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Our Featured Variant: Try the Chinese game of Xiangqi, one of the most popular and enduring Chess variants in the world.
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In high school (70-74) I played this variant (among others) with a friend.Ron Porter called the game Troidal; Philip M. Cohen pointed out that a more standard name for this game is Cylindrical chess. Another name is Cylinder chess. The description below is due to Ron Porter.
Assume that the board is joined at the outermost files (A and H) as if it were a cylindrical board opened up. This means that pieces can move, threaten, and attack across the edge because they 'wrap' to the other side. All other rules (check, en-passant, promotion, stalemate, mate, castle) are exactly the same as orthodox chess.
Castling is a kludge put in to speed up development in regular chess; it is not necessary in cylindrical chess. We usually call it "wraparound" chess.Cliff writes further:
We are former serious chess players who find this variant to be more fun than the old game. Right away there is a profound middle game, with many complications but not cramped--the bishops always affect play over the whole board.Also, when he plays this game with his friends, the board is set up with the pieces transposed four files over; the rooks are in the middle, king and queen in the corners. This makes no difference logically, since there are no left and right edges anyway. But this helps to keep the game separate from standard chess in the players' minds, as he wrote to me. Other fans of this game are invited to contact Cliff.
Last modified: Monday, December 22, 2008
