Single Comment

Rifle chess is excellent as a super-blitz game. I prefer playing sans defending capabilities - no square is defended via normal chess practice (excluding,of course, moves that would bring about self-check) so that captures are sudden, swift, surprising. Though the rifle variant polarizes the relative strength of pawns and back-field pieces it provides an opportunity for very interesting piece dialogue. The opening-move advantage held by white is dramaticized - so too is black's ablitiy to recover lost ground. White does well to call to arms its bishops early: a 1 d4... 2e4 opening followed by 3Bb5 can be a very devastating combination (black should counter with Bd7). a black defense should follow the same plan. actually, not a defense but rather a counter attack - defense strategy should be rare in rifle chess, a game of aggression - 1 ... e6 is a simple way to level the playing field. The d/e pawn openings, for black and white both, should serve only as devices of bishop conscription, never as middle-ground-claiming opening moves. the opening serves only to draw out the bishops - one can see their immediate vicious potency when called upon as a pair in the opening. The queen is not so easily brought to the playing field. she serves better as an end game actor. Decisive board control can be achieved without her - look to the bishops for winning positions when playing both sides - their positioning and livelihood will play a huge part in the outcome of the game.