Check out Balbo's Chess, our featured variant for October, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, João Neto.

Unreal Tournament Chess

Many of you already played some Doom/Quake-like game. The funniest part of those games is when you play against other people via Internet. Those games were called DeathMatch. At the end of 1999, appeared a great game of this kind, named Unreal Tournament, or just UT. UT comes with some different variants around DeathMatch, namely: Catch the Flag (CTF) (a team must take the enemy's Flag and return it to their own base), Assault (a team must attack a stronghold, another must defend it, then switch sides. The team that takes less time completing the offensive goals wins) and Domination (each team tries to hold critical points as long as they can).

These variants were invented by Joao Pedro Neto, a Chess and UT fan, in January 2000.

CTF Chess

  1. The FIDE rules apply except in the following:
  2. Before the game starts, each player defines a square (the Base) and drops its Flag (a special piece) on it.
  3. A player wins if he can reach the enemy Base, catch the Flag and return it to its own Base.
  4. To catch the Flag, a piece must move into the enemy Base. Then, automatically, the Flag is attached to it.
  5. A piece can drop the Flag where it stands (counts as a move). If it is not in a Base, the Flag can be caught by a friendly piece (and returns automatically to its own Base) or by another enemy piece (and is attached to it).
  6. The King in a non royal piece, so there is no checkmate, stalemate or castling.

Notation: use [ ] to identify the piece carrying the Flag (e.g.., [R]:h4 )

Assault Chess

  1. The FIDE rules apply except in the following:
  2. There are two games played simultaneously. Each player plays White in one board and Black in the other.
  3. The Black teams do not have Rooks.
  4. White King is a non royal piece, so there is no checkmate, stalemate or castling on White side.
  5. The player that checkmates the Black team first, wins.
  6. If both players win in the same turn (or both Black teams capture all White pieces), then it is a draw.

Domination Chess

  1. The FIDE rules apply except in the following:
  2. There are 4 domination squares (dmsq): d4, d5, e4, e5.
  3. A dmsq belongs to the last player that moved into it.
  4. Each dmsq values 1 domination point per turn.
  5. White cannot make moves d4 or e4 on the 1st turn.
  6. The entire game takes 30 turns to end (i.e., 30 White and 30 Black moves).
  7. The player with more domination points at the end of game, wins.
Written by Joao Pedro Neto.
WWW page created: February 2, 2000.