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2 <title>Falcon Chess</title>
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10 <td><img src="Falcon.png"></td>
13 <h3>Initial setup</h3>
17 d1, d8, g1, g8: Falcon<br>
18 a1, a8, j1, j8: Rook<br>
19 b1, b8, i1, i8: Bishop<br>
20 c1, c8, h1, h8: Knight<br>
21 a2-j2, a7-j7: Pawns</p>
26 <table cellpadding="5" border="1">
34 <td>Moves (<a href="Betza.html">Betza notation</a>)</td>
48 <td>Can castle with Rook, moving 3 or 4 steps to b- or
73 <td>Can reach its 16 destination through 3 paths each</td>
121 <td>Promotes to Q, F, R, B, or N on reaching last rank</td>
125 <h3>Pawn peculiarities</h3>
128 <li>Pawns capture differently from how they move (straight
129 move, diagonal capture).</li>
131 <li>Pawns can move two squares ahead from their initial
132 position, provided they are not blocked.</li>
134 <li>On the move immediately after such a double push, they can
135 be captured en passant by another Pawn, as if they had only
136 moved 1 square ahead.</li>
138 <li>Pawns promote to another (non-royal) piece of choice when
139 they reach last rank.</li>
144 <p>A King that has not moved before can move <b>three</b> steps
145 in the direction of a Rook that has not moved before, in which
146 case that Rook is moved to the square next to the King on the
147 other side. This is only allowed if all squares between King and
148 Rook are empty, when the King is not in check on the square it
149 came from, and would not be in check on any of the squares it
152 <h3>The Falcon piece</h3>
154 <p>The Falcon is a so-called multi-path piece. It complements the
155 moves of all orthodox pieces, in the sense that it can reaches
156 all squares reachable by King could reach in 3 moves that cannot
157 be reached by R, B or N in a single move. A King would always
158 need three steps to reach the Falcon destinations, (one diagonal
159 and two straight, or two diagonal and one straight), but it can
160 always do so in three ways, depending on the order of the
161 straight and diagonal steps. The Falcon must follow the path a
162 King could have followed, and if all the three paths are blocked,
163 the Falcon cannot move to that destination.</p>
165 <h3>General rules</h3>
168 <li>It is not allowed to expose your King to check.</li>
170 <li>The game is won by checkmating the opponent's King.</li>
172 <li>Stalemate (no legal moves, but not in check) is a
176 <h3>Differences with FIDE</h3>
178 <p>The Falcon pieces are extra, and the board is expanded to
179 accomodate them. To handle the larger board width, the King moves
180 3 squares on castling.</p>
182 <h3>Strategy issues</h3>
184 <p>It is not possible to force checkmate on a bare King with just
185 a single Bishop or Knight (in addition to your own King). King +
186 Falcon can force mate on a bare King.</p>
188 <p>Bishops are confined to squares of a single color. Having
189 Bishops on both colors compensates this weakness, and is worth an
190 extra 0.5 on top of their added value.</p>
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