Robber chess

Robber's Chess is a variant of chess in which you have to strike and the player whose pieces have all been captured wins . If you are the only one left with pieces on the board, you lose. It was already known in Germany around 1870. The inventor was possibly the Leipzig chess player Richard Schurig .

PH Törngren
Tidskrift för Schack 1929

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Robber's chess, white to move wins.
Solution: 1. h3! a5 2. h4 a4 3. h5 a3 4. h6 a2 5. h7 a1T 6. h8L! T any 7. La1 Rxa1 1-0
or 5.… a1K 6. h8T! and Z. B. 6.… Kb2 7. Rh4 Kc2 8. Re4 Kb1 9. Re3 Kc1 10. Rh3 Kd1 11. Rf3 etc. 1-0

Alternative names

Robber chess is also known as chess , award chess or feeding chess . This variant can be found on chess servers under names such as “Suicide”, “Giveaway” or “Anti Chess”. A common English name is also "Losing Chess".

regulate

The basic setup corresponds to normal chess . The rules of movement differ in the following points:

• There is pressure to hit . If the player whose turn it is can capture an opponent's stone, he must do so. If there are several striking possibilities, any one can be chosen.
• The king is an ordinary piece, which means that he can be defeated like everyone else.
• A pawn may also be converted into a king when he reaches the opposing back row.
• In most of the rule variants, castling does not apply , including in the international and FICS rules.
• The player whose stones have all been captured wins.
• In the event that a player still has stones but can no longer move, there are different rule variants:
  1. The player who can no longer move wins (international rules)
  2. The game is drawn .
  3. The player with fewer stones on the field wins; in the event of a tie, the game is drawn (FICS rules)
  4. If you can no longer move, you suspend until you can move again. If no one can move, the game is drawn.
• There is also a draw by agreement, by repeating the position three times or by the 50-move rule . Theoretically, for example, an endgame is a draw in which each player still has exactly one bishop and the two bishops are on fields of different colors. Even if both sides only have one king left, it is usually not possible to force the capture of the last piece and the game ends in a draw.

opening

The most common opening moves in normal chess - 1. e4 and 1. d4 - lose forcefully in robber chess; Black can get rid of all stones within 17 moves.

On October 10, 2016, the predator chess researcher and programmer Mark Watkins from the University of Sydney proved that 1. e3 wins by force, and so the game is " weakly solved ". For this purpose, over 929 million knots, i.e. possible positions resulting from 1. e3, were analyzed. A year earlier, Klaas Steenhuis had already proven after nine months of work using the solving program written by Mark Watkins in 195 million knots that after 1. a3 e6 Black wins by force. A robber chess-specific endgame database was used.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Elke Rehder - Chess and Art
2. ↑ www.freechess.org
3. ↑ http://www.schach.de/
4. ↑ www.itsyourturn.com
5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20161118232253/https://ilk.uvt.nl/icga/games/losingchess/
6. ^ John Beasley: Losing Chess: 1 e3 is a win for White (reporting work by Mark Watkins) . With a link to the Watkins essay. English. Retrieved November 15, 2018
7. ↑ John Beasley: Losing Chess: 1 a3 e6 is a win for Black (reporting work by Klaas Steenhuis, October 2015) . English. Retrieved November 15, 2018

literature

• Ralf J. Binnewirtz: Exchange of blows in robber chess . Schachverlag Mädler Dresden 2000. ISBN 3-925691-24-3 .
• Lars Döring: Alternative chess. Seitenstraßenverlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-937088-19-8 .

Web links

• Chess memorabilia