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When I invented this CV back in the 80's, I was experimenting with putting the orthodox chess pieces on unorthodox boards. Chesquerque quite naturally was an attempt to put chess on the Alquerque board. As Alquerque pieces sat on the points rather than in the cells, Chesquerque pieces also had to sit on the points. The lines radiating from the points gave the opportunity to limit or expand movement of the pieces. Every piece excepting the Knight was meant to have its orthodox move plus a one point move down the lines (diagonally for Rooks, orthogonally for Bishops, making them move like the Shogi pieces Dragon Horse and Dragon King). The Knight was supposed to correspond to the Mao of Chinese chess. On a cell with diagonals, the Knight moved one point diagonally followed by one point orthogonally. On a cell without diagonals, it would move one point orthogonally followed by one point diagonally. An adjacent piece would block its move. Because there were nine points, there was room for an additional piece, which I chose to be the Archbishop, moving like a Dragon Horse and a Mao. I chose the Archbishop rather than the Chancellor (R+N) because the Archbishop was weaker. If a Mao move was blocked by an adjacent piece, the Archbishop could capture the adjacent piece but could not move on to the second point of the Mao's move. On points with diagonals, the Pawns moved orthongally forward and captured diagonally forward. On points without diagonals, the Pawns acted as Shogi Pawns, moving and capturing one point orthogonally forward. I thought the limited or expanded moves of the pieces, depending on the point occupied, gave the game something of the flavor of the proprietary game Smess aka All the King's Men.
Is there a reason for useing the 'dragon' pieces instead of the FIDE pieces?
Specificly end game problems.
It looks to be an interesting variant otherwise. I really like the archbishop as the extra piece.
Troyka's Weave and Dungeon also has uneven but symmetric connectivity, making visualizable play problematic. The old Alquerque boards do not use long-range pieces like George Dekle's Chesquerque, whose Archbishop and Queen here compound the opaqueness.
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