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Hopper Chess

This page contains one or more presets for playing a game online with Game Courier, an online server for playing Chess variants by correspondence.

In Hopper Chess any piece (not pawn) situated in front of any friendly piece (including pawns) can use the latter as a springboard for hopping over an enemy pawn standing on the same file, provided that there are no pieces in between. The piece lands immediately behind the enemy pawn. Note that the King can also make such jumps. This piece movement is logical as the pawn chain functions similarly as a palisade. How to overcome such hindrances has always been a tactical problem in wartime, and is a notorious problem in chess. This chess variant introduces a new technique of solving this problem. A curious detail is that the King can give check to the enemy King by long distance. Despite these differences, the laws of chess are much the same in Hopper Chess as in regular chess.

The following preset makes a reasonably good validity check of hop moves, etc. Moves are automated, including castling and the 'en passant' move. Pieces can be moved by pointing and clicking. When promoting a pawn, it will automatically turn into a Queen. Should you prefer another piece then you must type it manually (e.g., add N a8; capture a7). Use small piece-letters for black. E-mails to your opponent are generated, but you can play online by intermittently pressing the browser's update button.

It's necessary to watch out for checks, because it's easy for the inexperienced to miss them. For instance, in an early stage, with pawns still on e2 and e7, if white moves his bishop to e3, this means that black's king is in check.



In this example black has just started
an attack on the king's wing by 5...g5
and now white can't play 6.Nxg5?
because then follows the hop move
6...Nxf1 and black is winning.


Hopper Chess (big graphics)

Hopper Chess (small graphics)



You can also download a Zillions implementation, and get
some more Hopper Chess examples, here.

See also my other Game Courier presets.





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By M Winther.
Web page created: 2006-06-11. Web page last updated: 2006-06-11