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Kristensen's Game. A conscious attempt to restructure Chess from 1948. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Charles Gilman wrote on Wed, Aug 18, 2004 07:02 AM UTC:

As I understand it, 'non-capturing' means also 'non-checking'. A King
immediately in front of a Pawn is not in check (but may be blocking it
completely), so neither is one directly in front of a Bishop in this
variant. Therefore the Bishop's enhancement has no effect on its
check(mat)ing power.
	To me, adding non-capturing moves to the Bishop seems a very untidy way
of unbinding it. There are many better sdolutions to the problem of
Bishops on an odd-files board. Wraparound and the middle option from
Billiards Chess both unbind, particularly useful for single-Bishop
variants. Two Bishops can be bound to opposite colours by starting
adjacent one side of the King with another piece similarly paired the
other side. This is the approach used in Wildebeest Chess, Bachelor Chess,
Bachelor Kamil, and most recently Mainzer Schach. It is curious that the
inventor of the last should rate so highly a game relying on what I think
of as 'botched Bishops'.