Today I was thinking about large board variants and their typical "two step" pawn-at-any-time option and "three step pawns" and I thought of a possible idea for pawn movement in general, for ALL board sizes, even 8x8 or smaller. The main idea is a way of speeding up the game and giving pawns just a bit more power at the right time, while keeping some restraints.
So here it is: what's to stop us from playing with pawns that can slide straight forward as far as they want? They still capture only one square diagonally. My added rule is this: ANY piece or pawn can capture en passant at any square that it just moved through.
1. e5 looks too powerful for White as a first move, but what about 1. .... d4 as a response? If e x d6 e.p. then Qxd6. Black isn't hopeless here.
Admitedly I haven't studied it much or played it, but let's discuss!
Today I was thinking about large board variants and their typical "two step" pawn-at-any-time option and "three step pawns" and I thought of a possible idea for pawn movement in general, for ALL board sizes, even 8x8 or smaller. The main idea is a way of speeding up the game and giving pawns just a bit more power at the right time, while keeping some restraints.
So here it is: what's to stop us from playing with pawns that can slide straight forward as far as they want? They still capture only one square diagonally. My added rule is this: ANY piece or pawn can capture en passant at any square that it just moved through.
1. e5 looks too powerful for White as a first move, but what about 1. .... d4 as a response? If e x d6 e.p. then Qxd6. Black isn't hopeless here.
Admitedly I haven't studied it much or played it, but let's discuss!