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This page is written by the game's inventor, Köksal Karakus.

Torus Chess

Torus Chess is the version of my Besiege Chess, played on a torus shaped board. The lower and upper edges (painted in red) are glued together; so are the left and right edges (painted in blue). So if you come to one edge with ,say, your bishop, you can continue your path in the other edge. The opening setup with the pawns' directions is as seen below.

Torus Chess opening setup and the direction of the pawns

All of the pieces play as their counterparts in orthodox chess except a small difference for the pawns. Here, since the board is rotated 90 degrees pawn movement changed respectively. So, the inner pawns move inwards, outer pawns move outwards, all pawns capture diagonally in the direction of their movement, can promote when they arrive to the column that the opponent pieces start the game. A Pawn captures by moving one square leftwards (or rightwards) and diagonally. If a Pawn reaches the far column that the opponent's pieces start from, it promotes, changing into a Knight, Bishop, Rook, Queen or a General.

The additional piece, General, can move as a queen or a knight.

There is en passant but no castling, and the aim is to mate the opponent.

Since there is practically no edges at the board, it is really hard to checkmate the opponent king. Don't forget the bishops, queens and the generals have unusual covering of the board squares.


Written by: Köksal Karakus.


WWWW page created: June 8, 2001.