Check out Grant Acedrex, our featured variant for April, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Mike Nelson wrote on Wed, Jul 3, 2002 09:32 PM UTC:
I agree with Ralph on castling--if his colorbound rule isn't sufficient,
the game designer should spell it out.  Here is a proposed general castling
rule for 'build your own army' type variants in which the designer can't
know what piece will be in the corner:

The King can Castle with whatever piece is in the corner, even though that
piece is not a Rook, and of course the usual restrictions and rules on
Castling apply. 

Definition: a 'possible square' for a piece is a square it could reach by a
series of one or more moves on an empty board, disregarding special moves
such as castling, pawn promotion, etc.


Castling kingside uses the first rule which results in the corner piece
moving to a possible square.
1. King to g-file, corner piece to f-file. (Normal castling)
2. King to h-file, corner piece to g-file.
3. King to g-file, corner piece to e-file.
4. King to g-file, corner piece to d-file.
5. king to g-file, corner piece to c-file.
6. King to g-file, corner piece to b-file.
7. King to g-file, corner piece to a-file.
If none of these rules apply, castling kingside is not allowed.


Castling queenside uses the first rule which results in the corner piece
moving to a possible square.
1. King to c-file, corner piece to d-file. (Normal castling)
2. King to b-file, corner piece to c-file.
3. King to a-file, corner piece to b-file.
4. King to c-file, corner piece to e-file.
5. king to c-file, corner piece to f-file.
6. King to c-file, corner piece to g-file.
7. King to c-file, corner piece to h-file.
If none of these rules apply, castling queenside is not allowed.

(The concept: if normal castling is not allowed, we try shortening the
corner piece's move and put the King next to it; if this also doesn't work,
we try lengthening the corner piece's move and put the King on its normal
castling square.)

Edit Form

Comment on the page Rule Zero

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.