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This page is written by the game's inventor, Luiz Campos.

Mono-dimensional Chess

Background: One day someone noticed a 1-D chess hadn’t been invented, so far as that person knew. He then tried to create it, with a reasonable amount of complexity to keep things interesting, yet faithful to the objective of simplicity. That person was me, and this is the result.

Objective: Checkmate or stalemate the opponent’s king.

Board setup: The board is 1x10, numbered from 1 to 10, beginning at the White King’s square. The pieces are arranged in the following order: KEWL (White’s pieces), two empty squares, LWEK (Black’s pieces).

To remain loyal to the 1-D theme, however, it’s suggested the use of a single straight line with ten numbered dots on it. All references of squares in this text will then be referring to dots.

Piece movement:

King: moves and captures one square forward or backward, or switches place with any adjacent piece of the same color. May not move into threatened squares.

Executor: moves one square forward or jumps 3 squares forward.

Warrior: jumps two forward or moves (does not capture) one backward.

Lancer: moves and captures one forward.

King versus king rule: whenever there are two kings alone in the board and the number of squares between them is even, the player who has to move wins the game, because he’d eventually be able to push the opposing king until stalemating him in his starting square.

Notes on notation: King switches with piece X is indicated by "KsX", stalemate is represented by "stlm" and use of the king versus king rule is indicated by "kkr".

Example game: 

1. L5    L6
2. LxL   WxL
3. W5    E8
4. E3    K9
5. W4    WxW
6. ExW   KsE 
7. E5+   K7
8. K2    E8
and white resigns, because K3 or K1 lead to ExEstlm, E6+ loses the Executor and the game and ExE leads to KxEkkr.

Final observations: This game is so simple a few experienced players can quickly exhaust its possible combinations. It exists for a quick fun between tiring bigger chess games, to be presented as a curiosity, or so you can at last name an opening after yourself… With the exception of 1. E5 W6, of course, because it is already named "the Wet Dog", for undisclosed reasons.

Written by Luiz Carlos Campos.
WWW page created: July 27, 2002.