Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Oct 15, 2014 08:52 PM UTC:
When I tried to submit this Chess variant, I discovered that the name
'Companion Chess' was already taken. Shame on me for not researching it
properly in advance!

So I decided to rename it to 'Team-Mate Chess', because the only way to
checkmate a bare King is by a team of several pieces.

I also solved the Adjutant-vs-Aanca dilemma in a way I am very pleased
with: I use them both! Team-Mate Chess has King + 7 different pieces in the
initial setup, but it offers an 8th piece as a promotion choice. So
initially the Aanca is present as Queen replacement, and sometimes it will
survive into the end-game and team up with another piece to checkmate the
opponent. But in other games most material will be traded, and mate will
have to be executed by promoted Pawns. By making the Aanca not eligible as
promotion choice, but the Adjutant in stead, such games will usually end in
a mate that involves the Adjutant, as the Adjutant, after the Aanca, is the
strongest piece in this game.

But in this case I can take the original, color-bound version of the
Adjutant, without discriminating against either Elephant or Mammoth to team
up with it. Sometimes you will promote to Adjutant on a light square,
sometimes on a dark. So all three color-bound pieces get a chance to team
up! And when the promotion square of your last Pawn is of the same color as
the only other piece you have, which, oh disaster, is also color bound, you
are forced to under-promote to a non-color-bound piece to save your mating
potential. Probably the Rook-replacements Cobra or Unicorn, as these come
next in line, strength-wise. Fairy-Max for this reason always promotes to
Cobra in Team-Mate Chess (as it does not know the concept of
under-promotion, and would not be smart enough to make the right choice
anyway). This forced under-promotion will drive up the number of different
checkmates with weaker pieces one will see in practice, rather than
automatically ending in Adjutant + something.

Edit Form
Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.