In January 2000, J. Mark Thompson wrote:
Hello everyone,Cuarenta is my submission to the contest to design a chess variant on a board of 40 squares. A .zip file is attached which contains cuarenta.zrf and the bitmaps needed to play this game on Zillions; you will need to create a directory \images\cuarenta for the bitmaps. The rules follow:
The object is to checkmate the enemy King.
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Bishop: The Bishop moves and captures as in chess, diagonally any number of squares without jumping over a piece.
Vao: The Vao moves as a Bishop, but captures by jumping over exactly one piece, called the "screen," onto an enemy piece which is the first piece beyond the screen in a diagonal direction. The screen can belong to either army, and need not be on a square adjacent to the Vao's starting square.
Frog: The Frog can move to any orthogonally-adjacent square.
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But the Frog can also jump over a line of friendly pieces in any orthogonal or diagonal direction: for example, the Frog on d1 at the start of the game could move to a4, d5, or g4. A Frog cannot jump over enemy pieces. Note that the Frog cannot move to a diagonally-adjacent square; it can only jump friendly pieces in the diagonal directions. It captures in the same way that it moves, by occupying the enemy piece's square.
Guard: The Guard moves or captures to the first or second square in a diagonal direction. In moving or capturing the the second square in a diagonal direction, the Guard leaps and is not blocked by any piece that might be on the first square.
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Camel: The Camel moves to the square at the opposite corner of a 2x4 rectangle, i.e. it moves "3 squares orthogonally and 1 square at right angles" (the conventional Camel move).
Pawn: The Pawn moves and captures either forward-diagonally or to either side (to the next light colored square). However, Pawns cannot take other Pawns! When a pawn reaches the last three rows of the board it can promote to a Camel, or when it reaches the last rank it can promote to any friendly piece except a King. A Pawn reaching the last rank may continue unpromoted, and may promote on a later move (since as a Pawn it still can move to the side).
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Draws: A draw is declared if 40 moves pass without a piece being captured or a Pawn being promoted, or if neither side has sufficient material left to give checkmate, or if a player is stalemated, or if both players agree to a draw.