luminouscuboids

Novel Chess Variants

416.47 ppm

C. van Gog, 10 August 2021

Preliminaries

Basics

A familiarity with the rules of chess and with algebraic notation is assumed. I abbreviate the classical pieces as KQRBNP (King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, and Pawn; collectively “material”); I will write “pieces” for QRBN.

Unless indicated otherwise, moves resulting in pawns on the first or last rank are not allowed. Concepts borrowed from variants include dropping (Crazyhouse), gating and Hawk & Elephant (both borrowed from S-Chess), and generalized castling rules (Fischer Random Chess). The rules below are stated in the way they apply to White, but they equally apply to black modulo the proper transpositions (e.g., d7 instead of d2).

Simplified Chess

All of the variants below are variants of Simplified Chess. In Simplified Chess, kings may walk into check and be captured. However, crucially, by convention, kings are never forced to be exposed to check, and if a situation occurs in which a player has no choice but to walk into check, this player may claim a draw. Checkmating the opponent without being in check oneself allows one to claim a win—but does not automatically end the game.

Simplified Chess is highly similar to chess. One difference is that the king may castle through check. However, this is not recommended, as castling through check allows the king to be captured en passant! The important extra liberty to walk into check and to capture kings turns out to be a useful feature for many of the variants below (and also for other variants such as Quantum Chess).

A Few Final Words…

None of the variants below have been tested much at all, so say hi to the dragons…! Anyways, I hope you will enjoy some of these recipes for warping the Laws of Chess… :) Click on the image below to view the full PDF.