Check out Balbo's Chess, our featured variant for October, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, João Neto.

Balanced Swap Chess

Joao Pedro Neto send the rules of this variant in the summer of 1998. He wrote:
This is an evolution of swap chess. I think this is a fair and nice game for those who like marsellais 2-move feature. It's very dynamic and even if you think a piece is in a stronghold position, you're wrong!

Rules

  1. All FIDE rules apply except in the following:
  2. Each move is made of a regular FIDE move and a swap move (see 3.) This is valid even if the regular move is a check. In the first move of white, only the regular move is done.
  3. A swap move is a two piece swap of positions. One piece is a player's piece, and the other is on a square where the 1st piece could move (if the square was empty) or take (if the square had an opponent piece).
  4. If a player cannot make the regular move or the swap, s/he looses!
  5. A white (black) pawn in the 1st (8th) row can move 2 squares forward.
  6. If due to the swap move, a pawn reaches the promotion rank, it is always the player who made the swap that decides the promotion.
  7. A check must be released in the regular move.

Sample Games

White: Joao Neto
Black: Bill Taylor

 1. d4             2. Nc6   f8/g7     3. Nf3  f1/g2     4. B:d4  d4/a7 
 5. N:d4  d4/e2    6. f6    d8/d7     7. B:c6 a1/a2     8. Q:c6  c6/h1 
 9. R:c7  c7/c2   10. d8:c7 h1/h2    11. R:a7 a7/a1    12. Q:h1  h8/h7 
13. Bf4   e2/d4   14. Bh3   h7/e7    15. Kd2  b1/d2    16. Q:f1  f1/f2 
17. Nb5   d1/d2   18. Q:f1  e8/f8    19. Be3  e2/e3    20. Q:e2  e2/b5 
21. resigns  0-1 

Final Position 

   r . . . p k n p 
   O p p . r . . p 
   . . . . . p . . 
   . q . . . . . . 
   . . . . . . . . 
   . . . . O . . b 
   . O R Q N . . . 
   R K . N . . . . 


White: Joao Neto (The Amazon Army)
Black: Ralph Betza (The Fabulous FIDES)

      p p b n k . b p 
      r p p O q . p r 
      . . . . . . . . 
      . . . . . . . . 
      Q . . . p . . . 
      . . . . . . . . 
      . B O . O O B 4 
      4 N O . K O N O 

    -------------------- 
    R4 N B QN K B N R4 
    -------------------- 

    1.   (QN)d1-c3 
    1... e7-e5,      Nb8/d7 
    2.   d2-d3,      Bf1/g2 
    2... f7-f6,      Ra8/a7 
    3.   Ng1-h3,     Bc1/b2 
    3... Bf8-e7,     Ng8/e7 
    4.   (QN)c3:e5,  (QN)e5/d3 
    4... f6:e5,      Qd8/e7 
    5.   a2-a4,      (R4)h1/h2 
    5... e5-e4,      Rh8/h7 
    6.   (QN)d3:d7,  (QN)d7/a4+ 
    6... Resigns 

Note: the amazon queen QN, is too strong piece for this particular CV


Written by Joao Pedro Neto; edited by Hans Bodlaender.
WWW page created: June 23, 1998.