Move-neutral chess

All Things Chess
1

I think it’s about time for me to propose yet another of my wacko variations, Move-Neutral Chess.

In normal chess, the player with the white pieces has a one-move (or would that be a half-move?) advantage. In Move-Neutral Chess there is no such advantage.

At each move, each player will choose a move, write it on a hidden piece of paper and hand it to the monitor (or submit it to an engine designed to monitor move-neutral chess). When the monitor (or the software) has the moves from both players, he/she/it will play both moves on the chessboard (or on the computer screen), even if one or both submitted moves now appear to be illegal based on the “new” position.

Each move submitted by each player must be “ostensibly legal”, i.e. it must be a legal move in the present position, ignoring the possibility that the opponent’s move might make the player’s proposed move illegal.

The “ostensibly legal” moves submitted by each player, having now been transferred to the actual board (or screen), shall stand, even if one or both moves appear to be illegal or silly based on the new position.

Examples:

  • White plays Ke1-e2 and black plays Nc6-d4. White is now in check but his king move stands anyway.
  • A white piece and a black piece try to capture each other: White plays Bc1xQg5 and black plays Qg5xBc1. Both pieces remain on the board on their new squares, white’s bishop at g5 and black’s queen at c1, essentially trading places.
  • One player attempts a capture but the target piece gets away: White attempts Bg5xNf6 but black plays Nf6-Ne4. The bishop ends up at f6 (having “captured” an empty square) and the knight ends up at e4.
  • An attempted pawn capture turns out not to be a capture: White attempts Pe4xPd5 but black plays Pd5-Pd4. Both pawns survive, white’s at d5 and black’s at d4, even though white’s move turns out not to be a capture.
  • Both players move to the same square: White moves Qd3-f5 and black moves Pf7-f5. In this case both pieces end up sharing the f5 square, until one or both move away on a subsequent move. Neither is captured.
  • The kings end up on adjacent squares: White plays Ke3-e4 while black plays Ke6-e5. Both king moves stand, and both kings are in check.

If two pieces (one of each color) end up on the same square, neither may be captured until one of them moves away. This is because there would now be two pieces of the same color on the same square.

On each move, if one or both kings are in check, the player(s) in check must make an “ostensibly legal” move (as defined above) to get out of check, and the opponent(s) are not allowed to “ostensibly capture” the king.

If a player has no “ostensibly legal” moves, the game is over – checkmate if in check, stalemate if not. If both players are checkmated, the game is drawn.

Would anybody (Jeff Wiewel and Bill Brock come to mind) like to try this variant? I’ll act as monitor, you will both need to PM me with each ostensibly legal move, which I will post when I have received both moves.

Play Move-Neutral Chess !!

Bill Smythe

2

(emerging from work)

What if two kings are on the same square?

3

So both kings must move. Is there draw by repetition of superposition?

4

Never fear! Smythe is here! I like your proposal young man :smiling_imp:

5

Can’t happen. If, for example, we have white Ke3 and black Kc5, neither player can play Kd4 because both would be putting themselves in check.

Bill Smythe

6

Not sure what you mean by “superposition”. Indeed, both kings must move. White could play Ke4-e3 and black could play Ke5-e6, creating a “normal” repetition of position. Or instead, for example, white could play Ke4-d3 and/or black could play Ke5-f6, in which case(s) there would be no repetition.

I suppose a 3-fold occurrence of a position could be claimed as a draw by either player once it actually occurs. No need to worry about whether it was the same player’s move each time, because it will automatically have always been both players’ move all three times.

The version of a 3-fold occurrence claim based on the claimant’s intended (and announced) next move could not very well be allowed in Move-Neutral Chess, because the claimant’s opponent’s move would not yet be known to the claimant, but would have to be known by the monitor (or software) in order for a ruling to be possible. The would-be claimant would have to simply wait for both players’ moves to be announced (displayed), in the hope that he could then make a claim as in the preceding paragraph.

Bill Smythe

7

As a general observation, a king can never share a square. To do so both the king and the opposing piece would have to move to the same square but that would only be possible if the king was trying to move into check (which is against the rules).
That is good because otherwise a queen and opposing king could be on the same square, both untouchable until one moves off, and the side with the queen bringing up pieces to mate the frozen king (any king move would be into check from the queen and the queen can’t be taken as long as it is sharing a square with the king).

I see a significant problem being that an active queen is unstoppable and will proceed to simply take anything it can reach. Any attempt to capture it will fail as long as it keeps moving, so it is essentially invulnerable.
You may see a game going:

  1. e4/e5, 2) Qh5/Qh4, 3) Qxe5+/Qxe4+, 4) Qxe4/Qxe5, 5) Qxe5/Qxe4, 6) Qxe4/Qxe5, 7) Qxe5/Qxe4 draw by repetition.
    One possible fix would be that pieces capturing each other results in the loss of both, but there is a big problem:
  2. d4/e6, 2) e4/Nf6, 3)Bg5/Nxe4 and now with mutual kills the queen would be dead even though there are two ways to capture the bishop and three ways to block the attack. Even if the attacking piece was only able to move as far as an interposing piece went then that only slows down the queen’s death.

I see this as essentially being a guessing game won by making ridiculous moves than your opponent did not try to counter in advance.

