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This page is written by the game's inventor, M Winther.

External Link: Placement Chess

One can, by a procedure of relocation, easily reconfigure the initial array according to the players' choice. This also answers to the chessplayer's predilection for remaining in control. In this variant the queen and king are relocated to produce a mirrored position. Rules:

The players can, before play begins, swap places of the king + queen and another piece except the rooks. Thus, if the king is swapped (relocated), the other piece (the relocatee) ends up on the king's square. If the queen is swapped, the relocatee ends up on the queen's square. One restriction is that the bishops mustn't end up on the same square colour. Note that black begins by making the initial swap. Thus he decides the position of the kings. White decides the position of the queens, and then immediately starts the game. Alternatively the players can choose to leave the position as it is. Note that the king retains his castling rights even if it has been relocated. The castling rules derive from Fischer Random Chess.

With these relocation rules the rooks remain in their natural positions, and the bishops are always positioned so that there is still a choice to develop them on either of the queen's or the king's wing. This maintains the strategical ambiguity of the initial position, while sound positions are produced where no definitive advantage can be obtained. White makes the last relocation. Thusly white gets a chance to make a strategical decision and create an initiative, as in the standard position. The resultant positions are a subgroup of Fischer Random. Note that there is also a randomized version of this variant, named Chess20.

A Zillions program and more information is here.

Note! A variant of Placement Chess is Fischer Placement Chess where the queen is also allowed to swap with a rook, thus generating 25 modest positions from the Chess960 array.

External Link: http://www.two-paths.com/bg/placementchess.htm

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By M Winther.
Web page created: 2009-04-30. Web page last updated: 2009-04-30