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This page is written by the game's inventor, Charles Daniel.

Super Knights Grand Chess

A new 10x10 Chess variant by Charles Daniel

This exciting new variant is based loosely on the Capablanca Chess variant but with 3 new powerful pieces: the Super Knights!

The inventor of this game. Charles Daniel, was playing around with the different variations of Capablanca Chess and came up with an intriguing solution: Why not discard the regular knights, replace them with rook-knights, add a bishop knight and the very powerful queen-knight to the mix! Many of the problems associated with Bird's original setup as well as Capablanca's setup can then be avoided when set up as shown below.

Update: See info on the more balanced and playable sequel: Super Knights Chess 2!

Setup

The board is set up as follows for the white side (black side will mirror this):
Rook on a1
Rook-knight on b1
Bishop on c1
Bishop-knight on d1
Queen on e1
King on f1
Queen-knight on g1
Bishop on h1
Rook-knight on i1
Rook on j1
10 pawns from a2 to j2.

Pieces

The three new super knights are: Please note that there are no regular knights in this variation!

Rules

The rules in Super Knights Grand Chess are the same as in chess except for the following modifications:
  1. Castling is done by moving the king three squares to the left or right and moving the rook next to it. For example, white can castle kingside (providing no other pieces are in between, and no squares over which the king travels are attacked) by moving his king from f1 to i1 and his rook from j1 to h1. On the queenside, white king moves from f1 to c1 and rook from a1 to d1.
  2. Pawn moves: The pawn can move from its original position either 1, 2 or 3 squares forward. Subsequently as in normal chess, it can only move 1 square forward. If a pawn moves 1 square forward from its original position, it loses its ability to move more than 1 square forward and can only move forward 1 square at a time.
  3. En Passant: If a Pawn moves two or three squares initially and passes an opposing Pawn on the fourth or fifth rank, the Pawn may be captured en passant. E.g. White pawn on a2 black pawn on b4. If the white pawn moves from a2 to a4 or a5, the black pawn on b4 can capture it as if it had moved to a3. Similarly, if the black pawn is on b5 instead and the white pawn moves to a5 from a2 then the black pawn can capture the white pawn as if it moved to a4. Note in this case the white pawn can still avoid the black pawn by moving to a3 instead.
    Capturing en passant is optional unless it is the only legal move available. The capture must be made on the next move.
  4. Pawn promotion: Pawns can now promote to: queen,queen-knight,rook-knight, bishop-knight, bishop.

Notes

New Strategical Points

Give it a try and see how it compares to the rest!

Update: See info on the more balanced and playable sequel: Super Knights Chess 2!



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By Charles Daniel.
Web page created: 2007-08-16. Web page last updated: 2007-08-16