Olympic Chess

Olympic Chess is a Chess variant for 2 players, where the pieces you capture can be dropped back onto the board, to strengthen your own army, like in Bughouse. This requires them to change color. To make that possible only half the pieces of a regular Chess set are used, and the other half will be corralled in a 'stock' next to the board. When you capture a piece, it goes into the stock on your side of the board (which thus consists of opponent pieces), but the opponent will have to hand you the corresponding piece from the stock he controls, to be put in your 'hand' (put next to the stock you control).

Such pieces of your own color next to your stock can be dropped on an empty square of the board, instead of making a normal move. There is no obligation to do that on the first opportunity; you can stockpile as many pieces as you want, and drop them onto the board when you see fit. There is only one restriction: you cannot put a plain Pawn on the last rank, because it would have no moves there. (But you can put it on the first rank, if you want.)

Because half the pieces have to be kept in stock to allow for the color changing, the board is only 5x5 squares. For each side it initially contains a King (which does not have to be in stock, as it cannot be captured), a Rook, a Bishop, a Pawn and to 'laureled Pawns', Silver and Gold. The latter are Pawns put on a pedestal, built from one or two Checkers, respectively. All pieces move as in orthodox Chess, except that Pawns have no initial double push (and hence can also never be e.p. captured), and there is no castling.

Initial setup

Gold and Silver Pawns have extra moves, though: Gold moves (and captures) as a King, except that it can not move diagonally backwards. Silver moves like a King, except that it cannot go straight back or sideways (so it can go one step diagonally in all directions, plus straight forward).

When a Pawn reaches te last rank, it promotes to Gold. This is indicated by slipping two Checkers underneath it, so it looks similar to the Gold you started with. When a Silver reaches the last rank, it similarly promotes to a Gold, by slipping one additional Checker underneath it. A Gold that reaches last rank simply remains a Gold. The Checkers needed to promote a piece are taken from a heap next to the board.

To distingusih Golds that are really promoted Pawns or Silvers from true Golds, you slip Checkers of the opponent's color underneath them, rather than of your own color. (They remain your pieces, though; this is just to optically mark them as different.) When a promoted Pawn or promoted Silver is captured, the Checkers of foreign color 'fall off', (and are put back on the heap), and it goes into the stock only with the pedestal formed by the Checkers of its own color. (These should be considered fixed to it.) In other words, on capture the piece reverts to its unpromoted form, and will be dropped as a Pawn or Silver, rather than a Gold.

A Pawn reaching the last Rank must promote. For a Silver that reaches last rank, however, promotion is optional, as it still can move from there, in ways that a Gold could not. In such a case the Silver would also be allowed to promote when it steps away from the last rank (immediately after it moved). The same appies to Silver that is dropped onto the last rank: dropping a piece will never promote it.

You win by checkmating the opponent, stalemate is a draw, as usual. But 3-fold repetitions are not a draw! If a position (with the same side on move and also the same set of pieces in the stock!) occurs for the third time, white loses! Except when black is perpetually checking (i.e. when all black moves since the previous occurrence of the position put white in check), then white wins.

That is all. Have fun!

Great, albeit hard!