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Consulchess

Dear chess friends!

What is Consulchess all about?

Consulchess is a relatively new chess variation. Compared to classical Chess there are three important changes:

• a greater board - instead of 8x8 squares we have a bigger 8x10 chessboard at Consulchess

• a new piece - the "consul", which moves similar to the queen, but includes this with jumping possibilities, and

• a "free" castling - there are now not only the usual two (long/short), but no less than 47(!) different possibilities to castle

The detailed rules are described in "The rules of Consulchess” section below.

Consulchess is a very successful extension of traditional chess. It's really great fun to play! It is by now particularly popular (especially among younger chess players) in Hungary, the home country of the inventor Tibor Nagy. Consulchess is even enjoyed by Hungarian grandmasters such as Horváth József, his brother Horváth Csaba and Seres Lajos. In Germany you can always find an opponent at the chess section of the Betriebssportgemeinschaft (BSG) Jülich on their friday game evenings.

Consulchess was patented under the name "German/Hungarian chess" at German Patent and Trademark Office and is therefore also protected by copyright.

The rules of Consulchess

The rules of traditional chess are basically retained, with the exception of following changes/extensions:

The (greater) chessboard and the initial position

The new, larger chessboard consists of 80 squares (8 rows - designated from 1 to 8; and 10 lines - designated from a to j). There are now a total of 40 pieces on the board, 20 white and 20 black. As in traditionell chess, the 10 pawns of one color are now next to each other on row 2 (white) and row 7 (black). There are 10 pieces on the two basic rows, with 2 new consuls being added. The basic setup of the pieces (from outside to inside) is set up as follows: rook | knight | bishop | consul. Queen and king are being positioned stand on the two center lines e and f.

The mnemonic "White Queen, White Field" does not apply to Consulchess. Instead, in Consulchess we say: "The king is placed on his color" (i.e. white king f1 / black king f8). As always in chess, all types of pieces are exactly opposite each other.

The Consul

The consul is the eponymous new piece in Consulchess. At the beginning, two consuls are placed on lines d and g, thus taking king and queen into their midst. The consul's moves are similar to those of the queen: like the queen, he moves vertically, horizontally and diagonally. However, there is one limitation and one extension of this, compared to the queen:

• Restriction: the consul has a shorter stride than the Queen and can only be moved one, two or a maximum of three squares in one turn according to the direction in which it moves. Thus, he is a kind of “limited-range queen.” But the following extension has it all:

• Extension: In addition, the consul may jump/move over one or two squares occupied immediately next to him within the limits of his permitted movement directions and in doing so also hit an opponent's stone on his end square. The stones skipped may be either of your or your opponent's color; empty fields may not be skipped. Across occupied squares, the consul can also put the enemy king in check or (with the help of other pieces) checkmate. To clarify, it should be mentioned here that the opponent's stones that have been jumped over may not be captured by jumping over them.

This makes the consul an extremely interesting chess piece who brings some special dynamic into play. He is particularly dangerous as an attacker, as his checks sometimes cannot be prevented by placing something in between. Not least because of this, the probability of a draw at consul chess is significantly lower.

(Examples how to move the consul to follow)

When writing down the moves in algebraic notation, the consul is abbreviated with a "C". Alternatively, the abbreviations "Co" or "Ko" with two letters are also permitted, in order to avoid confusion with, for example, C = Cavalier (French for bishop).

Free Castling

In Consulchess, there are not only 2, but a maximum of 47 castling options for each player, compared to traditional chess. Here, the king and one of the rooks on the back row jump over each other, as is common in classic chess, but the final position after jumping over is freely selectable and not fixed. However, when castling, the king is not allowed to jump to a corner square. Both king and rook have to move at least one square towards each other.

Otherwise, the usual rules of chess apply to castling: no castling out of a check, into a check or with the king over a square threatened by the opponent; and both the king and the rook being castled with must not have moved before in the game.

Free castling brings completely new strategic and tactical moments into the game and can be used variably and often unexpectedly as a defense and/or attack move.

Link: list of all 47 castling possibilities

Other pages

• Consulchess 42k - the Chess960-version of Consulchess

• The invention of Consulchess and its history