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Switch-Side Chain-Chess. Optionally swap sides with your opponent upon completing a "chain". (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

💡📝Azlan Iqbal wrote on Tue, Feb 25, 2014 02:03 AM UTC:

Dear George,

Thanks for the comments. To answer two main concerns, the 'chain' was considered more relevant than other criteria for switching because it challenges our powers of visual perception more than say, having a queen and a rook next to each other on the seventh rank. The chain is also dynamic with a theoretically limitless number of shapes and sizes.

As for continuous switching mating combinations, this makes SSCC far more volatile than standard chess. Each player has to be able to visualize the game (including the possibility of chain formation!) far ahead to *avoid* getting mated or force-drawn in this way. Rather than introduce new rules to prohibit such things, I suggest the variant be left the minefield that it is. Note, however, that switching is always an *option* and never compulsory. So a good amount of sizing-up what sort of opponent you have (including risk-taking) might play into the best strategy for winning.