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Viking Chess

By Tomas Forsman

Introduction

Viking Chess was designed to enter the Chess Variant Pages' 84 Spaces Contest. Viking Chess is set up to be more aggressive then ordinary Chess, which was a challange to do on a bigger board. The placement of the pieces have been designed to allow strategy as well as fast action. Even though games can last a long time, they are filled with action from move one.

Board and Setup

Viking Chess is played on a board with 12 files and 7 ranks. The pieces are set up with both sides starting on the same side of board.

Viking Chess setup
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
7  |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
6  |   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
5  |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
4  |   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
3  |:::| P |:P:| P |:P:|   |:::| p |:p:| p |:p:|   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
2  | R |:P:| N |:N:| P |:P:| p |:p:| n |:n:| p |:r:|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
1  |:R:| B |:K:| Q |:B:| P |:p:| b |:q:| k |:b:| r |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
     a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h   i   j   k   l
White:
  • Pawns: b2 b3 c3 d3 e3 e2 f2 f1
  • Knights: c2 d2
  • Bishops: b1 e1
  • Rooks: a1 a2
  • Queen: d1
  • King: c1
Black:
  • Pawns: g1 g2 h2 h3 i3 j3 k3 k2
  • Knights: i2 j2
  • Bishops: h1 k1
  • Rooks: l1 l2
  • Queen: i1
  • King: j1

Rules

Viking Chess is conducted by rules of FIDE Chess, except that:

Computer Play

There is an implementation of Viking Chess for Zillions of Games. You can download it here:


Written by Tomas Forsman, converted from ZRF to HTML by Peter Aronson.
WWW page created: September 26th, 2002.