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This page is written by the game's inventor, Charles Gilman.

Bachelor Hunterbeest

This variant combines three variations to FIDE Chess: those of Doug Chatham's Bachelor Chess, Wayne Schmittberger's Wildebeest Chess, and my own Nimrod Chess. I have already created combinations of each pair. Bachelor Kamil, one of my earliest varints, combined the Wildebeest additions with the Bachelor reductions to give a board of the size used here, Queen and Gnu appearing only as promotees, and the special moves. Bachelor Nimrod reduced the board and army size relative to the FIDE-szed Nimrod. Finally Hunterbeest extended the mixing of moves between pieces from radial to oblique pieces, resulting in the other pieces listed below. The Notes section of Hunterbeest also applies to this variant.

Setup

Pieces

The KING moves one step orthogonally or diagonally.
The QUEEN moves any distance orthogonally or diagonally through empty intermediate cells.
The PAWN moves one step forward, diagonally when capturing, orthogonally otherwise.
The HUNTER moves forward as a Rook, or backward as a Bishop. It appears under the name Grey Whale in Whale Shogi.
The HAWKER moves forward as a Bishop, or backward as a Rook.
The HUNTRESS moves forward or sideways as a Rook, or backward as a Bishop - five directions including two opposite Rook ones.
The HAWKRESS moves backward or sideways as a Rook, or forward as a Bishop - five directions including two opposite Rook ones.
The GNU or Wildebeest combines all Knight and Camel leaps. Like the King the Gnu can triangulate - return to its square in 3 moves by describing a right triangle comprising 2 of its shorter moves and 1 of its longer one.
The HARTEBEEST leaps 3 ranks and 1 file or 2 files and 1 rank. Like the Camel it is rankswitching - always moving from an odd to an even rank or vice versa, and so cannot lose the move. The name is an African ungulate's name similar to Wildebeest and starting with the H of Helm. Corresponding subsets of the Zebu, Guru, and Sadhu moves give the Sartebeest, Bartebeest, and Vartebeest. As a bonus hart is an old English word for a male deer corresponding to hind for a female deer. This ties in with the Hindrook of Altorth Hex Chess and Ringworld Chess also having a subset of a symmetric piece's move.
The COHARTEBEEST leaps 2 ranks and 1 file or 3 files and 1 rank. Like the Camel it is fileswitching - always moving from an odd to an even file or vice versa, and so cannot lose the move. The name refers to replacing the subset of each Gnu-component's move with those of its dual's move, like the Cobison and Cogazelle of Man and Beast 03: From Ungulates Outward. Corresponding subsets of the Zebu, Guru, and Sadhu moves give the Cosartebeest, Cobartebeest, and Covartebeest.
The HINNY advances like a Hartebeest or retreats like a Cohartebeest, and can also be seen as a compound of the Cram (3:1 version of the Crab) and the Barc. The name is after a hybrid ungulate, like the more familar mule but with horse as father and donkey as mother rather than vice versa. The animal's hybridity evokes the imbalance between forward and backward moves. Corresponding subsets of the Zebu, Guru, and Sadhu moves give the Sinny, Binny, and Vinny.
The COHINNY advances like a Cohartebeest or retreats like a Hartebeest, and can also be seen as a compound of the Crab and Marc (3:1 version of the Barc). The name refers to replacing the subset of each Gnu-component's move with those of its dual's move, again like the Cobison and Cogazelle. Corresponding subsets of the Zebu, Guru, and Sadhu moves give the Cosinny, Cobinny, and Covinny.

Rules

Pawns still have an initial double move and the En Passant rule. They can be promoted to other pieces occurring in the array, but they can also be promoted to a Queen or to a Gnu.

The King may Castle with either five-way piece, exactly as with Rooks Queenside in FIDE Chess.

The word "mate", both as noun and as verb, has other meanings outside Chess, and an extra way to win is to find the King a "mate" in the sense of "partner, companion, esp. spouse". This happens by promoting a Pawn to Queen and reaching a position where a Queen is adjacent to the King.

Here I note that "mate" is also an anagram of "tame", so I also allow a win by taming not a Shrew (for those who know their Shakespeare) but the much Wilder Beast that the Gnu is evidently judged to be. Likewise this is achieved through a position in which King and Gnu are adjacent.

Additionally the King must not himself be in check.

This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.

By Charles Gilman.

Last revised by Ben Reiniger.


Web page created: 2009-11-28. Web page last updated: 2024-01-22