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Turret Chess

This page contains one or more presets for playing a game online with Game Courier, an online server for playing Chess variants by correspondence.

Turret Chess follows the rules of orthodox chess. It is played on the Gustavian board with extra corner squares. The Turret moves like a queen, but it cannot capture in this way. Instead the Turret, when it moves, has the power to sling a piece located immediately behind itself to a forward square in the alignment direction. The slung piece, which can be of any colour, is hurled to the square immediately forward of the square on which the Turret stops. Any enemy piece positioned here is captured.

The Turret can be used for transporting friendly pieces, attacking enemy pieces, or removing enemy pieces from good positions. Even the king can become a dangerous attacking piece together with the Turret. In opening and middlegame it introduces new tactical themes. In the endgame it can transport friendly pawns and the friendly king over the board. It can create a double attack along a diagonal and an orthogonal. Pawns can be catapulted to their promotion square, when they are promoted to queen as only alternative. Pawns cannot be catapulted to the first rank, that is, the second rank is the limit. Kings and rooks retain their castle rights if catapulted away and back, while they haven't moved by their own accord. The Turret's value is 4, that is, between bishop and rook (estimate).

Extended castle: when castling the king may jump three squares, but it can also jump two as usual. The rook ends up on its usual square. The extended castling rule makes play on the wings easier to achieve. The king can rapidly take control over the kingside or queenside corner square, and advancement on the wing can occur without putting the king at risk.

Turret:
(1) a tall building usu. moved on wheels and formerly used for carrying soldiers and equipment for breaching or scaling a wall.
(2) a revolving armored structure on a warship that protects one or more guns mounted within it.

In the following preset moves are validated and automated, including catapult moves, castling and 'en passant', but check, etc., are not parsed. Pieces can be moved by pointing and clicking. When promoting a pawn, it will automatically turn into a Queen. Should you prefer another piece then you must type it manually (e.g., add N a8; capture a7). Use small piece-letters for black. E-mails to your opponent are generated, but you can play online by intermittently pressing the browser's update button.


Turret Chess



(You can also download a Zillions implementation here.)

See also Oxybeles Chess.

See also my other Game Courier presets.




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 M Winther.
Web page created: 2009-06-16. Web page last updated: 2009-06-16