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Tips and tricks for Progressive 007 Chess (Progressive Orthodox Chess)

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This is the COMMENT and ADVICE article to accompany the
P.O.C. tournament announcement.

For those not in the know, P.O.C. is a very simple concept:-

It was designed to achieve two objects:
  1)  to preserve the essential "progressive" idea as much as possible;
  2)  to result in a game that was a fully legal game of chess!

As it happens, these objects can be easily reconciled...

-----------------------------------------------
Official rules of Progressive Orthodox Chess.

1.  Pieces, layout and legal moves exactly as for orthodox chess.
2.  White begins with a move for white.
3.  Then black makes a move for black, and a move for white.
4.  Continuing alternately, each player makes a series of moves,
    for the colors alternately, each move series being one move
    longer than the previous series.
5.  All moves of a series must be played; so that the final score
    is that of a legal orthodox chess game.
6.  There is no 3-position draw rule.
7.  Win/draw/loss decided by checkmate, stalemate, resignation, or
    agreement, as in orthodox chess.

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(In practice, draws can never occur with even remotely sensible play!)
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Comments.
~~~~~~~~
Games tend to be very short, even shorter than progressive chess, as
one can make the opponent king come up to the danger zone, by about
move series 5 or 6.

We have had several games, and none has been longer than 23 moves,
and only one longer than 18.  (Shown below.)

Nonetheless, it seems like a very skillful game.

Basic advice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Watch out for fool's mate at move series 4 ! (A trivial problem.)

Queens are deadly of course, as at progressive chess, and usually
should come off as soon as possible.  If the opponent moves your king
far forward, it might be a good idea to move it back a little. Always
watch for a "running king", i.e. when your opponent moves your
king towards his own pieces for mating.

In particular, it is bad to have a king near a solid row of 3 of your
own pawns, as it can easily be mated being backed up against them.

In any event, it seems to be a good idea to advance a pawn or two
as far as possible as early as possible, as beyond move series 4,
they can be queened in a turn, possibly mating while doing so (if
the king can be manoeuvred into a corner).

Try to make your opponent waste moves, e.g. by checking him on your
last move, or as in game 13 below.

That's about all we've discovered.

You now know as much as we do!
--------------------------------------------------------

A note about move numbers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have little idea of strategy yet, but this thought has occurred
to us, that seems to suggest that black has a slight advantage in this
variant. If we look at move-color sequences, efficient mate is only
possible if you have the last move of your sequence with your own color.

Otherwise you have an "unusable" move. Checking this out, we see...

series      pieces     mate    plus
W  B         w  b      moves   helps
------------------------------------
1  -         1  -       1       .
.  2         1  1       1       .
3  .         1  2       1       1
.  4         2  2       2       1
5  .         3  2       3       2
.  6         3  3       3       2
7  .         3  4       3       3
.  8         4  4       4       3

      ...and so on. The left 2 columns show whose move series it is.
The next 2 show whose pieces he moves. The next, the number of his own
pieces moved; this is the crucial one. The last is also quite important,
the number of opponent "helpful" moves he gets to make - this excludes
the last one, if it was the last of a series.

So this tells how close each player can come to giving mate. As you can
see, black keeps getting an extra gain of 1, every 4th series.

If this is a correct analysis, it seems a nice automatic correction to
the generally-agreed slight 1st-move advantage to white in ordinary
progressive chess.

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Finally some games that illustrate various points.
There are doubtless many blunders in them!

Illustrative games.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note, as a matter of convenience only, all the moves made by the BLACK
player are prefixed with an asterisk. (We suggest this be standard.)

----------------------------
Game 6 - POC.

1.   c4    * e5
2. * f3      Ke7
3.   e4      Qe8
4. * Qa4   * Nf6
5. * Qxa7  * Rxa7
6.   d4      Rxa2
7.   Rxa2    Kd6
8.   Bd3   * Ke7
9. * Ra6   * Nxa6
10.* Kd2   * Kd8
11.* Bc2     Nd5
12.  cxd5    Qe6
13.  dxe6    Nc5
14.  dxc5    Rg8
15.* c6    * Bb4+
16.* Ke2   * d5
17.* Kf2   * Bxe6
18.* Kg3   * Be1 ++
-----------------
. . . k . . r .
. p p . . p p p
. . O . b . . .
. . . p p . . .
. . . . O . . .
. . . . . O K .
. O B . . . O O
. N B . b . N R
------------------
Quite a cute final position.

-------------------------
POC game 10:

1.   b3   * e5
2. * c3     Ba3
3.   Bxa3   f6 ??
4. * f4   * f5
5. * g4   * Qh4 ++

r n b . k . n r
p p p p . . p p
. . . . . . . .
. . . . p p . .
. . . . . O O q
B O O . . . . .
O . . O O . . O
R N . Q K B N R

A late "Fool's Mate".

----------------------
POC game 11:

1.   e4    * e5
2. * Ke2     Ba3
3.   Nxa3    Ke7
4. * Kd3   * h5
5. * Qg4   * hxg4
6.   Ke2     Rxh2
7.   Rxh2    Nh6
8.   Rxh6  * g3     <------ that g-pawn was a pain!
9. * Rh2   * gxh2
10 * Kd3   * hxg1=Q
11 * Nb1     Qh8
12   Ke2     Qxf2+
13   Kxf2    Qh3    <------ 3 Q-moves in a row.  But different queens!
14   gxh3    g6
15 * Ke2   * d5
16 * Kd3   * dxe4+
17 * Kc3   * Bxh3
18 * Kc4   * Bxf1+
19   Kb4     Kd6
20   Na3     Kd5
21   c4+     Kd4
22   Rb1 :)  Bd3
23   Nb5++

r n . . . . . .
p p p . . p . .
. . . . . . p .
. N . . p . . .
. K O k p . . .
. . . b . . . .
O O . O . . . .
. R B . . . . .
----------------------

POC game 13:

1.   e4    * g5
2. * Ne2     f5
3.   exf5    a6
4. * f6    * exf6
5. * f3    * d6
6.   g3      Bh3
7.   Bxh3    Qd7
8.   Bxd7+ * Nxd7
9. * Ng1   * b5
10 * Qe2+  * Kd8
11 * Qe8+

And what about this tactic? I was very happy about this little
surprise: use a move of your opponent's to gain material advantage!

11   ...     Kxe8
12   c4      Nb6
13   d4      Nc8
14   cxb5    Nge7
15 * Ke2   * axb5
16 * Ke3   * Ra3+
17 * Ke4   * d5++

   . . n . k b . r
   . . p . n . . p
   . . . . . p . .
   . p . p . . p .
   . . . O K . . .
   r . . . . O O .
   O O . . . . . O
   R N B . . . N R
=================================================================

Comment

Progressive Orthodox Chess was first published under the name Progressive 007 Chess by Edward Jackman. (HB.)
Sent to the Chess Variant Pages by Joao Pedro Neto. Comment by Hans Bodlaender.
WWW page created: December 15, 1997.