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Ascension. 6x6 board with two Kings that promote to royal Queens.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 20, 2022 07:33 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from Wed Oct 19 11:23 PM:

I don't think this is something that we can take for granted. I considered this a very innovative idea in Caissa Brittanica.

And I am not sure this would be unplayable without it. Each player has two royals, and the loss of one of those is already fatal. Even if both Kings promote to Queen there seems to be ample opportunity to beat those by forking or skewering the two, on such a small board. Also note that when one side has two Queens, the other side likely will have two too. If one side was allowed to promote to Queen twice without compensation, it would not be a big surprise that the opponent has no chance to win. No matter whether the obtained Queens were royal or not. And two Queens on a near-empty 6x6 board cover an awfully large fraction of all squares. It might not be so difficult to force checkmate even with one additional piece (e.g. in QQR-QQ).