Stone's Chess

Stone's Chess is a 10x8 Chess variant created by Rhett Applestone in January 2023. It was inspired by the layout of Capablanca's Chess and the twin Archbishops of Janus Chess. 

Setup

The game is played on a 10x8 board with the pieces arranged as follows:

White:
King f1; Queen e1; Archbishop c1, h1; Knight b1, i1; Bishop d1, g1; Rook a1, j1; Pawn a2, b2, c2, d2, e2, f2, g2, h2, i2, j2.

Black:
King f8; Queen e8; Archbishop c8, h8; Knight b8, i8; Bishop d8, g8; Rook a8, j8; Pawn a7, b7, c7, d7, e7, f7, g7, h7, i7, j7.

Starting FEN: rnabqkbanr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/RNABQKBANR

The Initial back-rank setup: Rook, Knight, Archbishop, Bishop, Queen, King, Bishop, Archbishop, Knight, Rook

Pieces

Stone's Chess has the same pieces and setup as normal Chess with the addition of two Archbishops  which can move as either a Knight or Bishop, and two pawns per side.

Rules

All normal Chess rules apply unless otherwise noted, including three-fold repitition and the 50-move draw rule.

Castling: The King always slides 3 spaces left or right when castling and the Rook leaps to the next square on the opposite side.  When White castles kingside (0-0), the King moves to I1 and the Rook moves to H1.  When White castles queenside (0-0-0), the King moves to C1 and the Rook moves to D1.  The usual restrictions on castling all apply.

Pawn Promotion: A pawn may promote to a Rook, Knight, Archbishop, Bishop, or Queen upon reaching the last rank.

Notes

Features:

• Symetrical starting position
• All pawns defended
• Leads to fun new games! 

This game is the same as Janus Chess except for the following changes:

• The Bishop+Knight compound is called by the more common name of "Archbishop" rather than "Janus"
• The opening position is different.  The King starts to the right of the Queen as in Chess rather than as in Janus.
• The castling move is different

Stone's Chess is free for anyone to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon, even commercially, as long as credit is given for the original creation. CC BY License 

Last revised by Greg Strong.