That's New

That's New

You've made it! Congratulations on making it to 2023! Every New Year feels like a time of new opportunity and adventure. So I decided to try a completely random and new chess variant that I never played before. And as I logged onto the lobby for variants, I saw a game of paradigm. I had no idea what paradigm was, so this game was to trying new things. 

The Game

Paradigm 30 has 30 different possible starting positions like in chess 180. But instead of having two bishops, they are replaced with dragon bishops. They can move like a bishop, but they can also move like a knight minus the ability to jump over pieces. This makes the dragon bishop a lot trickier, especially with my first game since I wasn't used to the unique movement. I was playing with the black pieces in a blitz 3 minute game with 2 second bonus time.

The starting position had the rooks and knights in their usual position, but the dragon bishop and queen had switched spots. I figured that I would try to stick with the fundamentals and try to play for control of the center of the board first and get good development.

In the following boards, the bishops will represent dragon bishops. 

The game begins with e4 and e5. White would bring out his knight to hit my pawn, and I would play Nf6. White then plays out his dragon bishop in a set up that is similar to an Italian game, except that the dragon bishop has a few more squares in its line of sight. White is able to castle quickly from this set up and get a solid start in development. 

The game would continue with me trying to destabilize the center of the board by playing out my flank pawn. But this is generally not a move you want to make since it weakens your king's potential to castle short and brings your queen out to the center of the board, making it vulnerable to attack. 

Now from the last position to the current position, a lot of dragony movement happened. I would move my dragon bishop from d8 to e6, and my opponent responded by bringing out his dragon to e3. I would decide to castle long and begin a massive attack on white's kingside, especially since I had pushed my f pawn. But in making my calculations, I had made one critical mistake. After moving my dragon bishop in an L, I forgot that white also has dragon bishops that move in an L. The result: I hung my queen. 

I trade my queen for one of white's dragon bishops. White plants a knight in the center of the board, resulting in a trade. I would then rotate my knight to hit white's dragon bishop. In paradigm, the dragon bishop is definitely worth a lot more than a knight, so white falls back. I try to develop my other dragon bishop while white plays a4, beginning an attack on my king. 

White move their queen out of danger and continues to push the a pawn. I decide to also put pressure by pushing my g pawn and centralizing my knight, still looking to take out the dragon knight. I also want to potentially rotate my rook to the kingside and open the g and h file. White is able to get their pawn to the second rank, but I wasn't too concerned because I would use the pawn as an umbrella and close off white's pieces from any infiltration. 

I would bring my dragon bishop to f4, looking to push my h pawn, but white would respond immediately by playing f3. We would exchange pawns, but I would drop my knight back, as I didn't want to trade pieces down a queen's worth of material. I would hit the dragon bishop. Notice also that my dragon has a line of sight on the rook. I'm still not sure how a dragon bishop lines up against a rook and whether it is a beneficial trade. But white prevents such trades by offering a trade of dragon bishops, which I decline by moving my dragon back to e6. 

The game would continue with me trying to offer a trade of dragon bishops, but I would miss white's fork on my rooks. At this point, we are both at around 20 seconds, but this could easily be made up with the bonus time and quick moves. I would first trade the dragon bishops out of panic from seeing the fork and fall even lower in terms of material.