The Weak Square of the Jumping King

Introduction

In mid-Novemeber, we received an email from Joao Pedro Neto, containing the following chess variant to be submitted for the 38-challenge contest. In Joao's words:

This is another entry to Hans 38 birthday party.

Comment: This has my vote for the most poetic title for a chess variant! :-) -D.H.

Rules

The rules of FIDE chess applies except in the following.
The board and starting position:
White
King a1 (2 Rooks, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights, 3 pawns off the board)
Black
King f8 (2 Rooks, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights, 3 pawns off the board)
Squares a1 and f8 are the weak squares! If a piece enters it, the player that owns the square (a1 for white, f8 for black) loses the game!
Each player has 1 Jumping King, 2 Rooks, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights and 3 Pawns.
Kings start at their respective weak squares. Then they start moving like the Knight, and for each step they place a piece on the square that they just leave (except for the 1st move, meaning that the weak squares become empty). They can only jump to inside their areas (rows 2,3,4 for white; 5,6,7 for black) When all pieces are placed, the jumping kings start to move like FIDE kings.
If a king in the jumping process cannot jump to a free square, it cannot continue to put pieces, and must wait until the adversary ends its jumping phase. Bishops must be placed in different color squares.
A pawn can promote if it reaches the last row (row 7 for white, 2 for black), to any piece not on the board (except pawns). This includes opponent pieces as well!
A player wins if they mate the opposing king or if they move a piece into their opponent's weak square. A player cannot enter its own weak square, because if so, he would loose.

Sample Game

Jumping Phase

    1. Kc2    Kd7
    2. Ke3<B  Kf6<B   <-- means: white K jumps to e3, leaving a Bishop in c2
    3. Kc4<R  Kd5<B
    4. Kd2<P  Kc7<p
    5. Ke4<B  Ka6<N
    6. Kc3<P  Kc5<R
    7. Ka2<N  Kb7<p
    8. Kb4<R  Kd6<R
    9. Kd3<P  Kb5<N
   10. Kb2<N  Ka7<p

Moving Phase

   11. Rxa6+  Kxa6
   12. cxb5+  Nxb5
   13. bxc5?  Nxc3+
   14. Ka3    Ndb5+
   15. Kb2    Nd4+
   16. Ka3    Nxc2++

Written by Joao Pedro Neto. Graphics, HTML conversion and very slight editing by David Howe.

This is an entry in the Contest to make a chess variant on a board with 38 squares.

WWW page created: November 18, 1997. Last modified: January 17, 2001.

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Last modified on: March 26, 2001.