Gentlemen's Chess

Gentlemen's Chess (or "No Trading Chess") is a chess variant in which you can only capture completely unprotected pieces. These rules prevent amateur players from capturing a protected piece of equal value and essentially "trading" the pieces. Gentlemen's chess therefore is a more elegant way of playing chess because a player must form a defense of pieces that are all protected by one another, and at the same time try to exploited the other players defense by capturing unprotected pieces. To avoid crowding, pawns can move one square in all 8 directions as long as they only capture in the normal fashion. This concept of "no trading" provides more safety for moving pieces and encourages creative and elegant checkmates.

Gentlemen's Chess was invented and tested in 2004 by Vincent Collins, Clarence Sng and Matt Hamm who were students of the University of British Columbia. The original rules neglected the pawns ability to move in 8 directions. As a result, the games played with the original "No Trading Chess" rules took too much time due to pawn impasse.

Protection

Protection of pieces exists in the same form as normal chess. However, this third diagram merely illustrates a technicality of this variant in which friendly pieces can protect one another from a "capturing piece" in the way. All pieces on this board are protected including white's queen who is protected by the castle sitting behind the threatening black castle.

See also

Game with similar game strategy:
Patrol Chess

External links

* [http://www.ams.ubc.ca/clubs/chess/index.html# UBC Chess Club]