Friday, March 16, 2012

[bqamwvqp] Chess with friendly fire

Consider a chess variant in which it is legal to capture your own pieces or pawns. In general, such moves will probably be rare. The goal is to make chess more realistic: smothered mate would never actually occur on the battlefield. One would sacrifice own soldiers to avoid defeat, as grisly as it may be.

Is Rxa2 a viable opening move?

Checkmate probably becomes way more difficult, and endgames lose their special flavor. Crazyhouse rules might help compensate for the difficulty: not only are you losing material, but you are providing your opponent with more. Another might be to introduce more obstacles on the board to trap a king.

Another different crazyhouse-based variant based on more realism.

Multiple occupancy on one square is another possibility.

More possibilities: King is the only piece that can capture friendly pieces.  King is the only piece that cannot capture friendly pieces.  Pieces can commit suicide.  Only if guarded by a friendly king.  Or guarded by any friendly piece.

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