Nacht Schach
NAChT Schach stands for NAChT ain't Chess Too Schach or Night Chess in german. It is an redaundant recursive acronym to be taken with salt and tongue in cheek.Its immediate influence is John Kipling Lewis's simplified chess. Specfically what started my thinking was simplified chess's rule 3, which is in need of expansion. But how? Below is what I came up with. It deviates in many ways from both chess and simplified chess. So approach it on its own terms before any comparison to be drawn.Setup
Setup pieces on 8x7 checkered board with dark squares in the lower left corner. There is two possible starting setups: traditional and reverse symmetric.
Traditional:
rnbqkbnr pppppppp ........ ........ ........ PPPPPPPP RNBQKBNR
Queens for this setup always start on a light square.
Reverse Symmetric:
rnbkqbnr pppppppp ........ ........ ........ PPPPPPPP RNBQKBNR
Queen for this setup start on the square same color as the piece.
Sorry for the bad ascii graphics, I will update with better ones when I have a chance.
Pieces
- Pawn:
- non-capture, one step forward. Captures one step diagonally forward. Must promote upon entering last rank. Promotes to captured non-pawn piece of the same side.
- Rook:
- slides orthogonally, if first piece it meet is opponent's, it may capture by displacement.
- Bishop:
- slides Diagonally, if first piece it meet is opponent's, it may capture by displacement.
- Knight:
- Move one space diagonally, then one space orthogonally outwards. Leaping over any intervening piece. Capturing any opponent piece at the destination.
- Queen:
- Moves as Rook or Bishop.
- King
- King move or capture one step orthogonally or diagonally. One may not end move with King in danger. At the end of a move, one's king may not face opponent's king along same file or rank.
Rules
- A player with no legal move loses.
- A player may not move into a position he moved into before.
Castling: King move two toward rook, rook move to square immediately on the other side. No piece in between, neither piece having being moved. King may not move through, start, or end in check.
use this rule if it improves playability
Notes
Theoretically, Nach chess has no draws, since:- Even a lone king can win against another lone king.
- No 3-peat can happen since by then some one would be stepping into a position that was stepped in before.
- Stalemate is a loss not draw.
However, there maybe long sequences that may not be suitable in a competition setting so 50 move rule or sudden death time control may need to be used.
Have some fun, and take a look :-)
There is two sub variants I may post in the future, stay tuned
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By Jianying Ji.
Web page created: 2008-05-25. Web page last updated: 2008-05-25