Has anyone ever heard of a chess variant where the rooks and bishops switch places for the initial setup. In my opinion, these pieces are better placed on these squares anyway. Castling is the same except of course the rook doesn’t move. All other rules remain the same. I just thought of it last night and I wondered if I had an original idea or not. The idea is that it changes the game minimally, while at the same time it create new opening positions. The purpose of this chess variant is the same as others, to get people out of the book. Of course, it would be relatively easy for people to prepare a book on the new opening positions but I would suspect that would take many years and I believe some people rather enjoy such opening analyses. I’ve always believed that any chess variant should not take away the features that people enjoy.
Other than the corresponding position in fischer random chess I hadn’t heard of this idea. One drawback is that it limits the initial scope of the bishops. One plus is that castling could occur on move two!
Other than the corresponding position in fischer random chess I hadn’t heard of this idea. One drawback is that it limits the initial scope of the bishops. One plus is that castling could occur on move two!
Actually, the bishops are fianchettoed and so they have greater scope when the knight pawns are moved. Therefore, play might proceed in a fashion that is very similar to double fianchetto openings. In fact, transpositions are possible. However, there are differences as a result of the undefended h pawns. For example, 1.f4?! e5! 2.fxe? Qh4+ 3. g3 Qxh2. 1.e4 d5! 2. exd Qxd5 3.Nc3? Qe5+ and Qxh2. This tends to makes the soundness of opening the position very dependent upon the rook pawn vulnerabilities. For example, in the last example even if white plays 3.Nf3? Qxa2 (after 3.Qg4(threatening the rook) Nd7 both White rook pawns are still threatened and so White has to play 4.b3). Therefore, 3.b3 might be the best move as it prevents Qe5+ and protects the a2 pawn. In the final position, the bishop on a1 plays an important role in this opening. I suspect bishops would actually be more important in the early game than they are in regular chess. However, your point is valid as the standard bishop positionings on the 5th, 4th and 3rd ranks are not possible so the nature of bishop play in the early opening is changed.
I hadn’t heard of it before. Apparently, though, Wikipedia has:
The reference is also cited from this page, which in turn states that it was described in the August 1999 Chess Life in the Letters column. The prime difference is there is no castling.
I’m surprised they didn’t go with the castling idea. Otherwise, it seems like your left with your king out in the open.
Perhaps they could allow castling with your bishop. They could call it cardinalizing.
In the case of queenside cardinalizing, though, you’d end up with two bishops on the same color.
Bill Smythe
See above, you castle by simply putting your king on the normally castling square and as with regular chess you can do that as long as you are not in check, the castling rook or king hasn’t moved and the king doesn’t move into check or crosses through check.