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Ibu Ibu Chess. Introduces the concept of a King's entourage, making King powerful and protected. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡Jeremy Good wrote on Fri, May 26, 2006 10:52 AM UTC:

In the rules section, I specify that pawns can only promote to Kings or Ubi-Ubi's, and I briefly discuss the fate of supernumerary kings. In this game it's frequently desirable to have more than one king. In most cases, as in variants such as 'Kings or Lemmings?' by Ingo Althofer, and 'Time Travel Chess' by Gary Gifford, multiple kings are disadvantageous (at least prior to the endgame) because any king may be checkmated (and in 'Time Travel Chess' there are more perils than just fear of checkmate). The situation in Ibu Ibu Chess is a bit more analagous to the 'adventitious kings' in Tamerlane Chess.

In my rules, I don't address the question of what would happen under the scenario you pose, i.e., to the pawns on the entourage squares if a king goes to the seventh rank.

Now I shall.

These pawns do promote too, automatically.

If your king moves to the seventh rank and both eighth rank entourage squares are empty, you can specify whether you want two additional kings, an additional king and a Ubi Ubi or two Ubi Ubis. Promoting to a king not only removes the immediate threat of checkmate (before your opponent can checkmate you, he will have to capture your additional kings), but also may create the possibility of moving one to the seventh rank, creating additional new promotions!

I think that's all very much in the spirit of this game.

Thank you, Sam, for your excellent questions.


Sam Trenholme wrote on Fri, May 26, 2006 07:41 AM UTC:
When a king moves to the seventh rank, creating pawns on the eight rank, what happens with the pawns?
  • Are the pawns immediately promoted?
  • Are the pawns left on the eight rank and are immobile?
  • Are the pawns left on the eight rank, and can be promoted as a future white move?
  • Or does on place a piece besides a pawn in his guard on the eight rank?
As a related question, can the pawn promote to an Ubi-ubi?

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