Displacement Chess 2 - The Natural Evolution of Chess!

During the early 1900's, some highly regarded players experimented with various starting positions including asymmetrical configurations. Known collectively as Displacement Chess, they were consigned to be forgotten in the dustbin of history.
In the new millennium, Displacement Chess 2 revives these extraordinary ideas by using the earliest asymmetrical forms and combining them with a new castling system to produce an exciting dynamic chess experience.

The game is identical to orthodox chess except for following:

The game in a nutshell
• The board is setup using either position #1 or #2. Either White's or Black's king and queen are interchanged.
• Castling rules are extended to allow a side to move the king from 1-3 spaces towards the rook, and the rook ending up adjacent to the king on the other side. This choice of castling positions allows the side to choose between immediate king safety or immediate offense of a centralized rook.

That's it! Clearly, this is the most logical step in chess's evolution involving very few changes. Even more so than Fischer Random because it preserves the same start squares for bishops, rooks and knights, and does not completely throw out opening theory.

Board Setup

	Displacement Chess Start Board #1 Coordinates for White: Rooks on a1,h1 knights on b1,g1 bishops on c1, f1 queen on d1 king on e1 Coordinates for Black: Rooks on a8,h8 knights on b8,g8 bishops on c8, f8 queen on e8 king on d8
	Displacement Chess Start Board #2 Coordinates for white: Rooks on a1,h1 knights on b1,g1 bishops on c1, f1 queen on e1 king on d1 Coordinates for black: Rooks on a8,h8 knights on b8,g8 bishops on c8, f8 queen on d8 king on e8

Rules

The rules are identical to rules of Chess except for board setup above and for castling. The same criteria for castling apply but instead of just two, there are 5 castling positions, The positions below are for board #1. The castling positions for board 2 are similar and can be deduced.

1. One Step K-Side Castling
   White moves king from e1-f1 and rook from h1-e1
   Black moves king from d8-c8 and rook from a8-d8
2. One Step Q-side Castling
   White moves king from e1-d1 and rook from a1-e1
   Black moves king from d8-e8 and rook from h8-d8
3. Two Step K-Side Castling
   White moves king from e1-g1 and rook from h1-f1
   Black moves king from d8-b8 and rook from a8-c8
4. Two Step Q-Side Castling
   White moves king from e1-c1 and rook from a1-d1
   Black moves king from d8-f8 and rook from h8-e8
5. Three Step Q-side Castling
   White moves king from e1 to b1 and rook from a1-c1
   Black moves king from d8-g1 and rook from h8-f8.

Displacement Chess Tournament

As mentioned in "Popular Chess Variants" by David Pritchard, a correspondence tournament of displacement chess was organized in 1935 by P.Keres.
Keres finished second in this event that featured whites king and queen interchanged as in Board #2. Castling was the usual two step K or Q side variety.
Below is a game in that event won by H.Muller:

Position after move 22.Rxc3 Now comes Rxb3! Game taken from "Popular Chess Variants" by David Pritchard

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Bg5 c5 5.e3 Nc6 6. Bb5 cxd4 7.exd4 Be7 8.Qe2 Bd7 9. 0-0 0-0 10. Rad1 a6 11. Bd3 b5 12. a3 b4 13. axb4 Nxb4 14. Ne5 Rb8 15. Kg1 Qc7 16. b3 Be8 17. Qf3 Bb5! 18. Nxb5 axb5 19.Re3 Nxd3 20.Rdxd3 b4 21. c4? bxc3 22. Rxc3 Rxb3! see diagram 23.g4 Rxc3 24. Rxc3 Qd6 25. Bf4 Ne4 26. Ng6 fxg6    If now 27. Bxd6 Rxf3   28. Rxf3 Nxd6   and the white d-pawn falls. { White Resigns }

Play the game!

Why wait? Dig right in, discover more and play the game!

You can register for free at chessvariants.org to play this game as well as thousands of different chess variants. Click on links below to go there.

Click here to play Displacement Chess 2 Board 1

Click here to play Displacement Chess 2 Board 2

View Game Logs for Displacement Chess 2

Download Zillions of Games File

---