A Game Courier Preset for Obento Chess
Rules enforced. Legal moves displayed.
Rules of Obento Chess
The King may move one space in any direction. It may not move into check, and you lose if it gets checkmated. It may castle on its first move by moving three spaces toward a still unmoved Rook, the Rook leaping to the space adjacent to the King on its other side. The King may not castle from or through check, and the path between the King and the Rook must be clear.
The Pawn may move one space vertically forward without capturing, or it may move one space diagonally forward to capture. On its first move, it may move vertically forward two or three spaces if nothing is in the way, and if it passes over a space that a Pawn in an adjacent file could have captured it on, that Pawn may immediately move there, capturing it by en passant. The Pawn may promote to Flying Ox when it reaches the last three ranks of the board, and promotion is optional until it reaches the last rank.
The Bishop slides diagonally. It may promote to Dragon Horse on the last three ranks.
The Dragon Horse moves as a Bishop or makes a 0,1 step.
The Rook slides orthogonally. It may promote to Dragon King on the last three ranks.
The Dragon King moves as a Rook or makes a 1,1 step.
The Queen moves as a Bishop or Rook.
The Flying Ox moves as a Bishop or a vertical Rook.
The Wizard moves as a Camel or Ferz. It may promote to Caliph on the last three ranks.
The Caliph moves as a Bishop or Camel.
The Wildebeest moves as a Knight or Camel. It may promote to Wildeguard on the last three ranks.
The Wildeguard moves as a Knight, Camel, or King.
The Silver Pashtun moves as a Elephant_Ferz or a forward Woody_Rook. It may promote to Silver_Rider on the last three ranks.
The Silver Rider moves as a Bishop or a forward Rook.
The Gold Pashtun moves as a Woody_Rook or a forward Elephant_Ferz. It may promote to Gold_Rider on the last three ranks.
The Gold Rider moves as a Rook or a forward Bishop.
The Marquis moves as a Knight or Wazir. It may promote to Squirrel on the last three ranks.
The Squirrel moves as a Knight or Alibaba.
The Ship makes a Ferz step and then slides vertically outward as a Rook. It may promote to Ostrich on the last three ranks.
The Ostrich makes a 2-2 leap, and may then continue its move by sliding away from its starting square as a rook.
The Snaketongue makes a vertical Wazir step and then slides outward as a Bishop. It may promote to Osprey on the last three ranks.
The Osprey makes a 2-0 leap, and may then continue its move by sliding away from its starting square as a bishop.
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 obento settings file for Obento Chess, which was made by Daniel Zacharias.
Game Courier was created, programmed and written by Fergus Duniho.
Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017
WWW Page Created: 15 August 2001