Dave Reynolds's
Circular Chess
Circular Chess is
played on a circular board of 64 spaces in 4 concentric rings of 16 spaces
each. There is no castling and no 'en passant' capture. The pawns that start
on opposite sides of the board move in opposite directions. Pawns promote when
they reach the opponent's initial positions for the major pieces. Rooks and
Queens cannot end a move on the same space from which they started (cannot go
full circle). The rook is more valuable in this variant compared with standard
chess. It's worth more than two light pieces. The light pieces seem to be worth
less than three pawns. Probably a light piece can, at times, be exchanged for
two pawns.
Circular boards were in use during the Byzantine period,
and some form of round chess is believed to have been known to theoreticians
already in the 12th century. Round chess seems to have undergone a brief revival
in London and in Calcutta, India, in the late 18th century. Today's Circular
Chess is inspired from medieval Byzantine Chess, and was invented in 1983 by
See also Circular
Chess.
 You can download my free
Circular Chess program
here (updated
2007-02-08), but you must own the software
Zillions of Games to be able to
run it (I recommend the download version). You can play Circular Chess per
e-mail
here. Don't miss my other
chess variants. |
© M. Winther
(February 2007).
