A Game Courier Preset for Apothecary Chess-Classic

This preset enforces the rules and displays legal moves.

11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j

Apothecary Chess-Classic

Rules enforced. Legal moves displayed.

NOTICE: The setup shown here has been modified from the original setup thanks to running code for this game. If this game randomizes the setup, then you may expect to see a different setup when you actually play the game.

Welcome to Game Courier, where you can play Apothecary Chess-Classic and many other Chess variants through online correspondence.

Pieces

This game has 25 pieces per side of 11 different types (king and pawns included). From the perspective of strength and for pawns promotion purposes the pieces are split in 4 categories:

1. Strong pieces - they are the strongest in the game; there are 3 strong pieces:

Queen- like orthodox chess queen on a 10x10 board

Chancellor- moves as an orthodox knight and an orthodox rook

Archbishop- moves as an orthodox knight and an orthodox bishop

2. Average pieces

Rook- just an orthodox rook on a 10x10 board

Joker (Jester, Fool)- Average piece in the opening;the strength of this piece is highly dependent on the opponents material. The joker (jester,fool) imitates the power movement and capture of the last piece moved by the opponent. Be careful as opposite to the advanced  omega chess fool, from which the concept is taken, the apothecary joker doesn't immobilize pieces .

3. Auxiliary pieces

Bishop- like an orthodox bishop on a 10x10 board

knight- an orthodox knight with a zebra just move enhancement (i.e. jump for movement and not capture three squares in a direction and 2 in the other)

Siege  Elephant- has the powers of the ferz (one step diagonally), alfil (jump two squares diagonally) and  power of the threeleaper (jumps three squares orthogonally)

Mameluk- has the powers of the classic camel from Tamerlane chess (a (3,1) leaper i.e jumps to all squares 1 square far in one direction and 3 squares far in the other) and the power of the wazir (one square orthogonally)

4. Pawns

Pawns - classic chess pawns on a 10x10 board from the point of view of movement and capture but that may promote starting the 8th rank according to piece categories. Pawns promote to any auxiliary pieces on the players 8th rank, any auxiliary or average peice at the 9th rank, and any piece at rank 10.For the purpose of limiting material when physical play is involved pawns are also restricted to promote to the pieces in reserve. In the reserve enter all the pieces of the colour of the promoting pawn and from the begining of the game 1 queen, 1 rook, 1 knight & 1 mameluk.

King- Not in a category; an orthodox chess king on a 10x10 board- the royal piece of this game. There is no castling in this game but the white king can, from the initial position only once, jump to c1,d1,h1,i1 and the black king can, from the initial position only once,  jump to c10,d10,h10,i10.

Rules

By far the main difference between the rules of classic chess and the rules of apothecary chess 2 is that apothecary chess 2 has five instead of three possible outcomes:
1. win - obtained through checkmating your opponent which worths 1 tournament point
2. advantage - obtained through stalemating your opponent or having at least 4 points in the points counting process (see bellow) worths 0.75 tournament points
3. draw - obtained through double bare kings or through having at most 3 ahead points in the points counting process (see bellow) worths 0.5 tournament points
4. disadvantage- when your opponent finishes at an advantage still worths 0.25 tournament points
5. loss - you got checkmated
At any time players may give up (loss) or convene at a draw or advantage/disadvantage.

Point count occurs in two situations:
1. The 100 moves rule takes charge (akin to the 50th moves rule of orthodox chess but after 100 moves) i.e. 100 moves have taken place and no captures or pawn pushes happened.
2. An position has been repeated three times.

When point count occurs points are awarded to each player for each non king piece the player has on the board. A major piece worths 9 points. A rook worths 6 points. A minor piece worths 3 points. A fool worths 5 points if the opponent has exactly more major pieces than minor pieces left on the board. It worth 4 point otherwise.A pawn on the 9th rank worth 7 points. A pawn on the 8th rank worth 4 points. A pawn not on the 8th or 9th rank worth 1 point. If one player counts at least 4 more points than it's opponent then the game end in an advantage for him. Otherwise a draw is awarded to both players.

There is no castling in this game, but the king may jump once from the initial position to c1,d1,h1 or i1 for white or c10,d10,d10,h10 for black as long as he is not in check. The en passant rule is as usual only that pawns have the double move from the 3rd to the 5th player's rank. The 50 moves rule becomes a 100 moves rule. The brouhaha sqares disapear afeter they have been vacated. Captures may happen on the brouhaha squares and that preserves them.

 At the beginning of the game the joker does not inherit any move because it does not start on the board, but after it got launched it inherits the last moved piece as it would do for the rest of the game. So it may check as part of the launching move. When a joker imitates a joker it moves like the last piece moved by the owning player as it was imitated by the enemy joker the previous ply. This recursion goes on as much as needed (until another piece type was found). It cannot go on forever as on launch there was a piece moved.

How to Move Pieces

Full Algebraic Notation

Algebraic notation identifies each space by a coordinate that begins with its file label and ends with its rank label. On the Chess board, files go up and down from one player to the other, and ranks go from left to right. In most games, files are represented by letters, and ranks are represented by numbers, but there is no fixed rule requiring this for all games, and some games, such as Shogi, reverse this convention. If you look at the diagram, you will usually see the file labels going from left to right and the file labels going up and down. And if you hover your mouse over a space, you will normally see the name of the coordinate appear in a tooltip.

It is not uncommon to see algebraic notation being used for Chess, but it is often in an abbreviated format that requires you to know both the rules of the game and the current position to know exactly which piece moves where. For example, the notation "Ne6" indicates that a Knight is moving to e6, but it doesn't indicate which Knight, and it doesn't specify where the Knight is coming from. To figure this out, you need to know how a Knight moves and which Knight on the board can make a legal move to e6.

Although rules may be programmed for individual games, Game Courier itself does not know the rules of any game, and it is unable to parse abbreviated algebraic notation. Therefore, it relies on full algebraic notation, which completely specifies the move without requiring any knowledge of the game's rules or the current position. The most usual type of full algebraic notation indicates the piece that is moving by its label, the space it is moving from, and the space it moving to. In Chess, a typical first move might be written as "P e2-e4". When you hover your mouse over a piece, you will normally see the piece label followed by the coordinate for the space, and when you hover it over an empty space, you will normally see the coordinate label. Including the piece label in your notation allows Game Courier to check that the piece you're moving is the right one, and it makes game notation easier to follow, but it is not mandatory.

You may promote a piece by including a promotion move after your regular move. A promotion move has a piece go directly to a coordinate. Here is an example: "p e7-e8; q-e8".

You may remove a piece from a space by adding an @ to the space or by omitting the destination coordinate. For example, both "@-e4" and "e4-" would remove the piece on "e4". This is useful for en passant when you are playing a game that does not handle this automatically. For example, "P d5-e6; e5-" removes the Pawn on e5 after a Pawn moves from d5 to e6.

You will not need to remove spaces for most games, but if you should need to, you can do this by omitting the first coordinate in a move. For example, "-e4" would remove e4 from the board. To add or return a space to the board, you may add an @ or any other piece to it.

Available Pieces

Pieces are represented by labels, usually using uppercase letters for White and lowercase letter for Black. When you enter a move or specify the starting position for a game, you should remember that piece labels are case-sensitive. Many piece sets are available for use with Game Courier, and this table shows you which pieces belong to the piece set you are currently using.

These pieces come from a set containing more pieces, but this preset has had the set of pieces reduced to those used in the game.

Credits

This preset uses the ApothecaryChess-Classic settings file for Apothecary Chess-Classic, which was made by Aurelian Florea.

Game Courier was created, programmed and written by Fergus Duniho.

Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017