Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Daniil Frolov.

Move as square says

There are a few variants with piece movement depending on file: Zelig chess, Tula chess... In this game movement depends on exact position.
There is also obvious influence of Smess.

Setup

Each playing space corresponds to certain standart piece. Board have the following marking:

RNBQQBNR
PPPPPPPP
KRNBBNRK
PPPPPPPP
PPPPPPPP
KRNBBNRK
PPPPPPPP
RNBQQBNR

K for king, Q for queen, B for bishop, N for knight, R for rook, P for pawn.

Originally i was thinking to mark all spaces on ranks 1, 3, 6 and 8 as pieces, standing on their files in standart opening position (and, in case of files D and E, Queen for ranks 1 and 8, and King for ranks 3 and 6), but i decided that marking, you see above, looks more reasonable.
You may experiment with other ways of marking, i would gladly hear, wich you like best.

As in standart chess, each player have 16 pieces set up on his first two rows. But in this game there are 15 identical non-royal pieces and 1 royal piece, on standart king position. Alternatively, one may use reverse symmetry: white royal piece is on standart white king square, and black royal piece is on standart black queen square.

Pieces

All pieces (including the royal one) moves as standart chess pieces, corresponding to the squares they are standing on.
King squares gives only possibilities to move as king, not the status. Royal piece is always royal, non-royal pieces are always non-royal.
On pawn squares pieces moves in their own pawn direction, defination of "forward" depends on the player, not on squares.
Pawn double step is always possible from pawn squares on 2nd rank (7th for black), even if piece has moved before. Properly-positioned pieces with pawn movement may capture en-passant. Royal piece also can capture en-passant, and may not make pawn double-step, if it can be captured en-passant on next turn.
There is no pawn promotion, as there is only one kind of piece.
If royal piece and piece in corner had not moved yet, they may castle under normal restritions.

Rules

Checkmate the royal piece to win.
In FIDE draw outcomes, expect for stalemate, winner is the player, who captured more non-royal pieces. Note that rule of "50 turns without captures and pawn movement" is reduced simply to rule of "50 moves without captures", as all pieces are identical, always have potential of retreating, and don't promote. In case of stalemate, winner is the player, who captured LESS non-royal pieces. If in these outcomes players had captured equal number of pieces, black wins, as white have first move advantage.


This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.


By Daniil Frolov.
Web page created: 2014-02-28. Web page last updated: 2014-02-28