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This page is written by both of the game's inventors, Peter Aronson and George Duke.

Complete Permutation Chess

Peter Aronson and George William Duke

Introduction

In Tutti-Frutti Chess, Ralph Betza and Philip Cohen combined on an 8x8 board all possible combinations of the three basic moves of Chess (ignoring the Pawns and the King): the Knight's, the Bishop's and the Rook's, resulting in a game with 8 different pieces on the back row (counting the King). In Falcon Chess, George Duke added the new piece, the Falcon, the complement to the moves of the Bishop, Rook and Knight. In his Double Chess, David Short placed a Chess variant on an 16x8 board. If you combine the fourth component supplied by the Falcon with the logic of Tutti-Frutti Chess, and put it on the Double Chess board, you get Complete Permutation Chess. Every possible combination of the four components is present, yielding a back row with 16 different unique pieces counting the King.

Setup

Note that pieces other than the Falcon itself that contain a Falcon's move are refered to as "Winged", so a piece that could move like a Falcon or a Rook would be a "Winged Rook" and represented below by the symbol WR.

+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ 8 |wq |:f:| b |wb:| m |:q:|wc |wa:| k |:a:|wn |wr:| c |:n:| r |wm:| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ 7 |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:| p |:p:| p | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ 6 | |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ 5 |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ 4 | |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ 3 |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ 2 | P |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| P |:P:| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ 1 |WQ:| F |:B:|WB |:M:| Q |WC:|WA |:K:| A |WN:|WR |:C:| N |:R:|WM | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p

White: King (K): i1; Winged Queen (WQ): a1; Falcon (F): b1; Bishop (B): c1; Winged Bishop (WB): d1; Marshal (M): e1; Queen (Q): f1; Winged Cardinal (WC): g1; Winged Amazon (WA): h1; Amazon (A): j1; Winged Knight (WN): k1; Winged Rook (WR): l1; Cardinal (C): m1; Knight (N): n1; Rook (R): o1; Winged Marshal (WM): p1; Pawns (P): a2 b2 c2 d2 e2 f2 g2 h2; Pawns (P): i2 j2 k2 l2 m2 n2 o2 p2

Black

King (k): i8

Winged Queen (wq): a8

Falcon (f): b8

Bishop (b): c8

Winged Bishop (wb): d8

Marshal (m): e8

Queen (q): f8

Winged Cardinal (wc): g8

Winged Amazon (wa): h8

Amazon (a): j8

Winged Knight (wn): k8

Winged Rook (wr): l8

Cardinal (c): m8

Knight (n): n8

Rook (r): o8

Winged Marshal (wm): p8

Pawns (p): a7 b7 c7 d7 e7 f7 g7 h7

Pawns (p): i7 j7 k7 l7 m7 n7 o7 p7

The Pieces

A King can move one or two squares in any straight line, or may move like a Mao (one square left, right, up or down followed by a diagonal outward move), but never to or through a square where it can be captured. In the following diagram, the numbers in black circles (or underlines) show the first step the King takes. If that marked square is empty and unattacked, then the King can continue on to any of the other squares with the same number.

+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | |:1:| 2 |:2:| 2 |:3:| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |:::| 8 |:1:| 2 |:3:| 4 |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | |:8:| 8 |:K:| 4 |:4:| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |:::| 8 |:7:| 6 |:5:| 4 |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | |:7:| 6 |:6:| 6 |:5:| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

A King that has not yet moved may swap position with any friendly back rank piece that has also not moves, assuming:

The King is not attacked,
All of the squares between the King and the piece are not attacked and are empty, and
The target square is not attacked.

Pawns move and capture as in FIDE Chess, including the double move and en passant capture. Promotion is different, being very much like that used in Grand Chess. Pawns may promote on reaching the 7th rank to any previously captured friendly piece. Upon reaching the 8th rank they must so promote. Special Mental Cruelity Rule: If a Pawn reaches the 8th rank, and the owning play has no lost pieces to promote to, then the Pawn's owning player loses immeadiately.

The remaining pieces move like a Falcon (see below), a Knight, a Bishop, a Rook or some combination of those four pieces. Any piece prefixed with the term "Winged" moves like a Falcon in addition to its other moves, so a Winged Rook moves like a Falcon or a Rook. Some standard names are used for combinations of Knight, Bishop and Rook moves.

A Cardinal moves like a Bishop or a Knight.
A Marshal moves like a Rook or a Knight.
An Amazon moves like a Knight, Bishop or Rook.

These combination pieces can combine with the Falcon, leading, for example, to such pieces as the Winged Amazon.

The move of the Falcon is described in detail on the Falcon Chess page. To describe in brief, the Falcon slides by three different paths to each square three squares away not reachable by a Queen (the squares leapt to by a Zebra or a Camel). All of these paths consist of two orthogonal moves and one diagonal move, or two diagonal moves and one orthogonal move in the patterns: OOD, ODO, DOO, DDO, DOD and ODD.

Variant

In a variation of Complete Permutation Chess, the large number of Pawns (sixteen) calls for a special new rule. A player has the option on any turn to move any two Pawns. In other words, a turn consists of either moving a piece, or of moving a Pawn, or of moving two different Pawns according to their normal rules of movement. It should be specified which Pawn moves first in the rare cases that makes a difference. (For example, one's own King cannot even momentarily be in check.) Thus strengthening the Pawns should substitute for 7th rank promotion rule. No 7th rank promotion when using the two-pawn move rule, but Mental Cruelty Rule still holds.

Notes and Comments

The original name of this game was Tutti-Frutti-Falcon-Utti Chess, but George Duke felt the name rather lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, so Complete Permutation Chess -- which was felt to be more descriptive -- was selected instead.

This game is extremely violent. Since there is so much material, to a large extent position matters more than material.

Falcon Chess is the game of George William Duke, protected by United States Patent 5690334, which also covers this game, as it does any other game that is a superset of Falcon Chess.

Thanks to John Lawson for playtesting, feedback, and for suggesting the Mental Cruelity Rule.

Written by Peter Aronson and George William Duke.

WWW page created: September 20th, 2003.