Take a look at what happens if one side does not start with an aggressive queen frenzy:

  1. e4/e5, 2)Nf3/Qh4, 3) Nc3/Qxf2+, 4) Kxf2/Qxf1+, 5) Qxf1/Qxh1, 6) Qxh1/Qxg2+, 7) Qxg2/Qxf3+, 8 ) Qxf3/Qe2+, 9) Qxe2/Qxd2+, 10) Qxd2/Qxc1
    Black still has all its pieces while white has lost a Rook, Knight, 2 Bishops and 3 Pawns.
8

So you cooked my invention? Boo hoo.

Bill Smythe

9

Not quite true. For example, white could play Pe2-e4 and black could play Ke5-e4.

That logic doesn’t work if the opposing piece is a pawn. That’s true because the pawn is the only piece whose moves are not reversible.

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

No, no, no, that would be contrary to the whole spirit of the game.

Oh, I see, you mean Bg5xQd8 and Qd8xBg5. But we don’t have mutual kills, without the rule change you suggest and I don’t care for.

Again, not in line with the spirit of the game.

It would be a little like fencing, wouldn’t it? But that’s OK. You try to capture your opponent’s pieces where you think they’re going to be, rather than where they are now.

Bill Smythe

10

Yes, this is all very amusing. Reminds me of the adage that if a dog is chasing a cat, and the cat is chasing a mouse, the dog’s best strategy is to go where the mouse is, not where the cat is.

Still, why shouldn’t both players “start with an aggressive queen frenzy”? I suspect that, once players ever get good at this game, that’s what will happen most of the time.

Bill Smythe

11

If both players start with an aggressive queen frenzy you have the aforementioned 1) e4/e5, 2) Qh5/Qh4, 3) Qxe5+/Qxe4+, 4) Qxe4/Qxe5, 5) Qxe5/Qxe4, 6) Qxe4/Qxe5, 7) Qxe5/Qxe4 draw by repetition. …
Note that 3) Qxe5+/Qxf7+ drops the white queen because white cannot get out of check with a queen move that would leave it invulnerable and the black queen is not attacked. 1) e3/e6 would eliminate the e4/e5 captures but would substitute them with f2/f7 captures: 1) e3/e6, 2) Qh4/Qh5, 3) Qxf7+/Qxf2+, 4) Qxf2/Qxf7, 5) Qxf7+/Qxf2+, 6) Qxf2/Qxf7, 7) Qxf7+/Qxf2+

I don’t see this being anything other than mutual queen frenzies, one queen frenzies that still do not result in a mate because a queen can’t do it by itself, the occasional loss of a queen because of clueless play, resulting in the other side finally winning. Kind of like tic-tac-toe where players that know how to play always draw, which is why it is generally only new players that play tic-tac-toe.

12

Your Qxe5/Qxe4 scenario would be abandoned by both players as soon as they figure out that the opponent’s queen will almost certainly not be there to be captured. The next learning step might be to guess where the opponent’s queen will move next, and try to capture it there, but that won’t work either, because even if the guess is correct you’d just end up with both queens on that square.

I have a hunch there could be some subtleties in this game somewhere.

Bill Smythe

13

If the mutual queen capture is abandoned by one player and not the other then the player that abandoned it loses his queen and likely the game.

14

Not true, if the player who wants to abandon the mutual capture simply moves his queen somewhere else.

In fact, any piece that moves becomes invulnerable for that move, doesn’t it?

Let’s say white plays Qxf7 in the opening, in a situation where the black K has no other escape squares, and black has no other pieces defending f7. Black would then be obligated to play “Kxf7” (actually just Kf7), so if white moves his Q again on the next move, he has successfully drawn black’s K to a square from which it could be vulnerable to attacks from other pieces.

Bill Smythe

15

In the 6) Qxe4+/Qxe5+, 7) Qxe5+/Qxe4+ scenario, any other queen move on move six would be illegal and any other queen move on move seven would have to be on the same file and closer to the king with the queens eventually bouncing between either e2/e3 or e6/e7. The only ways one player can get out of the mutual queen capture cycle is for the other to forgo an otherwise winning queen capture.
In the 6) Qxf2/Qxf7, 7) Qxf7+/Qxf2+ scenario the only legal move six moves are the queen capture and the king moving to the d file, and one player skipping the move seven capture simply gives the other player a queen frenzy that chews up material.
Whatever happens, moving the queen to check the opponent’s king essentially assures at least a draw as long as you don’t do something very stupid (such as 1) e4/e5, 2) Qh5/Qh4, 3) Qxf2+???/Qxe4+, 4) Be2/Kxf2). Depending on very stupid moves to get a decisive result makes the variant similar to tic-tac-toe.

16

One side could be castling against the other’s Steinitzian king: 15.Kg6-g7 & 15…O-O. Note that Black has no legal moves. And if the previous moves had been 14.Kg5-g6 & 14…Ra8-a6+, neither does White.

17

Or in this position:

where Rb8#/Rb1# would be, I guess, either a draw, a double win or a double loss.

18

OK, except that (a) this is not a case where the two kings are on the same square (that’s still impossible), and (b) there are simpler ways for the kings to be on adjacent squares, e.g. Ke3-e4 and Ke6-e5.

Bill Smythe

19

Yeah, I guess so.

Bill Smythe