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

Wall chess

In this game, invented by Jarrod Antinoro and William Kenney, all rules of the normal chess game apply, but there is now an additional piece: The Wall.

Each player begins the game with one Wall piece, in addition to their normal pieces. The Wall begins the game off of the board. Instead of moving a piece on the board, a player may place their Wall on any unoccupied space on the board. The Wall cannot be captured. The Wall blocks all movement through the space it occupies, including Knights (i.e. a Knight cannot jump a Wall).

Once a Wall has been placed, it cannot be removed from the board. However, the player may, instead of moving a piece, take their Wall and again place it on any unoccupied space on the board. Once the Wall has been placed, it may not be moved for one full turn.

Example: In turn 3, Player 1 places his Wall piece on the board. Player 1 will be unable to re-place his Wall until Turn 5.

Notes

Be prepared for a game of Wall Chess to take a long time, as the addition of the Wall can make checkmates much more difficult to accomplish. The Wall piece also makes an excellent handicapping system for games between opponents of widely varying skills (i.e. The "weaker" player gets a Wall, the "stronger" player does not). It is not recommended to play Wall Chess with more than one Wall per player, unless you like your games lasting for days. ;-)

Contributed by Jarrod Antinoro and William Kenney.

WWW page created: March 13, 2000.