Have you ever thought how great pawns would be...

... if they could capture pieces in front of them as well as diagonally?

Or if they could pay rent.

I'm afraid it would spoil the beautiful balance of the game if pawns couldn't be blockaded.

It would also be cool if the king could move 50 spaces.

I'd like it if I could at any time designate one to go nuke and destroy every enemy piece. But really I play the game to create art.

I'd be happy If I could just make them back up. Of course, that would make the game exponentially more complex...

*sniff sniff* Do I smell a chess variant being invented?

I think there is already a chess variant that allows that, but is not very popular.

I also would like to be able to kill my own pawns when necessary. It drives me crazy when one of my own guys is blocking up the whole show. He should just fall on his sword!

Oh, btw, as a geeky historical note, when I was a little kid, there was a book on chess in my elementary school library. It said that the reason pawns can only capture diagonally is that they are based on Phalanxes, of Greek and Roman fashion, and that the large shields they carried prevented them from stabbing directly forward. This is why Phalanxes fought in a line, with each man responsible for his right side.

Of course, carrying this to its logical conclusion, pawns should only be able to capture to the right. Good thing common sense prevailed over historical accuracy.

That is a cool thing to know, I'll try to tell that to everyone I know.

Oh btw Flamma_Aquila, I like your user picture.

Thanks, yours is cool too. I've always thought the Phoenix was a neat mythology.

wouldn't it be cool if you could win after just one move...either as black or as white.

...but only in a progressive utopia.

I always felt you should be able to get out of check with a check of your own.

Not that it would make fro a better game but that it just made sense somehow.

lol tryst ... amen

I was thrown off by en passant .. the fun way to learn about a move is not when you think you made a great move in the game to see it thwarted

you can escape of a check with a check aslo dominicbody2

Even more entertaining might be delivering checkmate in response to check...though I think it has to be via double check. E.g.

In any case, one game which can be used to see some of the effects of pawns being able to capture forward is chinese chess...pawn structure becomes much less rigid as the pawns cannot blockade each other, and the game generally just becomes more open. But there are too many other differences to really draw good conclusions from there I guess.

 It wouldn't make sense at all, since check means the king could be taken on the next move.

I always thought that it would be nice to be able to move your King to a normally ilegal square that is being defended by a pawn, if your opponent would then be unable to take your king with said pawn if it in turn puts himself in check.

Like in the diagram...with this type of thinking, could white's King move to D4 or F4?

If black captures white's King, he himself would suffer instant retaliation. Unless black first moves his king out of the line of fire - in which case white would now find himself in check, for having moved there, and must now answer to it.

No, I don't think that would work. If you did that, and then the pawn captured your king, sure his king would be in check, but you wouldn't even have one. if you're playing a variant where the king needs to be captured, then it would work to pout your king in check if, by capturing your king, the opponents king is also captured. Although this seems rather impossible to me, really. Otherwise, you're basically asking to be excuse from the "can't end the turn in check" rule, but subjecting the opponent to that very same rule. It just wouldn't work.