A Game Courier Preset for Fairy Chess 1

This preset enforces the rules and displays legal moves.

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Fairy Chess 1

Rules enforced. Legal moves displayed.

Welcome to Game Courier, where you can play Fairy Chess 1 and many other Chess variants through online correspondence.

How Pieces Move in Fairy Chess 1

Since no separate description of the rules has been provided, these details on piece movement have been pulled from the descriptions of pieces used in this game.

The King leaps one space in any direction. It may castle with a Rook on its first move so long as it is not in check, there is nothing in between it and the Rook, it doesn't pass through check while castling, and the Rook hasn't moved. In castling, it moves two spaces toward the Rook, and the Rook moves to the space the King passed over.

The Queen may move as a Rook or a Bishop.

The Rook may move any number of spaces in any vertical or horizontal direction until it reaches an occupied space.

The Bishop may move diagonally any number of spaces until it reaches an occupied space.

The Knight may leap to any space that is one rank and two files away or two ranks and one file away.

The Moa moves one space diagonally, followed by one more space in an outward orthogonal direction. It must complete both parts of its move, and it may not pass over an occupied space. It can reach the same spaces as a Knight except that it can be blocked on the first step of its two-space move.

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.

The inclusion of a piece does not indicate that it is used in the game you are playing. But if your game uses pieces not included here, you should choose a different piece set.

Credits

This preset uses the Alfaerie settings file for Fairy Chess 1, which was made by J Paleja.

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

Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017