Courier 'de la Dama' is a minor revision of the historic game
of Courier Chess, adding a
modern Queen and revised moves for the Pawns and Bishops. The intent
of these changes is to preserve some of the original game's flavor
while allowing more dynamic play.
Furious Courier is Courier 'de la Dama' taken one step further,
with the Bishops being replaced by Crooked Bishops and
Fool being replaced by another Sage.
Courier 'de la Dama'
The Board and Pieces
The game is played on a checkered board with twelve rows and eight
columns.
Each player has twenty-four pieces: twelve Pawns, a King, a Sage, a Queen,
a Fool, two Couriers, two Bishops, two Knights and two Rooks.
The Queen, Rooks, and Knights move as
in the Orthodox Chess.
The King moves as in Orthodox Chess, except that on its first
move it may leap like a Knight, Alfil or Dabbabah -- other words,
to any square two squares away. They may use this leap even if in check,
and it may capture.
The Couriers moves the same as the modern Bishop.
The Bishops move one square diagonally, like Ferzes. On their first
move, Bishops may leap two squares in a straight line, like an Alfil or a Dabbabah. This leap
may capture.
The Sage moves one square in an arbitrary direction. This piece is
sometimes called a Man
or a Commoner.
The Fool moves one square horizontally or vertically, like a
Wazir.
Pawns move as in Orthodox Chess, including making a double move
from the second row, but there is no en
passant capture. Promotion is on the last rank, and is to any
piece other than a King.
Other Rules
The object of the game is to mate the opponent. A stalemate is a loss
for the stalemated player.
Furious Courier
The Board and Pieces
This game is played on the same board and with almost the same pieces as
Courier 'de la Dama', the only changes being that the Sage is renamed the
Guard, the Fool is replaced by a second Guard, and the Bishops are replaced
by Scouts.
The King, Queen, Rooks, Knights and
Couriers move as in Courier 'de la Dama'.
The Guards move the same as the Sage does in Courier 'de
la Dama', which is like a Commoner or nonroyal King.
The Scouts move like Crooked Bishops,
which slide alternately on a pair of adjacent diagonal directions,
such as nw-sw-nw-sw-. There are eight possible paths for a Scout to
take (two for each Rook-wise direction), and it can reach half the
squares on each path via two different routes.
