Bishops Chess

Bishops Chess is played on a 9x9 board. The arrangement of the pieces is almost the same as in Orthodox Chess, but with 9 Pawns on the second rank instead of 8. Instead of adding one more Queen as in Ministers Chess, the Queen piece is removed and replaced with two other Bishops.

Setup

Pieces

The addition of 2 extra Bishops means that there is a pair of dark-squares and light-squares Bishops each, reminiscent of the Advisor/Elephant symmetry in Xiangqi. If they are counted as separate pieces, this gives a total of four pairs of major attacking pieces in the beginning setup of Bishops Chess (see figure). All the pieces move as in orthodox chess, except the rules on Pawn promotion, which are discussed below.

Pawn promotion

A Pawn in Bishops Chess promotes on the 9th rank, one more than in orthodox chess. The Pawn becomes a Maharaja/Amazon piece upon promotion. The Maharaja has the combined moves of Rook, Bishop, and Knight (or Queen+Knight).

Rules

Castling

The castling move in Bishops Chess is similar to those in orthodox chess - the King and Rook must not have moved, the King is not in check, and the King must not be put in check while cascading to its final position. In Bishops Chess, the King always jumps three squares to the left or right, with the Rook directly next to it, two squares from the corner. This position is exactly the same as the end result of Queenside castling in Orthodox Chess.

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Bishops Chess

Notes

This chess variant manifested out of an idea inspired by WWII Chess, pitting Shogi against Orthodox Chess. I thought there should be a symmetrical 9x9 Western/European style chess to play against Shogi in this chess variant. I came across Ministers Chess, but found that with two Queens, the Western side becomes too strong. Since the all-powerful Queen is sometimes criticised as a shortcoming of Orthodox Chess, I decided to just remove the Queen. This led to the idea of Bishops Chess. I think the removal of the Queen and the extra move the Pawn has to make to get promoted should be compensated somehow, so the Pawn becomes Maharaja/Amazon upon promotion. (Note: Modern Chess is played on a 9x9 board, but it is not symmetrical.)

You're welcome to play against Shogi with a Bishops Chess army if you want!

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 Albert Lee.

Last revised by H. G. Muller.

Web page created: 2017-10-03. Web page last updated: 2022-11-26

Comments

Bishops Chess. Chess with two light-squared and two dark-squared Bishops on each side.

H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Oct 22, 2022 09:03 AM EDT in reply to Kevin Pacey from 08:49 AM:

Thanks! (That is what you get when you clone all these Diagrams from each other...)

Kevin Pacey wrote on Sat, Oct 22, 2022 08:49 AM EDT:

@ H.G.: Diagram wrongly labelled 'Big Chess'.

H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Oct 22, 2022 08:14 AM EDT:

The description of castling in this article is ambiguous, and both interpretations are self-contradictory. I opted for 3-step castling, which makes the fimal result look like orthodox King-side castling.

💡📝Albert Lee wrote on Sat, Jun 12, 2021 11:30 AM EDT in reply to Greg Strong from Thu Apr 23 2020 05:58 PM:

Thanks for your feedback.

I have reinvented this chess variant into Kingsmen. The pawns are on the third rank like in Shogi, and cannot double advance on the first move (and hence no en passant).

Also like Shogi, all non-royal pieces in Kingsmen promote on the last three ranks. A promoted piece can move like a King (one square in any direction) in addition to its original moves.

Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Apr 23, 2020 05:58 PM EDT:Average ★★★

I think this game is OK, but I do not care for the promotion rules. The game does not have a queen, so promotion to queen would already be the strongest piece. The amazon seems excessive and most games that feature that piece are not very good IMO. The amazon attacks in 16 directions while the next strongest piece - the rook - only attacks four.

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