Descent Chess

Invented by Andreas Kaufmann, (c) January 2003

Descent /di'sent/: ... 5. [singular] a sudden unwanted visit or attack [Longman Dictionary]

Introduction

You start with a King and two Pawns. All your other pieces are in reserve. On your turn you can either move a piece with the usual chess rules or place a piece from the reserve at any position on your half of the board.

Setup

Standard Chess board and pieces. You start with a King and two Pawns (White: King e1, Pawns e2, d2; Black: King e8, Pawns e7, d7).

Pieces

Standard Chess pieces.

Rules

Standard Chess rules, except as follows.

You start with a King and two Pawns (White: King e1, Pawns e2, d2; Black: King e8, Pawns e7, d7). All your other pieces are in reserve.

On your turn you can either move a piece with the usual chess rules or place a piece from the reserve at any position on your half of the board (White: rows 1,2,3,4; Black: rows 5,6,7,8).

Pawns may not be placed on the first row.

Equipment

Standard Chess equipment.

Notes

There are variants of the game on smaller boards (especially the first one leads to an interesting game):

5x5 board, Kings on the same side at the corners:

White: King a1, Pawns a2, b2.

Black: King a5, Pawns a4, b4.

Reserve: Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, 3 Pawns

5x5 board, Kings at the center squares.

White: King c1, Pawn c2.

Black: King c5, Pawn c4.

Reserve: Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, 4 Pawns

5x5 board, Kings at the corners, but on different sides.

White: King e1, Pawn d2, e2.

Black: King a5, Pawns a4, b4.

Reserve: Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, 3 Pawns

6x6 board, Kings at the center squares.

White: King d1, Pawns c2, d2.

Black: King d6, Pawns c5, d5.

Reserve: Queen, 2 Rooks, Bishop, Knight, 4 Pawns.

Here are other chess variants, where you have some of your pieces initially in reserve and can, on your turn, either place your piece on the board or move an already placed piece:

UnaChess (Jeff Miller). You start with an empty board, but can't capture until your King is on the board. You can place pieces anywhere on the board.
UnaChess II (Edward Jackman). Same as UnaChess, but dropped piece can't check the enemy King. Castling and en passant are not allowed.
Parachute chess (Edward Jackman). Dropped piece can't attack any enemy piece.
Chessling (How-Hie Ling). The goal of the game is to capture all of your opponent's pieces, not mate. Pawns move like Kings.
Anti-Prechess (Ralph Betza). Your pieces are placed on the board by your opponent on your demand.
Placement (Walter Weiss). Only Kings are initially on the board. You can drop a piece from reserve to its usual place (for example, Queen to d1, Rook at a1 or h1, etc.) and move it on the same turn.

Computer Play

If you have Zillions of Games installed on your computer, you can play this game. Download file: DescentChess.zip.

Comments

Descent Chess. Start with a King and two Pawns, then move or drop one of the remaining pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64)

Andreas Kaufmann wrote on Tue, Jan 7, 2003 10:12 AM EST:

I played this game a lot with a computer (using Zillion) and didn't see any
evidence that the game is more drawish then standard chess. Dropping
pieces not only usefull by defence. It is also a powerful way to continue
your attack. The white can start the attack already from the first move
(e.g. Qg3), then continue it with dropping Rooks and Bishops. 

The variant suggested by Sam also looks interesting, it will stimulate
ealy droping of all pieces and delay exchanges until all of them (or
almost all of them) are on the board.

Sam Trenholme wrote on Tue, Jan 7, 2003 01:46 AM EST:

This game might be a bit too drawish; since the drops can be done anywhere on one's own half of the board, this looks to make defense much eaiser because, once in the enemy's camp, the enemy can drop pieces to thwart your attack.

My own take on this idea is to allow one to drop pieces anyone on their half until they capture an opponent's piece or give check to the opponent's king. Once they catpure a piece, or give check, the player who has done so can no longer drop pieces.

- Sam