A Game Courier Preset for Constructing Chess

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Constructing Chess

Uncoded. No rules enforced. No legal moves displayed.

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

Constructing Chess

Constructing Chess is an invention of Mister P. A. Stonemann, CSS Dixieland, Confederate States, in 2022.

It is a modification, on a smaller board, of Building Chess, variety invented by Mister Sergey Sirotkin.

The original game of Mister Sirotkin, available in Game Courier, cannot be played because the preset is broken. Even if it could be played, its original board is of 25 x 25, totalling 625 squares. This makes it difficult for players who need to use a small screen, perhaps as tiny as the screen of a mobile telephone. The original preset is hyper linked below.

 Building Chess:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Building+Chess&settings=original

Constructing Chess is of identical rules and play as Building Chess, except for two modifications:

-Constructing Chess is played on a board of 15 x 15, totalling 225 squares, more suitable to small screens.

-Constructing Chess has the top and bottom horizontal ranks already constructed, instead of just the four corners. This makes it easier for beginners to understand the idea: gradually constructing (creating, adding) the squares that are missing on the board, and using at least some of those squares for attack or defence, this is, for playing the game.

This latter modification will be very welcome by those who have never played one of the few Chess varieties where squares are destructed (removed, erased), let alone one of the even fewer varieties where squares are constructed.

Examples of varieties where squares are destructed during play are Atlantis Chess and Cheshire Cat Chess.

Examples of varieties where squares are constructed during play are Choiss and Stochastic Chess.

However, differently from Choiss and Stochastic Chess, in Building Chess and in Constructing Chess all pieces start on the board, and there is no separate phase for building or constructing the board.

The inventor apologises to players who need to use a tiny screen, such as a mobile telephone, or a screen of very low resolution, such as Web TV. The visual rendition offered by a board of 15 by 15 squares is very limited or very poor on those devices. In the case of tiny screens it becomes necessary to scroll horizontally or also vertically, or to scale the image down, but in this case the pieces may appear too small for comfortable visualisation. However, because Game Courier is intended for playing by correspondence via Internet, with players often having days for making each move, then it may be possible for the player to keep his game on a physical Chess set. Four usual boards of 8 by 8 squares can be put together for forming a board of 15 by 15 squares (marking out with paper or adhesive tape the remaining horizontal rank and the remaining vertical column), or a large board can be made, or bought in some shops.

The rules of Constructing Chess are simple, it is played like standard European Chess as per FIDE rules, except for a few necessary differences noted in the appropriate section below.

Setup

The game uses a board of 15 x 15 squares, but most of it is unconstructed. The central part is already constructed, as it can be seen on the playing board above. The constructed part is that of the Minichess variety, invented by Mister Martin Gardner. It is of 5 x 5, totalling 25 squares. Of course other varieties with small boards could be used, just by creating an appropriate preset in Game Courier. Some examples of small board varieties are Chess - Speed Game, Limiting Chess and Petty Chess, all of them having their rules and their initial arrays available in Game Courier.

Pieces

Each player has 5 Pawns, 1 Bishop, 1 Knight, 1 Castle (Rook), 1 Queen, 1 King.

Rules

Chess pieces move across the board as they do in European Chess as per FIDE rules, this is, according to the standard rules of move and capture. There are a few differences. A pawn is not allowed to move forward two squares from its starting square, therefore there is no capture en passant. There is no castling either. A pawn only needs to advance THREE SQUARES for promoting. Therefore a white pawn promotes on the tenth horizontal rank, while a black pawn promotes on the sixth horizontal rank. The player may choose to promote a pawn to queen, castle (rook), bishop or knight, independently of the square of arrival and independently of previous captures. A pawn cannot promote to king, cannot promote to a piece of the opposing army, and cannot stay as pawn, as per FIDE rules.

After moving a piece (not before) the player contructs (creates, adds) an empty square on the board. The square must share a common edge with a square that is already part of the board, and must be of different colour from the squares located beside. The white player constructs squares of light colour, the black player constructs squares of dark colour.

In Game Courier a square can be constructed by typing in the Moves box an AT symbol (@), followed without spaces by hyphen and by the coordinates where the new square must be constructed. Because the square is constructed AFTER making a move, the move must be typed first, then semicolon (;), then the construction of the new square. The semicolon separates the two commands, space round the semicolon is optional. For example, a player wants to move his white pawn of F 7 to F 8, and to construct a new white square in the E 9 coordinate. In the Moves box he types:

P f7-f8; @-e9

Once again, it is important to remember that the white player cannot construct black squares, the black player cannot construct white squares, and the new squares must share at least one of the sides with an existing square. If moving a piece or constructing a square wrongly, it is necessary to go back and correct the moving or constructing command. Game Courier allows players to correct wrong commands, the instructions are available in the corresponding section.

