All the Way Chess

In early 2001, Ralph Betza developed Halfling Chess and Halfchess, where the pieces are limited to approximately half the range of their FIDE counterparts. In these variants (and related ones), moving a piece to an edge is harder than moving to the middle of the board. I wanted a variant with an opposite effect, where moving to an edge would be easier than moving to the middle. Also, instead of Halfling pieces weakened by a short range, I wanted "Giant" pieces limited to only long-range moves. So I decided to require each piece as far as possible in its chosen direction. Thus was born "All the Way Chess".

(Then I discovered that Ralph Betza had already invented the type of pieces I have in this variant. See his Anti-Rider page.)

Click below to display piece moves:
Pawn (a2-h2; a7-h7)
Knight (b1,g1; b8,g8)
Bishop (c1,f1; c8,f8)
Rook (a1,h1; a8,h8)
Queen (d1; d8)
King (e1; e8)

Rules

In All the Way Chess, any Rook, Bishop or Queen must go the maximum number of squares allowed by orthodox chess ("all the way") in the direction the player chooses to move it. (For example, a Rook at b2 on an empty board can move only to a2, h2, b1 or b8. If the board has an enemy piece at b6 and a friendly piece at g2, the Rook at b2 can move only to a2, f2, b1 or b6.) In Ralph Betza's Anti-rider terminology, each Rook is an AntiRook1, each Bishop is an AntiBishop1, and each Queen is an AntiQueen1. Also, when a Pawn can move forward two spaces, then the player cannot move it forward just one space -- the Pawn too must go "all the way". Everything else is as in orthodox chess.

ZRF-file

Here's a Zillions of Games implementation of All the Way Chess: AllTheWay.zrf. The file contains "All the Way" versions of other chess variants, including All The Way Extinction Chess and All the Way Kinglet Chess.

Written by: Doug Chatham.

WWW page created: June 18, 2001.