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This page is written by the game's inventor, Florin Lupusoru.

Black Swan

Black Swans are unpredictable events that bring devastating outcomes. This game aims to mix logic with unpredictability. There have been may unsuccessful attempts to randomize the chess board, the most famous being Fisher Random Chess. However, a game called Arimaa was somewhat more successful at mixing the logic of chess with randomness, but not even this game managed to solve the problem. 

Setup

All pieces, except for the Kings, are replaced by checker pieces also called White Swans.

The setup looks like this:

Pieces

White Swans move and behave like Pawns, but they cannot be captured on their starting position. White Swans have their identities hidden from both players. 

Each player has a set of 20 White Swans, but only 15 of them are on the board, selected and placed in a random fashion. 

Each set of pieces has the following composition:

1) Regular pieces

2) Black Swans

Occurence:

Composition of Black Swans:

For each of the above cases pieces are selected in a random fashion according to the probability of each case. 

Rules

There is no castling. 

White Swans move and behave like Pawns, but cannot be captured on their starting position. White Swans will have to move at least one square before being fliped over and replaced by their "hidden power". Flipping over a White Swan after its first move is compulsory. 

A White Swan coming from the first rank can be flipped over on the second rank, provided there is an empty square to land on. In that case, any White Swan landing on the second rank can be subject to capturing, but only after being flipped over and replaced by the corresponding pieces. 

If an enemy piece lands on a square on the second rank, the White Swans from the first rank can capture that piece by a Pawn like move. If this happens, the White Swan will also have to be flipped over and replaced by the piece/pieces they represent, counting as a single move.  

If a Wite Swan turns out to be a Black Swan that will bring more that one piece on the board, one piece will remain in the position of the moved White Swan, and the other piece/pieces will be placed on nearby empty squares in their own half of the board. 

The owner of a White Swan will have to decide the placement of all the pieces on the board resulting from a Black Swan event. 

If a Pawn reaches the promotion line it can be promoted to any of the following:

If a Pawn promotes to more than one piece, one piece will replace the Pawn, while the remaining will be placed on nearby empty squares. 

If a Pawn promotes to 2 or 3 random pieces, the set of pieces has to correspond to Case 2 and Case 4 described above. 

Since White Swans are flipped over one by one, there is not the risk that the board might be jammed, considering that the occurence of Black Swans (events) is only 4 out of 20. But if that happens, the player is allowed to place the extra pieces anywhere on its half of the board on empty squares. 

If a White Swan turns out to be a Black Swan  it will be replaced straight away by the corresponding pieces, counting as a single move. 

A Black Swan (event) can no longer move and behave like a Pawn, but will be replaced by the corresponding pieces. 

Any White Swan can move two squares on the first move provided it is possible. 

Notes

Players might decide the occurence of Black Swans by increassing/decreassing the number of regular pieces. 

If a White Swan coming from the first rank gets flipped over on the second rank, it can be subject to capturing.  


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By Florin Lupusoru.

Last revised by Florin Lupusoru.


Web page created: 2024-01-01. Web page last updated: 2024-02-16

Revisions of MSblackswan