Move or Capture

All Things Chess
1

I propose a new variant: Move or Capture chess.

In regular chess, a pawn moves straight forward when it’s not capturing, diagonally when it is capturing.

Let’s have all the other pieces (except the king) follow similar rules:

The rook moves like a rook but captures like a bishop.
The bishop moves like a bishop but captures like a rook.
The queen moves like a queen but captures like a knight.
The knight moves like a knight but captures like a queen.
Pawn: unchanged.
King: unchanged.

Would Bill Brock and Jeff Wiewel care to play each other in this thread while the rest of us follow along and laugh?

Bill Smythe

2

How about the simpler variant? Move pawns diagonally, but capture straight ahead. Question: Isn’t 1 e4 still playable?

3

It’s ambiguous!

4

Does that mean c2-e4 or g2-e4? Or does it also include e2-d3-e4 and e2-f3-e4?

Bill Smythe

5

I think so. :laughing:

6

In the version I originally proposed, I got to thinking about strong and weak pawns on their original squares.

In regular chess, the f-pawn is the most weakly defended (only by the king). In the variant, it is the most strongly defended (by knight, bishop, king, and queen). So much for the Scholar’s Mate. :slight_smile:

I guess the most weakly defended would be the a- and h-pawns, which are defended only by the knight.

A fianchetto is probably a bad idea, since the pawn would block the bishop on its new square.

And you’d have to watch out for opening traps, like 1.Nc3 g6 2.Nc3xh8 :exclamation:

Bill Smythe

7

Bill, what was the variant you showed me years ago back in Evanston in which there was, if I remember correctly, an ‘immobilizer’, a ‘withdrawer’ and a ‘long leaper’? I seem to recall there was also a piece that could take on the characteristics of more than one other piece at the same time.

8

We called that Ultimo or something like that. There was a chameleon and as I recall the rooms were “pinchers”, capturing the piece at the intersection of room and king.

9

That was called “Ultimum” or “Ultima”.

The king was still called the king. The queen, bishop, knight, and pawn were called the “withdrawer”, the “chameleon”, the “long leaper”, and the “squeezer” respectively. One rook was turned upside down and called the “immobilizer”. The other remained rightside up and was called the “coordinator”.

The king moved like a king. The squeezers moved like rooks. All the other pieces moved like queens.

But the pieces had different methods of capturing. Only the king captured by landing on the piece to be captured.

The withdrawer captured by getting to the square adjacent (orthogonally or diagonally) to the piece to be captured, then withdrawing by moving any number of squares in the exact opposite direction.

The long leaper captured a piece by jumping over it. It could land on any square beyond the piece being captured.

The coordinator formed a rectangle with its own king, and captured any enemy piece(s) on the other two corners of the rectangle. For example, if there was a king on c3 and a coordinator moved to f7, it would thereby capture any enemy pieces on c7 and/or f3.

The squeezer captured by moving to a square adjacent (horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally) to an enemy piece, when there was already another friendly piece (squeezer or other) on the other side.

The immobilizer would not capture, but would immobilize any enemy piece on any adjacent (orthogonally or diagonally) square. The opponent would have to capture the immobilizer, or it would have to move away, in order to free the immobilized piece(s).

The chameleon captured as the captured piece would capture. It would land on the king, leap over the leaper, coordinate the coordinator, squeeze the squeezer, withdraw from the withdrawer, and immobilize the immobilizer.

I think one chameleon would immobilize the other, too.

I DID NOT MAKE THAT ONE UP.

Bill Smythe

10

http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/ultima.html

Bill Smythe

11

OK, forget about Ultima. Back to Move or Capture.

Which is the stronger piece, the queen or the knight?

And which is stronger, the rook or the bishop?

It seems to me that, in regular chess, the strength of the pawn derives from how it captures more than from how it moves. By this token, in Move or Capture the knight might be stronger than the queen, and the bishop stronger than the rook.

Discuss.

Bill Smythe

12

I would rank the knight as (by far) the most powerful piece in this variant, followed by the bishop. The rook and queen are probably ‘minor’ pieces by comparison, and I might even be tempted to rank the rook as worth slightly more than the queen.

A major part of the value of a pawn is its ability to become a queen. Otherwise, endgames would be dull.

13

I tend to agree, particularly for bishop vs rook. The bishop and rook can both move a long way, so superior capture ability might make the bishop better. That might be slightly less clear for queen vs knight, where the queen can get into position to capture more readily but has to be closer to do it. I think that still favors the knight.

There can be little doubt that knights are much more valuable than bishops!

14

I’m still trying to figure out how to play regular chess! :confused:

15

Variants are for those who have abandoned that quest.