King to Bunker Leap

This is a rules file for Zillions of Games, a Windows program that will let you play any puzzle or strategy board game you can feed it the rules to. With Zillions-of-Games installed, this rules file will let you play this game against your computer.

King to Bunker Leap is a new "king safety" rule devised to make the remaining 1920 (2880 -960) possible start positions more appealing to chess players.

This new rule can be applied to both Shuffle chess and to the very interesting Pre-chess - a game in which each side sets up their own pieces in the back rank.
Basically it boils down to this: During the course of play, either side can move the king from the original square to the b or g file jumping over any friendly pieces if necessary. This move can be carried out only once, takes a turn and is subject to similar restriction as in castling. The only difference is that the rook is not involved and the king can actually jump.	



There are at least two game systems that can be used with these new rules

   1. Shuffle Chess (Symmetrical ) - Like Fischer Random the start position is determined randomly, but unlike FRC, the king does not have to be between two rooks.
   2. Pre-chess (symmetrical/asymmetrical depending on players). Here each side beginning with white alternately setup each of their pieces one at a time on the back rank. The bishops must be set on opposite color, and there are no restrictions on king and rooks.

The two bunker positions for the king are on the b and g files. The king to bunker rule is best used in conjunction with modified Fischer Random Castling rules i.e. either side can either use the king to bunker leap or castle.

The mechanism for castling is similar to FRC with the exception that there is no long/short castling; a-side castling results in king on b file and rook on c file; h-side castling is same as in FRC king on g file rook on f file.

Castling is permitted for following start positions:
Any start position where king is between rooks. In positions where both rooks are to the left or right of king, castling is permitted only with the rook further away from it. (The rook in between must be moved.)
Instead of castling, a side can carry out the King to Bunker Leap, which is a move where the king moves from its original start position to the b or g file.

The restrictions for castling or king to bunker leap are similar:

   1. King must be unmoved for it to bunker leap. For castling, the corresponding rook must also be unmoved.
   2. Cannot castle or bunker leap out of check.
   3. King cannot pass over or land on attacked squares.
   4. For castling there must be a clear path between the king and castling rook (as in FRC). For king to bunker leap, there must not be any enemy pieces in between. It can jump over its own pieces.

Download Instructions

Instructions on downloading this Zillions file:

• Download the .zip file
• Extract the contents of the .zip file to your Zillions of Games folder
• Be sure you have the "Use folder names" checkbox checked when you extract the files.