The game is won by giving check mate to the opponent king. A bare king is still playable, stale mate is a tied game. Other situations that result in a tied game are by the rule of third repetition of identical situation on the board (with the same player having the turn of play), or by the rule of fifty moves without moving pawn, without capturing, and without either player winning the game. All those situations are as per FIDE rules, perfectly applicable in Constructing Chess. It must be noted that victory of one side, or tied game, can occur without having finished the construction of the board.

Notes

Players may freely agree on who will begin the game as white, or they may cast lots for determining who will be the starting player. For casting lots, a possibility to consider is the server of 'Roll Dice with Friends':

https://www.rolldicewithfriends.com/rooms/granddicechess

The hyper link above points to a room already created for Grand Dice Chess, though players may prefer to create another room. The results of rolling the dice are preserved in the room, for all players or observers to see them.

Important: In Game Courier it is not possible to move one piece and construct one square in the same turn of play using the graphic interface. Therefore it is necessary to indicate the moves by typing in the box called 'Moves' using coordinates. For example, the player wishes to move a pawn and construct a square, in that order. The current preset of Game Courier, however, will not enforce this order, therefore in practice the player is free to choose any order for moving his piece and constructing his square. As an example, he chooses:

Pawn in the square J 7 moves to the square J 8, then a white square is constructed in the K 7 coordinate.

Each of the two commands is indicated by piece and coordinates, separating each move with semi-colon (the ';' symbol), and using an AT (the '@' symbol) for representing a new empty square that must be constructed:

P j7-j8; @-k7

Space may also be introduced before and after the semi-colon, for easier reading:

P j7-j8 ; @-k7

In Game Courier the white pawn is indicated by 'P' and the black by 'p'. Every white piece is indicated by letter in upper case, and every black piece by letter in lower case. For the colour of squares there is no difference, all of them are indicated by '@', then Game Courier will construct the square of light colour or else of dark colour, as appropriate.

In the notation there is no difference between capturing and moving without capture, for Game Courier it is the same. Simply, the square of origin and the square of destination is each indicated by coordinates. Each coordinate is given with the two characters together (for example j7), but origin and destination are separated by hyphen (for example j7-j8). The letter indicating the column is given first (for example 'j') then the number of one or two ciphers indicating the rank (for example '7'), not in the opposite order.

After typing the moves for that turn of play, the player presses the button called 'Preview'. Game Courier will show the changes, highlighting only the last move. If being correct, then the player presses the button called 'Confirm'. If not, then the player should return to the previous page and re-write whichever of his moves might be necessary to correct.

A player with experience in Game Courier should help a player who is new to Game Courier. If after several efforts the new player be still unable to make his desired move, he may ask the other player to make the move on his behalf.

For example, the new player has a pawn in H 9, and he wishes to promote the pawn. He can do this by:

P h9-h10; Q-h10

By the first command, Game Courier moves the pawn from H 9 to H 10. By the second command, Game Courier removes the pawn from H 10 and introduces a queen in H 10. Promotion of pawn is considered ONE MOVE, not two moves. The pawn may promote, and immediately the recently promoted piece may give check or threat capture in the same turn of play, as per FIDE rules. There are other manners of doing the same, such as:

@-h9; Q-h10

By the first command, Game Courier removes the pawn from H 9 (the '@' symbol indicates 'empty square'). By the second command, Game Courier introduces a queen in H 10. The new player should dedicate some time to learn how Game Courier operates, complete instructions are available in the corresponding pages of the Chess Variants server.

For players who are used to the method of moving pieces on a graphic board it may take a little time to become used to the method of typing the letter of each piece and then the coordinates of origin and destination, but it is not difficult.

When a player manage to check mate the king of the opponent, he can end the game by adding semi-colon and the reserved word 'won'. For example, a white knight in B 10 moves to A 12 and gives check mate, ending the game:

N b10-a12; won

The player can surrender at any moment during his turn of play by typing the reserved word 'resign'. The player that has lost according to the rules of the game (by check mate to king) can type the reserved word 'lost', in case that the victorious player had not yet typed the reserved word 'won'. The reserved words 'resign' and 'lost' operate exactly in identical manner, but by tradition 'resign' is used for surrendering and 'lost' is used for losing according to the rules.

There is rarely a tied game in Constructing Chess, it is often a white victory or else a black victory, but players who are beginning may agree to consider the current game without effect, perhaps with the wish of starting a new game. The tied game is indicated by the reserved word 'drawn', which can be done without making move, or after making move. For example, a player moves his king from A 1 to A 2, and let us suppose that this move immediately provoke a tied game by the rule of third identical situation repeated on the board, or by the rule of fifty turns of each player without capture and without moving pawn. The move and the immediately tied game are indicated by typing:

K a1-a2; drawn

Either of the two players can erase the game from the data base of Game Courier at any stage during current play, or can erase a finished game. The operations of drawing or of erasing a game should be done only by AGREEMENT between the two players, or in case of one player having disappeared for a long time in a game without time limit.

Players should not propose or accept games without time limit, except to or from players whom they know very well.

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 constructing settings file for Constructing Chess, which was made by CSS Dixieland.

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

Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017