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Art of Chess & Variants

Historical chess games, the European and the Japanese chess

Chess with other pieces, new original games

1 Fundamental rules of the official (European) chess and the Japanese

2 Chess with other pieces and rules, paradise chess

3 Chess with different pieces, new games

4 Chess variants with the usual board and chessmen

5 Chess with added pieces

Paradise chess

We present here a chess game we did invent ourselves. It is played on an orthodox chess board, 8 to 8. In this game the goal is to reach the opposite side. Capture is switching places. Except the orthodox chessmen, three pieces have been added: the cannon form the Chinese chess, the camel from the Arabian and the elephant from the ancient Indian chess. However, the elephant here is more powerful, it can also move orthogonal. It is the strongest piece.

Playing it means fun and it also requires time thinking.

Rules

The starting position is as shown beside. Capture is switching places and is also possible with one's own colour, on condition the two pieces are not equal. Moving is obliged. Capture is not, except when no other move is possible. (How to move: first move the capturing piece, then move the captured one.)

The orthodox European chessmen keep their capacities. A pawn placed on the second or thirth row always can decide to make a double move forwards. Castling, check and passant do not exist in this game. The cannon always leaps orthogonal over one and only one piece (white or black) to land on one of the fields behind it (moving as well as taking, so landing at an empty field or switching places with another piece). The camel moves (leaps) and takes as a knight, but 3+1 fields instead of 2+1. The elephant leaps 1 or 2 fields orthogonal as well as diagonal.

The goal is to be the first to bring chessmen into paradise, which is the last row: the four pawns, the king, one cannon, one knight and another chessman to choose. No piece is allowed to come into the paradise of the opponant. Chessmen standing in one's own paradise, cannot capture from there and cannot be captured. (But they can go out of paradise to take from another place.) Chessmen within one's own paradise however can take another chessman of one's own colour
(when the pieces are different) .

A pawn (of course) cannot move or take backwards. A move cannot be undone by reversing in the next turn. (If for instance the white bishop takes the the black one, they change places. In the next turn black cannot take this white bishop again.) Also larger loops must stop: when a number of moves is repeted (and both colours did move) the second move in the repetition has to be different.

Strategy

The pawns have to reach paradise on time. At the same time one has to try to get it's chessmen past the pieces of the opponant. On this way it is possible to push the slow opponant pieces back. In the same way it is possible to make a big move forwards with one's slow pieces. For this purpose the elephants, camels and horses are most suited.

In this example however the bishop threatens. Black has three pawns and the king in paradise. White has a pawn on G5. H8 is already occupied and the white king only needs one further move. If white exchanges his last pawn with his own bishop on F6 (to go to F8), black can
bishop C3 x pawn F6. The white pawn so arrives on C3, a serious backlog compared to black.

The black pawn on D2 is yet to get inside. With pawn D2 x bishop C3 white can bring the black pawn to C5 with his cannon. Also possible to black is king to C1, next king C1 x pawn D2, after which the king himself has yet to return to his paradise.

Making this game yourself

Unless you like sculpturing, the simplest way to play is with disks as on the picture above. You may stick printed images on for instance large buttons.

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