Dark Chess
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Dark Chess is a chess variant with incomplete information, similar to Kriegspiel. It was invented by Jens Baek Nielsen and Torben Osted in 1989. You don't see all enemy pieces. You see only positions attacked by your pieces, or positions where your pawns can go.
The goal of this chess variant is not to checkmate the king, but to capture it. You are not told if your king is in check. If you don't move it out of check or put it into check yourself, your opponent can capture it and win the game.
En-passant capture is allowed, even if you do not see that it is possible. Unlike standard chess, castling is allowed even out of check, into check and through the positions attacked by opponent pieces.
This chess variant is best played on online chess servers. There are some minor differences in the rules on different servers:
- BrainKing (http://www.brainking.com): pawn promotions remain unknown for the opponent.
- ItsYourTurn (http://www.itsyourturn.com): the opponent knows that a pawn was promoted, but doesn't know where.
- SchemingMind (http://www.schemingmind.com): you don't see what is in front of your pawns, but know if the position is occupied or not.
SchemingMind also provides some more variations of Dark Chess:
- Dark Chess (checkmate) - you are notified that your king is in check and you can't move your king into check. The goal in this variation is the same as in standard chess - to checkmate the king.
- Dark Crazyhouse - combination of Crazyhouse and Dark Chess.
- Dark Suicide - combination of Suicide and Dark Chess.
Dark Chess has a strong strategic flavor with luck playing a role, although not a very significant one. Planning and strategy, as well as some psychological reasoning, are very important; tactics and move searching are not.
In this chess variant a king should be carefully protected from very dangerous checks by invisible pieces. For a queen the most dangerous pieces are knights, which can attack it without becoming visible.
External links
- Dark Chess | Chess Variant Pages (http://www.chessvariants.com/incinf.dir/darkness.html)
- Dark Chess Variants | Chess Variant Pages (http://www.chessvariants.com/incinf.dir/darkvariants.html)
- Dark Chess | Zillions Of Games (http://www.zillions-of-games.com/cgi-bin/zilligames/submissions.cgi/62549?do=show;id=201)