Fighting Chess
This new chess variant is an upgrade to chess. In 1495, chess got upgraded to its modern version we see today. The changes made then sped up the game. However, from our modern perspective, the game is quite fast, but the pieces (most of them, anyway) are quite weak. There is also a conflict in the rules that lead to what we call stalemate. If we could fix this conflict in the rules to get rid of stalemate and strengthen the chess pieces, we could get rid of the large draw statistic found in chess. Fighting Chess has accomplished this feat.Setup
Setup is identical to traditional chess.Pieces
1) The rooks, bishops, and knights now also move and capture like a king. This creates a whole back rank of major pieces. 2) The pawn may now also capture one square straight ahead. This strengthens the pawn so that it can forcibly promote against the bare king with the help of its own king.Rules
To play Fighting Chess, the regular rules of chess apply with the above alterations regarding piece movement. The following rules also apply: 1) The king is no longer inviolate. This means the king may now be captured if it is left vulnerable. 2) A player may now pass on a turn leaving the position intact, and so the opponent may then take another turn. This rule gets rid of zugzwang. This rule, in addition to the king no longer being inviolate gets rid of stalemate. If both players pass on two consecutive turns, the game shall be ruled a draw. 3) It is now legal to castle while in check, across a check, or even into check (but it isn't advised to castle into check because the opponent may capture the king). 4) The object of the game is to capture the opposing king.Notes
The inviolate king in chess immediately creates a game objective crisis. The object of the game is not to capture the opposing king. Why is this? It is because the king is inviolate! How can an omnipotent king be captured? What do the rule makers do to get around this problem? They invent the rule that the object of the game is checkmate, which can occur in so many ways that it can be difficult for a beginner to even comprehend when this has occured. So, Fighting Chess has improved upon this by making the game objective clear: to capture the opposing king. Additionally, a checkmate ends the game (and a checkmate in Fighting Chess is a real threat to capture the opposing king because it is not inviolate). The castling stipulations was removed as they only conflict with the goal of orderly game flow. This game variant was invented by Tony Berard.
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.
Author: Jeff Gibson. Inventor: Tony Berard.
Last revised by Jeff Gibson.
Web page created: 2021-01-27. Web page last updated: 2021-01-27