Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Köksal Karakus.

Bottleneck Chess

Bottleneck Chess is a chess variant designed for the 41 Squares Contest, by Köksal Karakus in 2001.

The setup is as seen below.

Other than that, the only difference from the orthodox chess is the movement of the pawns. Here the pawns move one square in the NW direction for white or one square in the SE direction for black (diagonally). Pawns can capture one square in the N or W direction for white, or one square S or E direction for black (orthogonally). They promote on the opposit two edges of the central square area.

One thing to note is that Knights cannot jump to a square if both of the two squares between them are outside the board, which for example applies to the inner Knight at the beginning of the game.

There is no en-passant rule or castling.

The aim is to checkmate to opponent's King.

Zillions file

You can play this game with Zillions of Games: bottleneckchess.zip.
Written by Köksal Karakus.
WWW page created: March 19, 2001.