Tips and tricks for Progressive 007 Chess (Progressive Orthodox Chess)
====================================================================== 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. ======================================================================== (In practice, draws can never occur with even remotely sensible play!) ======================================================================== 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. -------------------------------------------------------- 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.