Chessgi is a hybrid of Chess and Shogi. It has been reinvented many times, and Ralph Betza is responsible for naming it Chessgi. It is basically Chess with the addition of drops from Shogi. Whenever you capture a piece, you replace it with the same piece of your own color, and you hold it in hand with the option to drop it on a subsequent turn. If you have any pieces in hand, you may use your turn to drop a piece on an empty square. This counts as your full turn. You may not move a piece and drop a piece on the same turn. Any Pawn on the second rank has the option of a double move. Although Chessgi is intended as a hybrid of Chess and Shogi, the rules of Chessgi differ from Shogi in some notable respects. Promoted pieces remain promoted when captured. They do not demote back to Pawns. Pawn drops are less restricted than in Shogi. Pawns may be dropped on any empty square except those on the last rank, and a dropped Pawn is allowed to checkmate.
The same ZRF includes the game Shatranji, invented by myself, which is a hybrid of Shatranj and Shogi. Shatranj is an early Chess variant that is included in the Zillions Fairy Chess ZRF. Shatranji is just like Chessgi except for being based on Shatranj rather than Chess. I invented the game, because a Shogi-like game may work better with weaker pieces, and some of the pieces in Shatranj are weaker than their counterparts in Chess.
The image below is from a Chessgi game I won against Zillions. The ZRF gives you the option of four different piece sets. These include the abstract set pictured with Mortal Chessgi, the magnetic set I included with Magnetic Chess, the motif set pictured with Crazyhouse, and the default Zillions set. Only the abstract set includes specially designed pieces for Shatranji.
For more games by Fergus Duniho, goto http://www.duniho.com/fergus/games |
