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Chess on a board with 37 squares

Alfred Pfeiffer composed this chess variant on a board with 37 squares, on the occasion of the 37th birthday of Hans Bodlaender. The form of the board was proposed by Hans Bodlaender.

Rules

The game is played on a board with 37 squares, with the following opening setup.

Pawns can only promote on the three squares on the last row at the opponents side. There is no initial double move, and no en-passant capture by pawns. The purpose of the game is still to mate the king of the opponent, as in orthodox chess.

Variants

  1. Instead of normal pawns, one uses Berolina-pawns. (These are pawns that capture straight forward, and move without capture diagonally forward.) This variant causes that pawns can always reach a promotion square by non-capturing moves.
  2. Instead of Bishops, one takes Bishop-Rook-Hunters. These pieces move forwards like a bishop, and backwards as a rook. This rule change makes both `bishop'-pieces of the same value (this isn't the case in the standard variant of this game), as they can change the color of the square they are on.

Comments

The variant with the Berolina-pawns may be best, as the `Berolina'-move for the pawns seems more natural given the shape of the board.

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Written by Hans Bodlaender and Alfred Pfeiffer.
WWW page created: May 2, 1997.