Two Kings Chess

Introduction

On 4 October 1997, we received an email from Rob McCarter, in which he detailed a chess variant called "Two Kings". Here is an excerpt from his email:

I really like your website. I haven't played chess in a long time, but I played a lot in college. Here is a variant that we had a lot of fun with, that I didn't see in your lists.

Rules

Standard setup except players each have a second king in place of a queen. A player wins by either checkmating one of his opponent's kings, or by placing both his opponent's kings in check on the same move.

[Note that one could use the queen piece (instead of having to track down another king piece), but treat it exactly the same as if it were a king. -- DH]

Special castling rule: kings may castle as in normal chess, or both kings may castle "kingside" (i.e. with nearest rook) as a single move with normal restrictions applying (see diagram at below).

For pawn promotions, I don't remember whether we allowed pawns to promote to queens or not, so I assume the game could be played either way.

Comments

The two kings variant, while quite similar to Double King chess, is nice enough to have its own webpage. -HB