Many people think that chess is a simulation of warfare. However, it
actually is a highly stilized form of `tag' by teams. There are two
teams of players, and when a player tags a player of the other team,
that player is out of the game. The team that first tags the captain of
the other team wins.
Usually, the abstract form of tag called chess is played by two teams
that are the same, and are also fixed at the start of the game. However,
remember the team sports games we played as children? Then, two captains were
chosen, and the captains got to choose the other members of the teams -
alternatingly, the captains chose one player from those that were not
yet assigned to a team.
Unfortunately, chess teams were never picked in this way and my skills in
ball-sports were not so large, so I always
had the experience to be among those that were chosen last ...
This game is my submission to the contest to design a large chess
variant. First, I wanted to do something based on Ralph Betza's
csipgs-chess, but after some
pondering, I came upon this variant. There are a few possible variants
thinkable of the implementation of the idea below - but let's take the
variant below as submission for the contest.
Rules
The game is played on a ten by ten chessboard.
The game starts with an empty chess board. The game has two phases. In
the first phase, the pieces are picked. First, white chooses a piece.
Then, black chooses two pieces. Then, white chooses two pieces,
etc: white ends this phase with picking one piece.
As soon as a piece is picked, it must be placed on the board,
with the following rules:
White places his pieces on the squares of rows 1 and 2.
Black places his pieces on the squares of rows 9 and 10.
Only one piece per square.
White may only place a piece on a square of row 2 if all squares on
row 1 are filled.
Black may only place a piece on a square of row 9 if all squares on
row 10 are filled.
Of each of the fourty types of pieces, there is only one: so, you may not
choose a piece that has been chosen before in the game
by you or by your opponent.
The first piece chosen by either player must be a royal piece.
No piece may be moved until all pieces are placed.
In the second phase, white starts. Players move alternatingly a piece,
like a normal game of chess (with fairy pieces.) The player that mates his opponents royal
piece wins the game; stalemate, repetition of moves, etc., are as in chess.
The pieces
There are two versions of the game. In the first version, a list of
pieces given here is used. In the second version, which is probably
(even) more fun, lists of pieces created by the players are used.
Version One
There are fourty different pieces in this game:
King. This piece is royal: it may not be placed in check;
when mated, the opponent has won. It moves like a normal chess king.
Royal knight. This piece is also royal: it may not be
placed in check; when mated, the opponent has won. It moves like a
knight.
Queen.
Rook.
Knight.
Bishop.
Chinese Nightrider. This piece
can make one or more moves like a chinese knight in the same direction.
A chinese knight makes a normal knight move, but the first square passed
over (orthogonally) must be empty.
Pao. Make non-capturing
moves like a rook,
but must jump over exactly one piece to make a capture.
Blocking prince. Moves one square in an arbitrary direction, but
cannot take and cannot be taken.
Grasshopper. (See
link.) Moves on queenlines to first square after the first piece it jumps
across.
Pawn.
Chinese Pawn. Moves and takes one square straight forward.
Berolina Pawn. Makes non-capturing moves one square diagonally forwards,
and capturing moves one square straight forwards.
fF-Pawn. Moves and takes one square diagonally forwards.
Mecklenberg Pawn. Like pawn, but promotes on 8th row.
Mecklenberg Chinese Pawn. Like chinese pawn, but promotes on 8th row.
Mechlenberg Berolina Pawn. Like berolina pawn, but promotes on 8th row.
Mecklenberg fF-pawn. Like fF-pawn, but promotes on 8th row.
Defending pawn. Moves like pawn, but has in addition {\em defense move}: a
non-capturing move one or more squares straight backwards (like non-capturing
rook, but only backwards.)
Defending Chinese pawn. Like Chinese pawn, with the same defense move like
a defending pawn, i.e., it also can make a non-capturing rooklike move in
backwards direction.
Defending Berolina pawn. Like Berolina pawn with defense move.
Defending fF-pawn. Like fF-pawn with defense move.
Japanese spear. Moves like rook, but only forwards: not vertically and not
backwards.
Arabic spear. Can make a capturing move like a bishop but only forwards,
and a non-capturing move like a rook, but also only forwards.
Berolina spear. Can make a capturing move like a rook but only forwards,
and a non-capturing move like a bishop, but also only forwards.
Diagonal spear. Moves like bishop, but only forwards.
Fish pawn. Like a pawn, but can also
make capturing or non-capturing move one square backwards.
Chinese fish pawn. Like a Chinese pawn, but can also
Berolina fish pawn. Like a Berolina pawn, but can also
make capturing or non-capturing move one square backwards.
fF-fish pawn. Like a fF-pawn, but can
make capturing or non-capturing move one square backwards.
Pawns that are on the first or second row can make a non-capturing
double or triple step, and pawns that are on the third row can make a
non-capturing double step. In such a case, the pawn goes two or three steps in
the direction it can make non-capturing moves.
So, a white pawn on b1 can make a non-capturing move to b2, b3, or b4: it can
move to b3 if b2 is empty, and it can move to b4 if b2 and b3 are empty.
Assuming all intervening squares are empty, a white berolina pawn on e2
can make a non-capturing move to d3, c4, b5, f3, g4, or h5, and a white
chinese pawn on e3 can make non-capturing moves to d4, c5, f4, or g5.
When they reach the last row, a pawn can promote to any of the pieces in
this game, except any of the royal pieces (king or royal knight), or any type
of pawn.
When a spear reaches the last row, it cannot be moved anymore, and becomes
(pretty) useless. A spear does not promote.
There is no castling.
Variant two
Every player makes a list of twenty pieces, with the following
conditions:
One piece is royal, which means that this piece should be
mated to win the game. There may not be any possible situation where the
royal piece can move to more than eight different squares.
No two pieces should be the same.
There must not be a possible situation where a piece on the first
row reaches the last row in one move when all squares on the first and second row
are occupied.
No piece can move to move than 40 squares on an empty board.
At least 10 pieces cannot move to 4 squares on an empty board.
The game is played with all pieces of both lists. (Note that a player
can choose pieces from his own list and from the list of the opponent.)
It is recommended to play with this set of pieces two games: each player
plays white in one and black in the other.
Inspiration
Inspiration for this variant came from many different games, including
csipgs-chess, variants where one selects oneselves the army at the start of
the game using a point-system, Different Augmenting Knights, and several
others. The fF is in Ralph Betza's notation for pieces.
Comments
Fourty different pieces is probably too much. Perhaps, the game would be
better with kings and pawns already fixed, played on an 8 by 8 board, with 14
additional pieces to choose from. The game has not yet been tested. I expect
that some games can be over quickly: it seems not hard to make fatal errors in
the opening setup.
I first wanted to use a knightrider, but the problem is that these can give
unpleasant forms of check too early in the game.
The rules make that the setups will usually have the
weaker types of pieces in the front, and the stronger pieces on the back row.
The game (version 1) is implementable in Zillions, although it'll be lots of work with the
fourty different types of pieces :-(.
Patch
Of course, this game is also nice to play on an eight by eight board. A
variant, called Pick a team chess, or, in short Patch is
played as variant two, but now players make lists of 16 pieces instead
of twenty.
Another variant, called Easy patch is played on an eight by eight
board by letting players
choose a list of seven pieces. Standard chess pawns and kings are placed on their
starting positions as in a orthodox chess game, and then the game proceeds with the
fourteen chosen pieces as in Pick-a-team chess.
Patch and Easy Patch are not submitted to the large variant design
contest (but are probably nice games.)
Written by Hans Bodlaender.
This variant is an entry in the
1999 Large Variant contest.
WWW page created: March 9, 1999. Last modified: May 8, 1999.