The Pit

Introduction

The Pit is a chess variant using a nonstandard board and several faery chess pieces. It is invented by myself for the 84 square contest. It contains a 10x10 chessbord missing the 16 center squares. These missing squares are named The Pit. Some pieces are improves because in their base form they are too weak. These pieces was the knight and the bishop. Both are too move restricted on the The Pit board and due the fact that the pawns got stronger due their ability to sidestep. I made the knight stronger by adding the rook move to it and made the bishop stronger by adding the knight move to it.

Setup

Diagram of the initial game board. The Pit Setup

The big center square is called The Pit and it is forbidden to access it. Only the Sorceror and in some degree the knightlike pieces can jump over it.

Pawns	on second (white) and ninth (black) row
Rook (R)	a1 j1 (white); a10 j10 (black)
Cavalier (C)	b1 i1 (white); b10 i10 (black)
Hero (H)	c1 h1 (white); c10 h10 (black)
Sorceror (S)	d1 g1 (white); d10 g10 (black)
Queen (Q)	e1 (white); e10 (black)
King (K)	f1 (white); f10 (black)

Diagram techniques:

Pieces

A listing of the pieces used. For each piece the following information is listed:

The graphic used to represent the piece
The name of the piece with his corresponding letter.
The movement of piece

		Pawn	The pawn moves like the standard chess pawn but it can now make sideway step like the chinese pawn. Capturing is still like the standard pawn. En passant is possible if the pawn is advancing 2 squares ahead but not if the pawn is performing a dual side step. Note: Pawns on the third (white) and eighth (black) row can perform dual sidesteps.
		Rook (R)	The rook moves like the standard rook in FIDE chess.
		Hero (H)	The hero is nothing more than a rook and a knight in one piece. It is known as marshall too.
		Cavalier (C)	The cavalier moves like a bishop or like a knight. It is known as cardinal also.
		Sorceror (S)	The Sorceror moves like a king or jump to a square that is 5 squares horizontally, vertically or diagonally away from the starting square. (Something like a queen jumping 5 squares.) This is the only piece being able to cross the The Pit.
		Queen (Q)	The queen is the same one used in FIDE chess.
		King (K)	The king operates as in standard chess with the exception that castling is not allowed.

Rules

All rules are like FIDE Chess with the following exceptions:

Castling is not possible and is in this game senseless.
Pawns can move sideway and can perform a dual sidestep on the third (white) or eighth (black) row.
En passanting of a dual sidestepping pawn is not allowed.

Playing Tips

It is very difficult to checkmate with a bare cavalier and king versus a king. It is easier to checkmate with a King and a Sorceror.

Equipment

You need a 10x10 chessboard and cover the 16 center squares. And you need 2 additional pawns and 2 additional figures per side representing the Sorcerors.

Sample Game

There are some sample save files of several games inside the zip file containing this file.

Contact

If you have some question then mail me please at silberstern@gmx.net

Last modified: Friday, October 11, 2002