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Aurelian Florea has resigned.


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Apothecary Chess-Modern

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:

Queen- like orthodox chess queen on a 10x10 board

Dragon- moves one square diagonally and then towards outside orthogonally like a rook turning 45 degrees

Griffin- moves one square orthogonally and then towards outside diagonally like a bishop turning 45 degrees

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 threeleaper and alfil just move and not capture enhancement (i.e. jump for movement and not capture three squares in ortogonal
direction or two squares in diagonal direction)

Champion- may step one square orthogonal or jump two squares away diagonally or orthogonal

Wizard- classic camel (a (3,1) leaper i.e jumps to all squares 1 square far in one direction and from there 3 squares far in the orthogonal direction) and ferz(steps one square diagonally) compound

4. Pawns

Pawns - orthodox 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 the above mentioned piece categories provided that the reserve holds the piece required. Pawns may promote to any auxiliary piece on the players 8th rank, any auxiliary piece or average piece at the 9th rank, and any piece at rank 10. In the reserve there are initially 1 queen, 1 rook,1 champion and 1 knight and later on enter any of the player's lost pieces.

King- Not in a category; an orthodox chess king on a 10x10 board- the royal piece of this game

Rules

By far the main difference between the rules of classic chess and the rules of apothecary chess-modern is that apothecary chess-modern 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 happenned.

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 strong piece worths 9 points. A average piece worths 6 points. A auxiliary piece worths 3 points. A pawn 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

To enable moving by mouse or touch, you should enable JavaScript. Even without JavaScript enabled, you can still move pieces by entering your moves in the Moves field, using full algebraic notation.

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-Modern settings file for Apothecary Chess-Modern, which was made by Aurelian Florea.

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

WWW Page Created: 15 August 2001

Kibbitzing Etiquette

Kibbitzing is the practice of commenting on a game you are not playing. In commenting on a game, please follow these rules of etiquette.

(1) If you notice that someone has made an illegal move, please mention it. Some Game Courier presets cannot enforce rules, but Game Courier does enable players to take back any previous move. Details on how to take back a move are provided in the User's Guide, linked to above the board.

(2) Unless otherwise specifically asked to, do not offer hints or suggestions to players on what moves they should make. In general, avoid coaching comments.

(3) Once a game is over, it should be alright to offer your analysis of the game and your specific comments on what moves players should have made. If some players don't want this, they may mention it in the Kibbitzing section, and you should honor this request by not commenting on the game.

(4) Be polite. At the appropriate time, offer any criticism you have in a constructive manner. Avoid heckling players for bad moves.

(5) Don't spam this space with irrelevant comments. If you have a comment about Game Courier, rather than about the specific game you're viewing, please post it on Game Courier's Index page to give it.