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Pocket Mutation Chess

Pocket Mutation Chess by Michael Nelson

Pieces

Players begin with the usual Chess array, but, as described in the rules, may change their pieces to other types. Aside from the King, the pieces fall into eight classes. This table organizes the pieces by class, giving the notation for each piece and a quick indication of how compound pieces move. Also, piece names were chosen to make it easy to tell how a piece moves. All you need to remember are the names of the regular chess pieces, the names of some common fairy chess pieces, the Super prefix, and the Rider suffix. The common fairy pieces are Nightrider, Chancellor, Cardinal, and Amazon. The Nightrider makes successive Knight moves in the same direction until it is blocked or captures a piece. The others are compounds. The Super prefix means that a piece also moves as a King. The Rider suffix means that it also moves as a Nightrider.

Class 1	Class 2	Class 3	Class 4	Class 5	Class 6	Class 7	Class 8
Pawn (P)	Knight (N)	Rook (R)	Cardinal (A=B+N)	Queen (Q=B+R)	ChancellorRider (F=R+I)	Amazon (T=Q+N)	AmazonRider (Z=Q+I)
	Bishop (B)	Nightrider (I)	SuperRook (G=R+K)	Chancellor (M=R+N)	SuperChancellor (W=R+N+K)	SuperChancellorRider (H=R+I+K)
		SuperBishop (D=B+K)		CardinalRider (U=B+I)	SuperCardinalRider (X=B+I+K)
				SuperCardinal (V=B+N+K)

Rules

All FIDE Chess rules apply except as follows:

Each player has a "pocket" in which at most one piece may be kept. At the start of the game, each player's pocket is empty.
If a player's pocket is empty, the player may remove any of his pieces (except his King) from the board and put it in his pocket as a move. White may not use the pocket on the first move.
If the piece put in the pocket was removed from its owner's first through seventh ranks, it remains the same value class, but may may optionally mutate into a different piece of that class. This must be done immediately upon putting the piece into the pocket.
If the piece put into the pocket was removed from its owner's eighth rank, it promotes to the next higher value class (except the AmazonRider--there is no higher value class). The exact piece promoted to is chosen immediately. There is no other form of promotion is this game: a pawn moved to the eight rank remains a pawn until it is pocketed and promoted.
If the player has a piece in his pocket, he may drop that piece on any empty square as his move, except he may not drop the piece on the eight rank.
There is no castling in this game.
A pawn on the first rank cannot take a double step; a pawn on the second rank can take a double step, whether it is on its original square, was dropped on the second rank, or moved up from the first rank. En passant applies as usual.
The game is drawn if fifty consecutive moves have elapsed without a capture or a promotion.

Notation

Game Courier expects moves to be entered in an explicit algebraic style. You should include at least the origin and destination of each move, separated by a hyphen, as in "e2-e4". You may also include the piece notation before the move, as in "P e2-e4". You should use uppercase letters for White and lowercase letters for Black.

This preset uses the location p1 for White's pocket and p8 for Black's pocket. To move a piece to the pocket, just move it as you would to any other position. To change the piece, follow the move by adding a new piece to the space. For example, "R a1-p1; I-p1". You may drop pieces from your pocket by using the * operator. For example, "I*c5". Since this preset automatically enforces the rules, you can do en passant simply by moving your Pawn. If it is a legal en passant move, your opponent's Pawn will be automatically captured.

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 Alfaerie-fpd settings file for Pocket Mutation Chess, which was made by Fergus Duniho.

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.