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This page is written by the game's inventor, João Neto.

Balanced Swap Chess

Joao Pedro Neto send the rules of this variant in the summer of 1998. He wrote:
This is an evolution of swap chess. I think this is a fair and nice game for those who like marsellais 2-move feature. It's very dynamic and even if you think a piece is in a stronghold position, you're wrong!

Rules

  1. All FIDE rules apply except in the following:
  2. Each move is made of a regular FIDE move and a swap move (see 3.) This is valid even if the regular move is a check. In the first move of white, only the regular move is done.
  3. A swap move is a two piece swap of positions. One piece is a player's piece, and the other is on a square where the 1st piece could move (if the square was empty) or take (if the square had an opponent piece).
  4. If a player cannot make the regular move or the swap, s/he looses!
  5. A white (black) pawn in the 1st (8th) row can move 2 squares forward.
  6. If due to the swap move, a pawn reaches the promotion rank, it is always the player who made the swap that decides the promotion.
  7. A check must be released in the regular move.

Sample Games

White: Joao Neto
Black: Bill Taylor

 1. d4             2. Nc6   f8/g7     3. Nf3  f1/g2     4. B:d4  d4/a7 
 5. N:d4  d4/e2    6. f6    d8/d7     7. B:c6 a1/a2     8. Q:c6  c6/h1 
 9. R:c7  c7/c2   10. d8:c7 h1/h2    11. R:a7 a7/a1    12. Q:h1  h8/h7 
13. Bf4   e2/d4   14. Bh3   h7/e7    15. Kd2  b1/d2    16. Q:f1  f1/f2 
17. Nb5   d1/d2   18. Q:f1  e8/f8    19. Be3  e2/e3    20. Q:e2  e2/b5 
21. resigns  0-1 

Final Position 

   r . . . p k n p 
   O p p . r . . p 
   . . . . . p . . 
   . q . . . . . . 
   . . . . . . . . 
   . . . . O . . b 
   . O R Q N . . . 
   R K . N . . . . 


White: Joao Neto (The Amazon Army)
Black: Ralph Betza (The Fabulous FIDES)

      p p b n k . b p 
      r p p O q . p r 
      . . . . . . . . 
      . . . . . . . . 
      Q . . . p . . . 
      . . . . . . . . 
      . B O . O O B 4 
      4 N O . K O N O 

    -------------------- 
    R4 N B QN K B N R4 
    -------------------- 

    1.   (QN)d1-c3 
    1... e7-e5,      Nb8/d7 
    2.   d2-d3,      Bf1/g2 
    2... f7-f6,      Ra8/a7 
    3.   Ng1-h3,     Bc1/b2 
    3... Bf8-e7,     Ng8/e7 
    4.   (QN)c3:e5,  (QN)e5/d3 
    4... f6:e5,      Qd8/e7 
    5.   a2-a4,      (R4)h1/h2 
    5... e5-e4,      Rh8/h7 
    6.   (QN)d3:d7,  (QN)d7/a4+ 
    6... Resigns 

Note: the amazon queen QN, is too strong piece for this particular CV


Written by Joao Pedro Neto; edited by Hans Bodlaender.
WWW page created: June 23, 1998.