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This page is written by the game's inventor, David Howe.

Palindromic Chess

This is an example of a game in which the ending position is the same as the starting position (just rotate the board 180 degrees at the end and you're ready for another game).

Initial Array

   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 8 |lr | n | b | k | q | b | n | rr|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 7 | p | p | p | p | p | p | p | p |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 6 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 5 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 4 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 3 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 2 | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 1 |RR | N | B | Q | K | B | N | LR|
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
     a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h

Rules

Ortho-chess rules, except:

Winning Condition

The player who makes the move such that all the pieces have exactly reversed their positions (ie. white pieces are in the initial black piece positions and vice-versa) wins the game. Or in other words, the first player to move their all their pieces to their destination squares loses (they must pass their turn until the opposing player has moved all his pieces to their destination squares)!

It is illegal to make a move that precludes the possibility of any piece of reaching its final destination square. The final destination square of a piece is the starting square of the same type of piece of the opposing player (eg. White's c1 bishop must end up on f8 -- therefore it would be illegal for white to move the c1 bishop to a5).

Note that the destination square of a piece is the starting square of the same type of opponent's piece. So the pawn on a2 has a destination of any of the square on the 7th rank. Right- and Left-handed Rooks are considered to be different types.

Notes

Variations:

Other properties of this game:


Written by David Howe.
WWW page created: January 26, 2000. Last modified: January 31, 2000.