The Rules

Regular ( F.I.D.E. ) Chess rules apply excepting that:- Pawns may move one, two or three squares forward on their first move or one square backwards, and thereafter one square forwards or backwards. There is no en-passant pawn move, no castling and no pawn promotion. Pawns may move one square sideways whenever they are on the three “roads” delimited by the horizontal lines on the board. When two or more boards are placed alongside each other the game becomes much more complex and additional, multi-board multi-player, rules apply as follows:- Play on each board proceeds at its’ own speed, i.e. asynchronously with other boards. Pieces ( except the King ) may be moved from one board to an adjoining board - however, they may only ( initially ) move on to the first available square on the neighbouring (destination) board, where their move terminates. For all pieces except the Knight, this means that they halt on a board edge square. The Knight may make its conventional move ( 1&2 or 2&1 ) from an edge row on the departure board and halt one or two squares into the destination board. The King may not move on to another board. Whenever pieces arrive on a neighbouring board they are then available to ( i.e. controlled by) the player controlling the receiving board and are no longer available to the originating player. The ‘donating’ player however, does not exercise any further control over the pieces sent as reinforcements, unless they are subsequently returned to his own board. A reinforcement is deemed to constitute the receiving players turn i.e. when a reinforcement arrives on his board, that player is deemed to have taken his turn. It follows then that a reinforcement piece may not arrive unless it is the turn to play of the receiving player. Reinforcements may not be moved to another board if the King of the receiving player is already in check. Note that with the linking together of boards, a piece may only exert “check” ( as it may similarly only move ) one square into the neighbouring board ( or two squares in the case of the Knight ). Because of the asynchronous nature of the games played on neighbouring boards, for example Player “A” teamed with Player “B” against Players “C” and “D” respectively there is an anomaly when “A” and “B” are considering whether to send reinforcements from “A” to “B”. This is because “A” may be waiting for his opponent, “C”, to move and therefore cannot actually move reinforcements to his team mate, Player “B”. In this situation where Player “A” is “locked out” i.e. it is not his turn to play, Player “B” ( assuming it is the turn of Player “B” to play on his board ) may “pull” a reinforcement from Player A’s board (assuming that Player “B” is not in check ) providing that Player “A” is agreeable to the move. As above, a reinforcement arriving on Player B’s board constitutes Player B’s move and the next turn on that board reverts to Player D.