Hybrid Chess

Hybrid Chess is a result of my trying to come up with knight-like pieces that might work better on a 10x8 board than plain knights, by protecting a castled K and/or influencing the opponent's half of the centre, yet hopefully not being way too powerful. I included Knight-Ferz compound pieces, to have all pawns in the setup guarded, along with Knight-Alfil compound pieces. It seems possible for just one of either type of augmented knight used in this variant, plus king, to mate a lone king in less than 50 moves, based on my results using Dr. H.G. Muller's Checkmating Applet. I've also included Bede pieces in the setup.

There are presets available for play on Game Courier. With rules enforced Hybrid Chess, without Hybrid Chess.

Setup

Pieces

Hybrid chess includes 4 orthodox chess piece types (pawns, kings, rooks and queens) and also 3 unorthodox piece types:

A Bede moves like a bishop or dabbabah (leaps two squares orthogonally, that is, by rank or file).

A Knight-Ferz moves like a knight or ferz (one step diagonally).

A Knight-Alfil moves like a knight or alfil (leaps two squares diagonally).

Rules

Hybrid Chess follows the rules of chess except as noted below.

The castling rules for Hybrid Chess are as in Gross Chess (Flexible Castling) where an unmoved K can move 2, 3 or possibly 4 steps towards an unmoved R, with said R ending up on the square adjacent to the K on the other side of it, on the first rank.

Threefold repetition of position or stalemate is a draw as in standard chess, and the 50 move rule is also in effect in Hybrid Chess (i.e. game drawn if no captures or pawn moves have been made before 50 consecutive moves by both sides). Pawns move as in chess, and can promote to any piece type included in the setup, except for a king.

Last revised by Kevin Pacey.