Courier 'de la Dama'
Furious Courier
by Nuno Cruz
Introduction
Courier 'de la Dama' is a minor revision of the historic game of Courier Chess, adding a modern Queen and revised moves for the Pawns and Bishops. The intent of these changes is to preserve some of the original game's flavor while allowing more dynamic play.Furious Courier is Courier 'de la Dama' taken one step further, with the Bishops being replaced by Crooked Bishops and Fool being replaced by another Sage.
Courier 'de la Dama'
The Board and Pieces
The game is played on a checkered board with twelve rows and eight columns.Each player has twenty-four pieces: twelve Pawns, a King, a Sage, a Queen, a Fool, two Couriers, two Bishops, two Knights and two Rooks.
Opening setup
The opening setup is as follows:
White:
King f1; Queen g1; Rook a1, l1; Knight b1, k1; Bishop c1, j1; Courier d1, i1;
Sage e1; Fool h1; Pawn a2, b2, c2, d2, e2, f2, g2, h2, i2, j2, k2, l2.
Black:
King f8; Queen g8; Rook a8, l8; Knight b8, k8; Bishop c8, j8; Courier d8, i8;
Sage e8; Fool h8; Pawn a7, b7, c7, d7, e7, f7, g7, h7, i7, j7, k7, l7.
Movement of pieces
The Queen, Rooks, and Knights move as in the Orthodox Chess.The King moves as in Orthodox Chess, except that on its first move it may leap like a Knight, Alfil or Dabbabah -- other words, to any square two squares away. They may use this leap even if in check, and it may capture.
The Couriers moves the same as the modern Bishop.
The Bishops move one square diagonally, like Ferzes. On their first move, Bishops may leap two squares in a straight line, like an Alfil or a Dabbabah. This leap may capture.
The Sage moves one square in an arbitrary direction. This piece is sometimes called a Man or a Commoner.
The Fool moves one square horizontally or vertically, like a Wazir.
Pawns move as in Orthodox Chess, including making a double move from the second row, but there is no en passant capture. Promotion is on the last rank, and is to any piece other than a King.
Other Rules
The object of the game is to mate the opponent. A stalemate is a loss for the stalemated player.Furious Courier
The Board and Pieces
This game is played on the same board and with almost the same pieces as Courier 'de la Dama', the only changes being that the Sage is renamed the Guard, the Fool is replaced by a second Guard, and the Bishops are replaced by Scouts.Movement of pieces
The King, Queen, Rooks, Knights and Couriers move as in Courier 'de la Dama'.The Guards move the same as the Sage does in Courier 'de la Dama', which is like a Commoner or nonroyal King.
The Scouts move like Crooked Bishops, which slide alternately on a pair of adjacent diagonal directions, such as nw-sw-nw-sw-. There are eight possible paths for a Scout to take (two for each Rook-wise direction), and it can reach half the squares on each path via two different routes.
Other Rules
Same as for Courier 'de la Dama'.Notes
Another revision of Courier Chess is Modern Courier Chess.Computer Play
A Zillions of Games file for both of these games is available. You can download it here:
Invented by Nuno Cruz, page by Peter Aronson
WWW page created: May 8th, 2003.