No Castle
This is a shuffle variant of normal Chess, which in general destroys the possibility to castle, as the King and Rooks are also shuffled. For uniformity, castling is therefore always forbidden.
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Initial setupThere is no fixed setup; the back-rank pieces are randomly shuffled with certain restrictions. Black's setup is the mirror image of white's, though. Both sides have: 1 King The Bishops will start on opposite colors. |
Moves at a Glance
Click on a piece below to see its moves
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Sliding capture or non-capture, can be blocked on any square along the ray |
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Unblockable leap (capture or non-capture) | ||||||||||
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Non-capture only | ||||||||||
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Capture only | ||||||||||
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Piece | ID | value | Moves (Betza notation) | Remarks |
King | K | - | K | Can castle with Rook, moving 2 steps towards it |
Queen | Q | 9.5 | RB or Q | |
Rook | R | 5 | R | |
Bishop | B | 3.25 | B | Color-bound |
Knight | N | 3.25 | N | |
Pawn | P | 1 | mfWcfF | Promotes to Q, R, B, or N on reaching last rank |
Pawn peculiarities
- Pawns capture differently from how they move (straight move, diagonal capture).
- Pawns can move two squares straight ahead from their initial position, provided they are not blocked.
- On the move immediately after such a double push, they can be captured en passant by another Pawn, as if they had only moved 1 square ahead.
- Pawns promote to another (non-royal) piece of choice when they reach last rank.
General rules
- It is not allowed to expose your King to check.
- The game is won by checkmating the opponent's King.
- Stalemate (no legal moves, but not in check) is a draw.
Differences with FIDE
The Back-rank pieces are randomly shuffled on the back rank in the opening setup. There is no castling.
Strategy issues
It is not possible to force checkmate on a bare King with just a single Bishop or Knight (in addition to your own King). Two Knights cannot do that either.
Bishops are confined to squares of a single color. Having Bishops on both colors compensates this weakness, and is worth an extra 0.5 on top of their added value.