other variants...
xxxx...
xxx ...
xx . ..
x . X
.. . XX
... XXX
...XXXX
This may become the primary board (especially considering the
number of other people who stumbled onto the simple shape of
the basic board) but a bit of experimentation is in order before
declaring it fit for play in this particular game. I'm halfway
tempted to patent it (jk), what with that nice little 'each piece
has a sweet spot' effect...definitely something to try with
other games!
Last But Not Necessarily Least: A Dice Variant
For those of us with an insatiable desire to play games
involving both chance and incomplete information, I present
this alternative.
Instead of being allowed to flip any piece arbitrarily when
using move type #1, instead roll a die. On results of
: Flip any piece with a P facing up
: Flip any piece with an N facing up
: Flip any piece with a B facing up
: Flip any piece with an R facing up
: Flip any piece belonging to you
: Flip any piece belonging to your opponent
If you're feeling particularly silly, you may want to roll
two dice and flip two pieces, one meeting each criterion,
each turn.
Written by Andrew Juell. Graphic diagram and one sentence with clarification
from an email of Andrew Juell added by Hans Bodlaender.
This is a submission for the contest to design a
chess variant on a board with 39 squares.
WWW page created: September 10, 1998. Last modified: November 30, 1998.
