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Fibonacci Chess

Progressive Chess is a well known and often played chess variant, where white first makes one move, then black makes two moves, then white three moves, then black four, etc. In Mazes for the Mind, a book by dr. Cliff Pickover, a variant on Progressive Chess, called Fibonacci Chess is presented. The description mentions David Bradley as one of the inventors of the game.

Pickover's website can be found at www.pickover.com.

Rules

The rules of chess are followed, but players are on later turns allowed to make move moves in one turn. The number of moves is determinded by the Fibonacci sequence. I.e., white starts with making 1 move, then black makes 1 move, then white makes 1+1=2 moves, then black makes 1+2=3 moves, then white 2+3=5 moves, then black 3+5=8 moves, then white 5+8=13 moves, then black 8+13=21 moves, ...

The Fibonacci sequence is a mathematical sequence of numbers, starting with 1, 1, and then every number is the sum of the previous two numbers.

Use e.g., the Scottish rules concerning check: a turn ends always when a player gives check.

Comment

It would be interesting to know if there is a full analysis? In any case, given the fast amount of moves that is gain, one would expect that the game would never last past black fourth turn, or even earlier than that. So, opening theory might help here quite a lot.


Written by Hans Bodlaender, based upon information of Cliff Pickover.
WWW page created: 22 Aug 2000. Last modified on: January 3, 2001..