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The Rules of Wildebeest Chess
R. Wayne Schmittberger's Wildebeest Chess is played like Chess with a couple additional pieces, a larger board, and some rule changes.
The Camel is a color-bound leaper that can leap to any space that is one rank and three files or one file and three ranks away, passing over any intervening pieces.
The Wildebeest can leap as a Camel or as a Knight.
While on its own side of the board, a Pawn may move straightforward across any number of empty spaces, so long as it still stays on its own side of the board. So, it may move 2 or 3 spaces from its initial position, or 2 spaces from the next rank. Any time a Pawn makes an extended move, a Pawn that could have captured it on one of the spaces it just passed over may immediately capture it by en passant. In doing do, the capturing Pawn moves to the space it could have captured the passing Pawn on if it had moved a shorter distance.
On reaching the last rank, a Pawn may promote to a Queen or a Wildebeest, but not to any other piece.
A King may castle by moving any number of spaces toward the Rook. All usual castling conditions apply, and the Rook moves to the space next to the King on its other side.
The game is won through either checkmating or stalemating your opponent. Stalemate is not a draw in this game.
How to Move
Wildebeest Chess has been programmed to display legal moves, to complete castling and en passant moves, and to prompt you about what you want to promote a Pawn to. To see a piece's legal moves, select it by clicking on it (or touching it if you're using a touchscreen device). To move to one of these spaces, select the box displayed on it. To stop displaying the legal moves for a piece without moving it, select the same piece again. It is also possible to move by entering full algebraic notation in the Moves field. You may notice that when you click or touch pieces, it is doing this for you, since it is actually the value of this field that determines your move.
To castle, just make one half of the castling move. Move your King or Rook to a space it will end up on after castling, such that this space is one it could not otherwise legally move to. So, if the castling move involves moving the King two or more spaces, move the King to the appropriate space, and the Rook will automatically move to the other side of the King. But if the castling move involves moving the King only one space toward the Rook, move the Rook to the space it will occupy, which will be the King's space, and the King will automatically move one space toward where the Rook was.
To make an en passant move, just move your Pawn to the space it should go to. The other Pawn will be captured automatically.
When you move a Pawn to the last rank without indicating what you want to promote it to, you will be prompted to select the piece you want to promote to. To indicate the piece via notation, enter a semicolon after your Pawn move, and follow it with the label of the piece to promote to, a hyphen, and the location of the Pawn. For example, "p e2-e1; w-e1" or "P e9-e10; Q-dest". Note that dest is a keyword that contains the location of the last space a piece moved to.
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 Wildebeest Chess, which was made by Fergus Duniho.
Game Courier was created, programmed and written by Fergus Duniho.
Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017
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.