This is Variant #11 of the Unban Series and the final installment in the Clobber Trilogy, which is a group of variants inspired by the original 2001 board game Clobber. Due to its complexity, the full rules for this variant are available here: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/how-to-play-yolanda-beginners-tutorial.
The variant is called Yolanda because it was inspired by the declined variant 'Yakuhana' by @Dan-kyu_system. It was initially called Yalanda (a play on the word "land", referencing the Crazyhouse gamerule) before its final name was chosen. While the original idea included grasshoppers and jump spells, the bugs with the jump spells led to the use of rooks instead. Setup Chess and a 6×6 board were considered, but both were found to reduce the quality of the gameplay.
Although it shares some surface similarities with Cloister, I believe Yolanda is a distinct and unique variant. According to @wolyn, who developed an analysis tool for it, Yellow has a very slight advantage, but probably not enough to render the variant unbalanced or unplayable.
Time Control: 1 | 2
High Hopes Alert: Yes
Description:
This is Variant #11 of the Unban Series and the final installment in the Clobber Trilogy, which is a group of variants inspired by the original 2001 board game Clobber. Due to its complexity, the full rules for this variant are available here: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/how-to-play-yolanda-beginners-tutorial.
The variant is called Yolanda because it was inspired by the declined variant 'Yakuhana' by @Dan-kyu_system. It was initially called Yalanda (a play on the word "land", referencing the Crazyhouse gamerule) before its final name was chosen. While the original idea included grasshoppers and jump spells, the bugs with the jump spells led to the use of rooks instead. Setup Chess and a 6×6 board were considered, but both were found to reduce the quality of the gameplay.
Although it shares some surface similarities with Cloister, I believe Yolanda is a distinct and unique variant. According to @wolyn, who developed an analysis tool for it, Yellow has a very slight advantage, but probably not enough to render the variant unbalanced or unplayable.
The 9 Official Testing Games: