Check out Grant Acedrex, our featured variant for April, 2024.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Single Comment

Time Travel Chess. Pieces can travel into the Future. Kings can also return to the Past! (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jeremy Good wrote on Wed, Apr 4, 2007 05:53 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

A brilliant game, one of my favorites.

Time Travel Chess can be very sharp.

I suspect time travel must be entered into only extremely sparingly and at very decisive moments. Time Travel can be very fatal or debilitating.

There are three rules you must constantly, constantly bear in mind (like guarding against nightrider forks, they require constant vigilance).

(1) One is that pieces are lost in time if compelled by check to play a different move. One problem with this is that if you time travel with a major piece, your opponent might be able to frivolously check you with a minor piece right before the major piece is destined to arrive, causing you to lose at least an exchange.

(2) A piece can not be lost in time if there is a possible move. That allows your opponent to snatch pieces and / or pawns right before your time traveling piece is destined to arrive. With no recourse.

(3) When time traveling into the past, you must remember that your entire game will become twice as vulnerable if you have two times as many royal pieces that can be checkmated. I think I may have discovered a possible loophole to this, but if so, that will be saved for a later comment. So time traveling into the past may save you from a losing position, but it's usually a desperate measure.

I think the rule of thumb when time traveling into the future is this: Try to make sure that what you are threatening with the returning piece is likely to be greater than what is going to be threatened right before your piece returns.