Cavalier Chess

How to Play

Overview

Cavalier Chess is played on an 8x8 checkered board with 16 pieces to each player, each piece corresponding to a piece in Chess and starting on the same square. In Cavalier Chess, Cavaliers replace Pawns, Nightriders replace Knights, Paladins replace Bishops, Marshalls replace Rooks, the Queen comes straight from Chess, and the Knight King replaces the King. The object of the game is to checkmate your opponent's Knight King. With a few exceptions, each piece in this game has all the powers of movement of the piece it stands in for and some additional powers of movement. Here are the exceptions. The Cavalier does not move like a Pawn and has no special moves. The Knight King and Marshall cannot castle. The Queen moves exactly the same as the Queen in Chess and has no additional powers of movement. Remaining rules will be found in the piece descriptions, and where I haven't described the rules in detail, the rules of Chess apply. If you don't already know how to play Chess, learn Chess before you try your hand at Cavalier Chess. Chess is the easier game to learn and play, because its pieces are less powerful.


Board

Cavalier Chess can be played on a regular Chess board, but a three-colored board makes the game a bit easier to play. Like a regular Chess board, the three-colored board is checkered with light and dark squares. There is no rule about what colors you have to use for the board. One set of squares should be a single color, and the other set should alternate between the other two colors from rank to rank. For the board I'm using with Zillions, the light squares are all yellowish white, and the dark squares alternate between green and blue. I chose these colors because they work well with the pieces on the computer. For the physical board I'm constructing, I'm using black for the dark squares and red and orange for the light squares. I chose these colors because of the materials I have on hand, red and black permanent markers and orange index cards. Whatever colors you use, a light square should be in the lower right for each player.

I originated the use of the three-colored board for the same reason that a two-colored board is advantageous for Chess. In Chess, a two-colored board makes it easy to tell where a Bishop can move to. If you tried to play Chess on an uncheckered board, you would know what I mean. Cavalier Chess includes the Nightrider among its pieces, and a Nightrider's movements are easier to follow on the three-colored board I described. The board is set up so that each path available to a Nightrider alternates between only two colors on the board. Although designed primarily with Nightriders in mind, a three-colored board also makes it a bit easier to follow Knight moves, and almost every piece in the game can move like a Knight.

Before settling on a three-colored board, I tried a four-colored board. I decided that the four-colored board was overkill and that a three-colored board would work just as well for following Nightrider moves. Also, adding any colors to the board makes it a bit harder to follow Bishop moves, which the Queen and Paladins have. Using a three-colored board makes it easier to follow Bishop moves than a four-colored board would. So, to aid the visualization of both Bishop and Nightrider moves, I settled on a three-colored board.

Pieces

The Knight King moves like a Knight or a King. It may move to any adjacent square like a King or jump like a Knight. Like the King in Chess, it may not move in check, because it is the object of the game to checkmate this piece. Unlike the King in Chess, the Knight King may not castle.


The Queen is unchanged from Chess. She can move across a straight line any number of spaces in any direction.


The Marshall combines the moves of Rook and Knight. It can move across a straight line any number of spaces in any orthogonal direction, or it may jump like a Knight. Unlike the Rook in Chess, it may not castle.


The Paladin combines the moves of Bishop and Knight. It can move across a straight line any number of spaces in any diagonal direction, or it may jump like a Knight.


The Nightrider has an extended Knight's move. It can make any number of Knight moves in the same direction, so long as each landing square is unoccupied.


The Cavalier moves like a Knight but cannot jump pieces. It moves one square orthogonally, followed by a diagonal move in the same direction. A Cavalier's move is blocked if a piece occupies a square orthogonally adjacent to it. The Cavalier moves just like the Knight in Chinese Chess. When it reaches the eighth rank, it promotes to the piece whose starting square it lands on. Since Cavaliers cannot promote to Knight Kings, a Cavalier which lands on the Knight King's starting square promotes to any other superior piece of the player's choosing.



This page has been made and written by Fergus Duniho, creator of Cavalier Chess.