A Game Courier Preset for Gamma2 Chess

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Gamma2 Chess

Uncoded. No rules enforced. No legal moves displayed.

Welcome to Game Courier, where you can play Gamma2 Chess and many other Chess variants through online correspondence.

Rules of Gamma2 Chess

Berolina pawns can only move forward. When a Berolina pawn makes a non-capturing move, it goes one square diagonally forwards. When a Berolina pawn is still on its original square on the second row, it can make a non-capturing move diagonally forwards of one or of two squares - if it moves two squares, the first square must be empty. A pawn captures one square vertically forwards. When a Berolina pawn has moved two squares forwards, the opponent has the possibility to take it en passant: in the directly following turn a (Berolina) pawn of the opponent may take it also on the square that was passed by. When a Berolina pawn reaches a promotion square, that is, a square on the last row of the board at the opponents side, it promotes. The owner of the Berolina pawn may decide to which piece the pawn promotes, which can be any piece type in the setup except for a king.

The Ship in this game is a novel compound piece that moves like a cannon (i.e. which moves as a rook but must hop over an intervening piece to capture) or like a guard (i.e. which moves to any adjacent square). The Archer in this game is a novel compound piece that moves like a vao (i.e. which moves like a bishop but must hop over an intervening piece to capture) or like a guard.

Castling is as in standard chess, except a king goes three squares sideways during the process (instead of two squares). Threefold repetition of position or stalemate is a draw as in chess, and similarly the 50 move rule is also in effect in Gamma2 Chess (i.e. game drawn if no captures or [Berolina] pawn moves before 50 consecutive moves by both sides).

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 default settings file for Gamma2 Chess, which was made by Kevin Pacey.

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

Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017