Players Spectators GuestBook ChatRoom Download Area
MindSports

The Arena
Navigation

Complete Games
|||
Elimination Games

Territory

Chess Variants
|||
Grand Chess
Dragonfly
Congo
Chad
Caissa
Shakti
Rotary
YariShogi
Chakra
Loonybird
HexDragonfly
HexChad
HexCaissa
HexShakti
HexLoonybird
King's Color

King's Color

Initial position

King's Color is a renegade offspring of the Chad system. It's tactics are shamelessly capricious. Some players however, insist it's great fun. These players obviously have no sense of taste and more likely no sense at all!

Material

To play King's Color, it is best to use flat pieces, with the ideogram of a rook on one side, and the ideogram of a bishop on the other.

Play

The diagram shows the board with the pieces in the initial position. The areas covered by the pieces are called the castles Each castle has fourteen adjacent cells that together constitute the wall. The cells of the wall are marked.

  • White begins. Players move, and must move, in turn
  • The king is confined to his 3x3 castle. He may go and capture using either the king's move or the knight's move

It's customary to look at the king in terms of the squares it does not cover. In the center it covers the whole castle, on the side he does not cover the square on the opposite side, and in the corner it does not cover the other corner squares. If you have trouble confirming this, please look up the hexagonal implementations section in the General Principles & Rules.

  • The rook moves along vertical or oblique files, unhindered by castles and walls
  • The bishop moves along diagonals unhindered by castles and walls

The three bishop domains are shown in the hexagonal implementations section in the General Principles & Rules.

  • The mutual right of capture exists, and only exists, between an attacking piece on the wall and a defending piece inside the castle. Apart from this situation pieces simply block one another

This is a crucial rule! For some implications, see   Chad

The Twist

Here's the nonsensical rule that provides the unique and tasteless fun:

  • Pieces on the same bishop domain (or "color") as their own King, are bishops by definition
  • Pieces on a bishop domain (or "color") other than their own King, are rooks by definition

Implications

As long as one's king remains on the same bishop domain, only rooks may change their role: a rook ending its move on a cell of the same color as its own King, immediately changes into a bishop (which is done by reversing the piece).
If, however, the king moves to a cell of another domain (color), several things happen simultaneously:

  • All the player's bishops turn into rooks!
  • The player's rooks on the domain the king now occupies, turn into bishops!

Is this crazy or what! On top of that white can give check on his first move. Have fun!