Apocalypse Chess

APOCALYPSE CHESS

Apocalypse Chess follows the standard chess rules with  only a few changes.

The goal is to eliminate all of 5 opponent’s pawns. You play on a smaller 5x5 board. 

Each of the team has 2 Knights (or Horsemen) on the corners of the board and 5 Pawns ( or Footmen). Yeah, there are 4 horses in an Apocaplypse Chess. Coincidence?

The variant is invented by C.S. Elliott in 1976: https://www.chessvariants.com/who/cselliott

Since Pawns don't move 2 squares in this variant, en passant is not a rule here.

Both players move simultaneously by secretly writing down their moves, then revealing and announcing them together at the same time.

If both players move the same pieces to the same square, both are eliminated the board.

They capture each other in a process. For example if they both play Nb3 as the first move, they will both lose that Knight (since there are no turns) and the position will be equal.

But, if both players move different pieces to the same square, the knight captures the pawn, I assume because it's the dominant piece and wins the square.

If a Pawn attempts a diagonal capture but the target piece moves away, the Pawn still moves diagonally, but it captures nothing. Since they move at the same time, both pieces survive.

If you try to make an illegal move, like moving your pawn forward because you expect your opponent to move a piece, but they don’t, making your move illegal, you get a penalty point. If you get 2 penalty points, you lose the game immediately.

For example, if I predict that my opponent will move the Knight on b2 the next move, my move - pawn to b2 would be legal and everything is ok.

But if Black ends up leaving the Knight on b2, I just made an illegal move since the square is not empty. As a result I get 1 penalty point and my pawn stays in b1 still.

1 more penalty point and the game is lost...

When your pawn reaches the last row, it can be promoted to a Knight, but only if you have fewer than 2 Knights already on the board.  

 If you have your both 2 Knights still in the game, you can move the promoted pawn in any empty sqare, except on the last row. 

 You also lose the game if you promote your last pawn.

Draw is very common in a scenario where 2 last pawns capture each other in the same move. 

There are so many rules that you have to keep in mind. You can lose if you promote the last pawn (you lose if you are left with 0 pawns) or you can get a penalty for wrong prediction the opponent's move...but at leat there in no en passant...so I guess it's pretty simple.

OFFICIAL APOCALYPSE CHESS PLATFORM ONLINE:

https://apocalypsechess-online.glitch.me/

 Youtube playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3fU0PtZ-Eg&list=PLdbEBZ1QmLZhULRGotREnqntoFmgQCbBl

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_(chess_variant)