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

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Bob Greenwade wrote on Wed, Apr 3 04:18 PM UTC:

260. Punk Knight. This was inspired by a passing comment by Kevin Pacey yesterday, and it led to a quick development -- though I only came up with how it works early this morning. This sort of thing may have appeared somewhere before, though I certainly don't recall seeing it.

Punk philosophy is basically pro-anarchy, refusing to recognize rules. At first that would suggest a piece that could move anywhere except where that type of piece normally goes, but that's a bit too open-ended; more reasonably, Punk pieces move normally without capturing, but capture an enemy piece on the first and/or last space they pass through. Punks also tend to be associated with violence*, especially of the hit-and-run variety, so being able to capture more than one piece seems reasonable.

The Punk Knight, therefore, moves like a normal Knight, but captures any enemy pieces on the two spaces that it passes through. To complicate (and balance) matters a bit, its move as a Knight is lame; it does not leap. (mcasamzWmcacsamzW)**

In this illustration, the White Pawn on c4 blocks the White Punk Knight from moving to b3 or b5. Still, it can capture the Black Archer at c5 and end up at c6. It also can capture the Black Bishop and end at f5, the Black Pawn and end at e2, or both and end at f3. (It also can move to c2 or e6 without capturing anything.)

And here's the model itself: a Knight with a spiked Mohawk. (Speaking for myself, if I was a soldier on a battlefield and saw a horse with its mane done up like this, I would not want to mess with it!)

*Not unfairly so, given the history of the Punk movement, but not necessarily. I've known a few people in the Punk lifestyle, both directly and indirectly, who were quite peaceful and pleasant. One that I met very briefly, in fact, was pretty close to being a pacifist (the only thing I still remember about him).

**Logically -- to my mind, anyway -- cmascmazmW should work to represent the move, but for some reason I'm unable to get it or anything similar to behave as I describe the piece. My thanks to Daniel Zacharias for helping me find a code that works.


Edit Form

Comment on the page Bob Greenwade

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.