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Date: 09 Apr 2008 11:12:30
From: Quadibloc
Subject: Avoiding the Upside-Down Rook: Someone Else Must Have Already
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One of the older rules still used in some informal Chess play is that
a Pawn can only be promoted to one of your own pieces that has already
been captured.
The intent of this rule is, of course, to permit Chess to be played
neatly with one ordinary Chess set.
One of the ways chess players have coped with the practical issue is
to use an upside-down Rook to stand for a Queen.
To reward players for capturing instead of having their pieces
captured, with some inspiration from Shogi, one could modify the
promotion rules of Chess by changing its equipment...
Two sets of eight white or clear chess men, but no pawns.
One set of sixteen white disks (like checkers, but no crown on one
side) and one set of sixteen black disks.
A disk without a piece on top of it is a pawn; the player a piece
belongs to is determined by the piece it sits on.
Thus, one can promote a Pawn to one of the opponent's pieces that one
has captured.
I suspect this variant of Chess must have been suggested long ago by
someone.
But thinking of it gives me another idea - instead of sixteen white,
and sixteen black, disks, one could use directable pieces - blank
wedges shaped like Shogi pieces.
Then, in addition to promoting a Pawn to a captured piece, one could
also get Pawn drops (say, to one's own back rank only) out of this.
John Savard
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Date: 10 Apr 2008 05:18:16
From: Quadibloc
Subject: Re: Avoiding the Upside-Down Rook: Someone Else Must Have Already
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On Apr 9, 1:14 pm, Quadibloc <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Apr 9, 12:12 pm, Quadibloc <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > But thinking of it gives me another idea - instead of sixteen white,
> > and sixteen black, disks, one could use directable pieces - blank
> > wedges shaped like Shogi pieces.
>
> Or, if one doesn't have a Shogi set handy to raid, one could use disks
> that are white on one side and black on the other, from, say, a
> Reversi set.
A modification of Chess, not precisely like the one I described, but
rather one permitting captured pieces to be dropped just as in Shogi
(instead of my halfway idea of only letting Pawns be dropped, and only
on the back rank, and using captured pieces to promote Pawns to) was
made, and sold commercially, as "Neo-C" by 3M, the same people who
gave us Ploy (not to mention Scotch Tape and Post-It Notes).
D. B. Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants led me to its entry
as I followed the entries back from the name I vaguely remembered,
Chessgi, to Mad Mate, and finally to the *second* variant bearing the
name Neo-C.
John Savard
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Date: 09 Apr 2008 11:14:52
From: Quadibloc
Subject: Re: Avoiding the Upside-Down Rook: Someone Else Must Have Already
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On Apr 9, 12:12=A0pm, Quadibloc <[email protected] > wrote:
> But thinking of it gives me another idea - instead of sixteen white,
> and sixteen black, disks, one could use directable pieces - blank
> wedges shaped like Shogi pieces.
Or, if one doesn't have a Shogi set handy to raid, one could use disks
that are white on one side and black on the other, from, say, a
Reversi set.
John Savard
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