There should be three colors for chess pieces: white, black, and gray.
Just as at present, only white could move the white pieces, and only black could move the black pieces.
But either player could move a gray piece. White could capture either a black piece or a gray piece with either a white piece or a gray piece, and similarly for black.
A gray piece could give check to either the white king or black king. But you cannot put your own king in check with a gray piece, else your opponent could capture your king on the next move.
Gray kings should not exist, and probably not gray pawns, either, since they would move differently depending on which player was moving them. But white should be able to promote a white pawn to either a white or gray queen, rook, bishop, or knight, and similarly for black. That might be a nifty way to avoid stalemating the opponent – promote to a gray piece so he’ll have a move.
I’m not sure how many gray pieces there should be at the outset, nor what the initial setup of all the pieces should be. Work on it!
One obvious problem is that moving a grey piece could be met by simply reversing the move, thus making it basically impossible to make these pieces useful.
Checkmates and captures can’t be reversed, and the pure reversal won’t always be the best move. My guess is that the “good reversal” would be rare, but if my guess is wrong, one could borrow the ko rule from go and apply it to grey pieces only.
Start from initial position, all four knights are grey. “In the night, all knights are grey.”
If " …all knights are grey." My advice to beginning players would be especially germane here, Black or White…Take the knight! Knights are so treacherous and confusing for most of the beginners I have taught so I suggest they vanish as soon as possible.
Also I noticed that a lot of strong players tend to shift “Fischer random” positions to something similar to a standard position in a chess game during play. Some chess variants do promote creativity and this may be one. I’ll be on the lookout for it, after all the rules are firmly established.
Note that (almost) any check from a gray piece can be negated by moving that piece.
That is not absolute because, for example, if the gray piece is a bishop that did a capture and is between the king and the opposing queen then moving it would either allow a discovered queen check or would still be giving check after capturing the queen.
No, no, a thousand times no! Allowing a move to be reversed adds a lot of interesting draw-by-repetition themes, as several posters have pointed out.
Yes, but only to the opponent’s king, not to one’s own. (Does “one’s” have an apostrophe? I googled this question and found a raging debate.) Otherwise, the opponent would take ones [sic?] [wel?] king on the next move.
I don’t get it. Maybe you’ve thought of some rules quirk that I hadn’t noticed. (Please spell it out, if you have!)
Qa1-g7 is illegal, because white is putting himself in check (as well as his opponent). And even if it were legal, it wouldn’t be checkmate, because black could just move the queen away.
The black pawn prevents Qa1-a8, but that wouldn’t be mate anyway, because black could just move the queen away.
I don’t see how black can make use of his extra pawn. Even if black hangs the queen by moving it (eventually) to b6, white can just move it away.
So, this looks like a simple draw to me. What am I missing?
Qh8+ essentially forces a quick draw. If black moves the queen away then white simply returns it. If black takes the queen then white catches the pawn.
Thus white simplifies the position.
That said, QxP is an even quicker draw because there is not even a legal help-mate with two kings and a gray queen.
A white pawn on a7 with white to move is more fun. Promoting to a white queen (or rook) would result in the immediate QxQ or QxR draw. Promoting to a gray queen would show that two kings plus any number of gray queens is still a draw (true of any situation where all of the non-king pieces are gray and there are no pawns). Promoting to a bishop or knight would still give the possibility of a helpmate (with the kings not moving you can reach Bc8 (or Nc8), Qa8 where Be6 (or Ne7) double-check is mate.
@jwiewel
(Grey)QxQ violates: “But you cannot put your own king in check with a gray piece, else your opponent could capture your king on the next move.”
Any grey piece move that creates an advantage can be reversed, and then remade. Every non-capturing grey piece move becomes a draw offer. Chess isn’t in need of more ways to draw the game.
I’ll bring this up with some of the denizens at chessvariants.com. They’ve seen hundreds of variants. I wonder if anything like this has been proposed in the past, and if so, has anyone played it?
I would have said that was this variant’s best feature, it invalidates most opening theory and probably most middlegame theory and quite a bit of endgame theory, which takes it far beyond Chess960.
To be fair, there should also be blue pieces to counteract the effect of the gray pieces. With enough extra pieces you can gridlock the game, allowing more stalemate chances at the whim of the players.
), triple repetition.