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Closing Time. During certain turns, you must move pieces out of a central area of the board (`the pub'). (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

George Duke wrote on Wed, Jan 5, 2005 08:04 PM UTC:

No. No. e4-e5 is legal. Betza refers to a King checked in Pub moving to
another of the eight Pub squares, when Pub closed, rather than having to
move out of it; presumably others can (occasionally)move within the 8
squares too. Mostly they would be busy having to move out. Betza intends
that e4-e5 become 'illegal' when another move is required, namely a
pawn's or piece's moving out of the eight squares on Move 8-9-10, or the
usual getting King out of check from any square. Betza could explain
this better, but he always got carried by his ideas.
Is it required? I don't think Betza intends e4-e5 followed by e5-e6 to be
required even though this version has Pub closed for three moves in a row.
Both questions point to lack of clarity in the description.
Betza says here 'A Chess Variant Tournament played with randomly
chosen games which are less often played would take away the advantage of
specialists.' Interesting: there's more than one way to skin a cat,
i.e. pick games for tournaments, than stuffing the ballot box.