Ready Chess is an attempt to vary the movement and capture dynamics of Chess by having the pieces mutate to non-capturing pieces as soon as they capture. To recover they have to use a tempo.
Here I describe this idea as applied to FIDE Chess. However, it could be used with almost any Chess variant.
The standard Chess board and setup is used.
Pawn
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The Pawn has its standard movement and capture capabilities
with the following exception: upon capturing it mutates to a Ready-Pawn.
When promoting, if a capture is involved, the piece promoted to is a regular piece not a Ready piece. |
Ready-Pawn
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The Ready-Pawn has the standard movement capabilities of a Pawn, but may not capture. During a turn, instead of moving the Ready-Pawn, it may be mutated back to a Pawn. |
Knight
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The Knight has its standard movement and capture capabilities with the following exception: upon capturing it mutates to a Ready-Knight. |
Ready-Knight
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The Ready-Knight has the standard movement capabilities of a Knight, but may not capture. During a turn, instead of moving the Ready-Knight, it may be mutated back to a Knight. |
Bishop
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The Bishop has its standard movement and capture capabilities with the following exception: upon capturing it mutates to a Ready-Bishop. |
Ready-Bishop
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The Ready-Bishop has the standard movement capabilities of a Bishop, but may not capture. During a turn, instead of moving the Ready-Bishop, it may be mutated back to a Bishop. |
Rook
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The Rook has its standard movement and capture capabilities with the following exception: upon capturing it mutates to a Ready-Rook. |
Ready-Rook
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The Ready-Rook has the standard movement capabilities of a Rook, but may not capture. During a turn, instead of moving the Ready-Bishop, it may be mutated back to a Rook. |
Queen
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The Queen has its standard movement and capture capabilities with the following exception: upon capturing it mutates to a Ready-Queen. |
Ready-Queen
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The Ready-Queen has the standard movement capabilities of a Queen, but may not capture. During a turn, instead of moving the Ready-Queen, it may be mutated back to a Queen. |
King
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This is the standard Chess King. It does not mutate. |
The standard rules of Chess apply except for the piece movement rules above. To summarize: each piece except the King upon capturing is mutated to the same piece but without capturing capabilities. This new piece is called a Ready-piece. The Ready-piece may be mutated back to its original piece by using a turn without moving the Ready-piece.
From playing Zillions, the game and strategy appear to be similar to standard Chess. The tactics, obviously, will change somewhat. However, you may find that there will usually not be a lot of Ready-pieces on the board, perhaps 3 or 4 at the most.
Again, I look at this idea as one that can be applied to other games.
Standard Chess equipment can be used. For the Ready-pieces, some means of designating the change is needed. If you have different color pieces, such as a 4-player set, these can be used. Alternatively, you can use something like a coin to differentiate the pieces.
The piece images were made using David Howe's Alfaerie image set.
