Two Kingdoms

By Nuno Cruz

As Pritchard said: anyone can create a chess variant in ten minutes. But mine was created in less then five! I wanted to do something that wasn't to 'unorthodox'. As concerned to piece movement there are many options, but in practice I have my preferred ones such as the Camel, the Zebra, the Fish and some other (few) historical and fairy pieces. This are simple and capable of adding more dynamics to the game of chess. And for the board, well, I really do believe that the decimal board will be the next step in the evolution of chess... I tried to give 'realistic' names to the already known pieces making them more suitable to a real battle ground :-)) But of course, be free to call them what you like.

Rules

The game is played by to players on a chequered board of ten by ten squares with 20 pieces per player. A black square must be on itch players left side. The object of the game remains the same: to check mate the opponent so that it can not escape.

Opening setup

The opening setup is as follows:

White King f1; General e1; Castel a1, j1; Knight b1, i1; Archer c1, h1; Canon d1, g1; Soldier a2, b2, c2, d2, e2, f2, g2, h2, i2, j2.     Black King f8; General e8; Castel a8, j8; Knight b8, i8; Archer c8, h8; Canon d8, g8; Soldier a7, b7, c7, d7, e7, f7, g7, h7, i7, j7.

The powers of the pieces

The King moves as usual king.

The General is the queen from orthodox chess.

The Castles are the orthodox chess rook.

The Knights represent the Cavalry, moving as the usual Knight or as the fairy Zebra.

The Archers move as the fairy piece Alibaba or one square diagonally like the Ferz.

The Canons represent the Artillery and move in the same way as the Bishop.

The Soldiers represent the Infantry and differ from the usual pawn in this: on their first move they can advance three instead of two squares. Their promotion is the same as in the orthodox chess, and en passant is also valid.

Castling is made in the same way as in chess, so we still have the small castling and big castling.

All other rules maintain.

Some variantions

Even in my mind I had the ideia for some variations on this game. Those are:

1. Allow Soldiers to retreat, wich means to make it possible for them to move one square vertically backwards without    capturing (like the fairy Fish).

2. Allow the Knight to also move as the Camel.

3. Adapt the Archer from the board game Feudal, witch moves three squares diagonal or orthogonal, captures the next piece that is in any of those directions three squares away!