Officer-Spiel

I came up with the idea of (16x8 board size) Officer-Spiel in 2023. An earlier, similar, 8x10 board size idea I had was 'Officer Chess', in 2019, but I had left it unpublished, as I'd felt unsure of its merits. Both were inspired by my earlier Sac Chess (which uses only 12 piece types). Some years after 'Officer Chess', Very Heavy Chess was invented independently by Jean-Louis Cazaux, with the same 14 piece types being used (but it's played on a much bigger board than for 'Officer Chess'). In some cases, for all three variant ideas of mine, I've preferred slightly different names, for a relatively small number of the unorthodox piece types used.

There is a preset available for play on Game Courier: Officer-Spiel

Setup

Pieces

Officer-Spiel uses the 6 piece types of chess, plus 8 unorthodox piece types:

Amazon — Can move like a Queen or Knight.

Ship — Can move like a Rook, Knight, or Ferz. Also known as Heroine.

Freemason — Can move like a Bishop, Knight, or Wazir. Also known as Templar or Popess.

Chancellor — Can move like a Rook or Knight. Also commonly called Marshall.

Archbishop — Can move like a Bishop or Knight. Also commonly called Cardinal.

Sailor — Can move like a Rook or step one square diagonally like a Ferz. Known in Shogi as Dragon King.

Missionary — Can move like a Bishop or step one square orthogonally like a Wazir. Known in Shogi as Dragon Horse.

Judge — Can step one square in any direction like a non-royal King or leap like a Knight. More commonly known as Centaur.

Rules

Officer-Spiel follows the rules of standard chess, except where noted below.

The castling rules for Officer-Spiel are as follows: A king that has never moved, and is not in check, can 'leap' once a game, along the first rank, to any unattacked empty square between it and an unmoved rook, followed by said rook 'leaping' to the king's initial square so as to complete castling in one single move. It does not matter if any squares in between are occupied or under attack.

Threefold repetition of position or stalemate is a draw as in standard chess, and the 50 move rule is also in effect in Officer-Spiel (i.e. game drawn if no captures or pawn moves have been made before 50 consecutive moves by both sides). Pawns move as in chess, and can promote to any piece type included in the setup, except for a king.

Last revised by Kevin Pacey.