Baseline chess with Fischer rules
Baseline chess is a variant where the game starts with only pawns, and then players
drop the first eight turns a major piece on a square on their start row.
Fischer Random Chess
is a variant where one starts with a random setup on the opening row. It has some specific provisions
for castling and allows only certain placements. Ken Regan suggests to combine the two. Note that the
castling rule of this variant is taken from Fischer Random Chess.
Rules
The game starts with only the pawns on their respective opening squares.
Then, players put turnwise one of their eight major pieces on an empty
square at the first row at their side of the board. They should place their pieces such that:
- Bishops are placed on squares of different colors.
- The king is placed between the rooks, e.g., one could have a white rook on b1, a white king on d1 and a
white rook on h1.
When all pieces are
placed, the game starts. One plays using the usual rules of chess, but with the following castling rule. Under the
usual
provisions: (the king must not be checked, the king and rook have not moved,
the king does not move over a square that is checked while castling, there
is no piece on any square over which the king and rook move), the player
can castle. When castling with the `left' rook, the king moves to c1 for
white, c8 for black, and the rook moves to d1 for white, d8 for black.
When castling with the `right' rook, the king moves to g1 (g8), and the
rook moves to f1 (f8).
Comment
Ken Regan suggested the variant, commenting:
The idea of the rule that the king is placed between the rooks is to prevent
people from automatically putting the rooks on the d and e files.
This may have the problem of Bishops in the corners being automatically
strongest, especially since they don't interfere with Fischer castling.
On the other hand, "King at g1 and Rooks on h1 and d1" is also attractive.
Overall:
- it's nice not to be "random",
- the rules contain standard chess
as a reasonable option,
- they also preserve the fluidity and King danger
of the opening stage to some extent, and
- maybe it equalizes Black a little
more---and certainly makes it easier for Black to play to win.
Plus one
can joke about spending time pondering Move 8. Also, note that unlike for Fischer Random Chess, the
setup after piece placement is not necessarily symmetric.
See also:
Written by: Hans Bodlaender and Ken Regan.
WWW page created: October 31, 2000.
Last modified: Sunday, April 1, 2012
