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This page is written by the game's inventor, Fabio Forzoni.

Promotion Progressive Chess

This is one of the newest chess variants that is played in AISE, the Italian Chess Variants Organization. The game was proposed by Fabio Forzoni in 1995. First an informal tournament was held, and the first `official' tournament of this variant was played in the AISE `GRAND PRIX' in 1997.

Rules

  1. All Italian progressive chess rules apply, with the exception of the following rules:
  2. Each piece (except a king or a queen) that captures another piece promotes in the following order: Pawn > Bishop/Knight > Rook > Queen. A queen that captures stays a queen. A pawn that captures promotes to a bishop or a knight to the choice of the player that makes the capture (i.e., that owns the pawn.) I.e., a knight or bishop that captures instantly promotes to rook, and a rook that captures transforms directly into a queen.
  3. Kings do not promote when they capture. One may not castle with a promoted rook.
  4. After a piece have been promoted to queen, that queen may not move further for the rest of the series of that turn.
  5. A pawn that reaches the eigth row, either by capture or a move without capturing, promotes only to bishop or knight, to the choice of the player owning the pawn; i.e., the pawn may not promote by that move to queen or rook, even while it reached the promotion row.
  6. A piece can make more than one promotion during a turn.

Sample games

Here are the first two experimental games ever played in this variant.

Forzoni-Vecchi ('95) 0-1

1.e4
2.e6 Nc6
3.d4 Bg5 B:d8=R+
4.K:d8 N:d4=R Be7 R:d1=Q+
5.K:d1 Nc3 Nd4 N:e7=R R:f7=Q
6.Nh6 N:f7=R R:f2=Q b6 Ba6 B:f1=R#

Vecchi-Forzoni ('95) 0-1

1.Nf3
2.e6 Nf6
3.Ne5 N:d7=R R:d8=Q+
4.K:d8 Ne4 N:d2=R R:d1=Q+
5.K:d1 Nc3 Nb5 N:c7=R R:c8=Q+
6.K:c8 Bb4 e5 e4 e3 e.f2=N#


Written by Fabio Forzoni and Hans Bodlaender.
WWW page created: February 23, 1998.