Grasshopper Chess

Chess variant


Grasshopper Grasshopper

Chess variant with new pieces: the grasshoppers. The grasshopper moves by jumping over an other piece, and lands directly after that piece.

Each players begins with eight grasshoppers between the back-rank and the pawns on the third rank. The grasshopper moves in the same directions as the queen (horizontally, vertically or diagonally), but it can move only by jumping over exactly one piece, and arriving right after it – supposing (like for any other piece) that the destination field is empty, or is occupied by an opposing piece, which the grasshopper captures. The piece jumped over can be of any colour, and the move has no affect on it at all.

Otherwise the rules of chess apply, with the following differences:

Examples

Grasshopper moves

The grasshopper's move is not symmetric: the white grasshopper can capture the black one, but not vice versa.

The pawn cannot capture, because it would expose the black king to check from the grasshopper.

The king would be in check from the grasshoppers if the rook moved in front of the king, allowing them to jump it over. Therefore these moves are illegal.

From checks given by the grasshopper, one can also escape by moving away the piece from that line.

Inventor

T. R. Dawson, 1912[ChV.com]

External links