NOTCHESS

Copyright (c) 2003 Ronald Brierley

NotChess is played on the following 8x8 square board:

 

TURN - On each turn, each player must move one of his pieces. A soldier moves/captures to an orthogonal adjacent cell. A knight jumps one orthogonal cell and then to a diagonal at the same direction (like the chess Knight) into an empty cell, or into an enemy piece (capturing it). After the move, the moved piece changes status (the soldier becomes a knight, and vice versa). GOAL - Wins the player that captures all enemy pieces. Players may declare the game a draw.

An opening example Red's turn. By moving its soldier to [1] the threats d4 and e3. If Blue moves d4-d5 to protect itself and e3, Red may reply c8-d6 and now Blue will lose d5 or e3 and probably the match.

It seems that two good Chess players will almost always draw with the actual setup. Perhaps a mandatory capture rule, and a smaller board would reduce the draw ratio. There is a ZRF to play NotChess with Zillions