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Torus Chess (The Shape of Space)

This variant of chess on a torus was proposed by Jeffrey R. Weeks in his book "The Shape of Space" as a tool for teaching the geometry of a torus. It can be played as one of the Torus Games on his website. It is one of several variants that make use of the torus-shaped board:

Setup

Pieces

Pawn (omnipawn / steward)
Instead of an ordinary pawn, the omnipawn moves one square orthogonally to an empty square or captures the enemy piece one square diagonally. It cannot be promoted to any other piece. mWcF in Betza notation.
Knight
As in standard chess.
Bishop
As in standard chess.
Rook
As in standard chess.
Queen
As in standard chess.
King
As in standard chess, except that there is no castling.

Rules

The main difference from standard chess is the fact that the board is wrapped on a torus, i.e., the left side is glued to the right side, and the top is glued to the bottom. This means that any rank, file or diagonal wraps around the board, so that it spans a full circle of 8 squares length. Most of the pieces move as in standard chess, with the only exception of the pawn, which moves differently and does not promote, and the absence of a castling rule.

As a consequence of the different board geometry, also the initial setup of the pieces is changed: with the standard setup both kings would be in check, since the top and bottom are glued to each other. In the proposed setup, the only pieces which immediately threaten any enemy pieces are the bishops and queens, and they threaten only the two pawns.

Notes

There also exists an implementation for Zillions of Games.


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Author: Manuel Hohmann. Inventor: Jeff Weeks.

Last revised by Manuel Hohmann.


Web page created: 2024-03-02. Web page last updated: 2024-03-04

Revisions of MStorus-chess-(the-shape-of-space)