A Game Courier Preset for Takeover Chess in 64 Squares

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Takeover Chess in 64 Squares

Enforces rules, but does not display legal moves.

Welcome to Game Courier, where you can play Takeover Chess in 64 Squares and many other Chess variants through online correspondence.

Rules for Takeover Chess by Tony Quintanilla

King	Queen	Rook	Bishop	Knight	Mirror-Knight	Pawn

The main variant of Takeover Chess is played on a 41-square board. This variation is played on a standard 64-square chess board.

Takeover Chess is played like FIDE Chess with the following exceptions.

During any turn any piece may make either a normal replacement capture or a "takeover" capture. 

Except for the Knight and Mirror-Knight, a takeover is done by jumping over an opposing piece along the line of movement, so long as there is no intervening piece and there is an adjacent empty square on the other side along the same line of movement.  

Once the Queen, Rook, or Bishop has jumped over the opponent's piece, it may keep moving, so long as there is no other piece in the way, and it has not reached the end of the board. Variation: do not allow this continuing move.

Either a replacement capture or a takeover capture may be done in a single turn, except for the Knights, which may do both. Any piece may be "taken over", except for the opponent's King. 

The Knight is distinguished in that there are two types of Knights: the Knight proper and the Mirror-Knight. The difference is that the Knight first moves orthogonally one square then diagonally one square but the Mirror-Knight first moves diagonally then orthogonally. The takeover capture is done by jumping over an opposing piece in the first square and taking over that piece. If the second square is also occupied by an opposing piece, that piece is also captured by replacement. Thus, the Knight, along with the Mirror-Knight, is unique in that it can capture two pieces in the same move. 

The King may make a takeover capture if the taken over piece is not defended, and the King would not be in check upon completing the jump. Variation: Instead of just the King, all pieces may make a takeover capture only if the taken over piece is not defended.

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 Alfaerie settings file for Takeover Chess in 64 Squares, which was made by Antoine Fourrière.

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

Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017