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Queens Left Chess

The variant of chess, which I titled Queens Left Chess is something one can see sometimes accidentally played by beginning players, but I never saw it described before. The idea is so simple that I wonder whether this has been written down earlier. In any case, I do consider this as a variant of chess; in particilar, standard chess opening theory does not apply (what would a queens gambit be here?)

In some cultures, it is polite to have a lady at the left side of a man; in other cultures, it is polite when the lady is at the right side of the man. Chess is a battle between those cultures, but Queens Left Chess is not.

Rules

All the rules of standard chess apply, except that the black queen and king reverse positions at the opening setup. So, black has a king at d8, and a queen at e8.

Castling of black is as one can expect: the king moves two squares (to b8 or f8), and the rook moves across it to the next square(to c8 or e8, respectively.

Questions

I've been wondering for a long time about the following questions:


Written by Hans Bodlaender.
WWW page created: June 4, 2003.