🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Aug 4, 2016 05:29 PM UTC:
My reading of the rules is that you can. The only new rule pertaining to check says, "One may not capture a piece when the piece gives check from the position where it is put back." The piece to be put back is always the opponent's piece, and given the pieces used in this game, it is impossible for a piece drop of one of your opponent's pieces to put your opponent in check. But dropping an opponent's piece could put your own King in check. As stated, the rule has two possible interpretations, and one describes an impossible situation. When I first read the rule, I interpreted it to mean that when you drop a piece, and it places a King in check, it is temporarily immune from capture. This describes an impossible situation, because it would never put the opponent into check, and given the rule in chess that a move may not leave one's own King in check, it would already be illegal for a player to make a move that ends up placing his own King in check from the dropped piece. The other interpretation is what I just pointed out is already a rule of Chess, and it is less confusingly stated in the subjunctive, "One may not capture a piece when dropping it back on the board would give check from the position where it is put back." Pritchard states the same rule as "A capture cannot be made if the replacement puts the player's K in check." Put this way, this is just a statement of a rule that naturally follows from saying that the game is played like Chess except for the other rules already given. There is no need to state this rule explicitly, since it is already implied, but it has been given, perhaps for emphasis or in case it is not obvious to everyone. Anyway, it is just an application of the rule that you cannot place yourself in check, and it has no bearing on whether a piece drop may block a revealed check.
My reading of the rules is that you can. The only new rule pertaining to check says, "One may not capture a piece when the piece gives check from the position where it is put back." The piece to be put back is always the opponent's piece, and given the pieces used in this game, it is impossible for a piece drop of one of your opponent's pieces to put your opponent in check. But dropping an opponent's piece could put your own King in check. As stated, the rule has two possible interpretations, and one describes an impossible situation. When I first read the rule, I interpreted it to mean that when you drop a piece, and it places a King in check, it is temporarily immune from capture. This describes an impossible situation, because it would never put the opponent into check, and given the rule in chess that a move may not leave one's own King in check, it would already be illegal for a player to make a move that ends up placing his own King in check from the dropped piece. The other interpretation is what I just pointed out is already a rule of Chess, and it is less confusingly stated in the subjunctive, "One may not capture a piece when dropping it back on the board would give check from the position where it is put back." Pritchard states the same rule as "A capture cannot be made if the replacement puts the player's K in check." Put this way, this is just a statement of a rule that naturally follows from saying that the game is played like Chess except for the other rules already given. There is no need to state this rule explicitly, since it is already implied, but it has been given, perhaps for emphasis or in case it is not obvious to everyone. Anyway, it is just an application of the rule that you cannot place yourself in check, and it has no bearing on whether a piece drop may block a revealed check.