Art of Chess & Variants

Rules:

Starting position as on image. Rules similar to classic chess, in addition:
- camel jumps squared (move and strike) as a knight but 3+1 instead of 2+1
- cannon: moves and strikes orthogonal, on the condition he can jump over any other piece, and only one piece (black or white), to land on any empty field behind it (move & strike).
- gold : 1 square in each direction except diagonal backwards
- silver: id, 1 square diagonal in each direction + 1 step straight forwards
- shogi (shogi-spear): moves and strikes as the spear in Japanese Shogi: straight forwards to all fields in that line (no jumping). If this shogi piece is beaten, it becomes property of the conqueror and is put aside (=one turn). The owner of this shogi can always (if it's his turn) choose to drop it on any empty square, called dropping (= one turn). Except it cannot put the king in check when dropping. The arrow is always pointing the opponent. This piece is neither black nor white. The direction of the arrow reveals who is the owner. In the beginning it stands beside the board. For it's first jump it can be dropped on any empty field of the first line.
- joker: has the same capacity as the piece that the opponent last used (imitator).The double start of the pawn and "en passant" can be imitated on the right places, not the promotion. If the proceeding move of the opponent was the joker, one can use the joker too, with the same capacities, but the next move cannot be the joker anymore.
Joker as a pawn: moves 1 field ahead or beat 1 field oblique ahead; double move is possible from the first line; "donner en passant"is possible when a pawn of the opponent comes to stand beside the joker (to be done immediately).
Joker as shogi: can move and beat straight forwards, since a beaten joker cannot come into the game again, there is no dropping such as the shogi does.
- Castle: K & R can land on 2 tiles, midst of the four tiles left or the four tiles on the right, always on the second row, with the rook closest to the middle. Conditions: both pieces have not yet been moved + the king is not in chess + those four fields are not threatened.
- Promotion: a pawn reaching the two last rows, promotes. Different from standard chess, it has to be replaced immediately by any piece of the same colour that has been beaten previously by the opponent, except another pawn or the shogi (if there is no piece available, it has to wait until there is one, meanwhile it cannot move nor being beaten. If only one piece is available, there is no choice).

© Johan Framhout June 2014