McCooey’s Half-Random Chess
The rules of McCooey’s Half-Random Chess are identical to the rules of McCooey’s Chess and the only difference is that initial position of all pieces except pawns, is set up randomly with only one restriction:
1.) three bishops on each side must be placed on hexagons of three different colors.
The pawns are placed exactly like in McCooey’s Chess.
The total number of possible starting positions in McCooey’s Half-Random Chess is 23,619,600 and 4,860 of them are symmetrical.
On each side the position of only four pieces is determined randomly but separately and differently for each player, meaning that the position of pieces are no longer symmetrical and mirrored to each other. Those pieces are three Bishops and one Rook (picture McCHRC 01). It is possible to get identical random positions for both players of course.
On each side the position of only four pieces is determined randomly but separately and differently for each player, meaning that the position of pieces are no longer symmetrical and mirrored to each other like in McCooey's Chess or GMcCooey's Random Chess. Those pieces are three Bishops and one Rook (picture GHRC 01). It is possible to get identical random positions for both players of course. For the positions bellow, I used exactly the same method like I used for McCooey's Random Chess.
picture McCHRC 01
After both players placed their Bishops and one Rook at different random positions, the rest of the pieces are placed manually. White first places one of the remaining pieces (remaining Rook, two Knights, King and Queen) on the first rank, and then Black does the same. The players freely decide in which order they are going to place their remaining pieces. On picture McCHRC 02, we can see that White placed his King to the safest position, at hexagon f1, but Black answered with Queen at e10. On picture McCHRC 03, we can see that White placed his second Rook at e1 and Black replied with King at f11. On pictures McCHRC 04, McCHRC 05 and McCHRC 06 we can see the further development of the starting position setup. I borrowed notation system from Crazyhouse chess variant for the manual placement of pieces.
1. K@f1 Q@e10
picture McCHRC 02
2. R@e1 K@f11
picture McCHRC 03
3. N@f2 R@d9
picture McCHRC 04
4. N@g2 N@e9
picture McCHRC 05
4. Q@g1 N@h9
picture McCHRC 06
After all the pieces are on hexagonal chessboard, the game proceeds in the usual way according to the rules of McCooey’s Chess.
McCooey’s Random Chess
The rules of McCooey’s Random Chess are identical to the rules of McCooey’s Chess and the only difference is that initial position of all pieces except pawns, is set up randomly with two restrictions:
1.) three bishops on each side must be placed on hexagons of three different colors
2.) positions of pieces must be symmetrical and mirror images to each other.
The pawns are placed exactly as in McCooey’s Chess, but all other pieces are placed randomly. For this reason, the total number of possible starting positions is 4,860! This means that players can only rely on their intelligence, creativity and experience as they always play very different games. At the moment there is of course, no software with which the random starting position can be set. Therefore I use the random number generator method which I will describe here. The random number generators are easily available on the Internet today. Here I give an example of how to get random positions with the random number generator. At the beginning, the pawns are placed on both sides at their regular places, as in picture McCRC 01.
picture McCRC 01
The Bishops should be placed first so I decided to place Bishops that are placed at hexagons of their own color first: white bishops that need to be placed at light (white) hexagons and black bishops that need to be placed at black (dark) hexagons. There are three such possible hexagons on both sides so I used range from 1 to 3 and generated random number using random number generator. I counted hexagons the same way we read in English, from left to right and from top to bottom. I got number 2 and placed first white Bishop at g3 and mirrored that with black Bishop at g9. Look bellow at picture McCRC 02.
picture McCRC 02
Then I used the same method to place bishops at mid-tone hexagons, and after that, at hexagons of the opposite color of the player’s, white Bishops at dark (black) hexagons and black Bishops at light (white) hexagons. I’ve used range from 1 to 3 again to place bishops at mid-tone hexagons because there are 3 such hexagons on both sides. I got number 3 once again and placed bishop at e1 and mirrored that position for black bishop at e10 (picture McCRC 03).
picture McCRC 03
For the third bishop I again used the same range and got number 3 this time. Consequently, I placed last bishops at h1 and h9 (picture McCRC 04).
picture McCRC 04
Next I decided to place Knights, but I could have chosen a remaining Rook instead or even the King and Queen, as players can freely choose the order in which they randomly place their figures once the bishops were placed first. However, it would be best to place pieces in this order: the Bishops, remaining Rook and Nights in whatever order, and then the Queen and the King. For the first Knight there were 6 available hexagons left, so I used range from 1 to 6 and got number 4 and placed first Knight at f2 and f10 (picture McCRC 05). I repeated the same method with the second Knight but this time searching for random number between 1 and 5 (picture McCRC 06). I continued using the same the method and got position for first Rook (picture McCRC 07).
picture McCRC 05
picture McCRC 06
picture McCRC 07
Finally, I placed the rest of pieces repeating the above described method (pictures McCRC 08, McCRC 09 and McCRC 10 ).
picture McCRC 08
picture McCRC 09
picture McCRC 10
After getting initial position of all pieces (three Bishops, two Rooks, two Knights, Queen and King) this way, the game continues normally according to the rules of McCooey’s Chess.