Displacement Chess 2

The game in a nutshell
• The board is setup using either position #1 or #2. Either White's or Black's king and queen are interchanged.
• Castling rules are extended to allow a side to move the king from 1-3 spaces towards the rook, and the rook ending up adjacent to the king on the other side. This choice of castling positions allows the side to choose between immediate king safety or immediate offense of a centralized rook.

That's it! Clearly, this is the most logical step in chess's evolution involving very few changes. Even more so than Fischer Random because it preserves the same start squares for bishops, rooks and knights, and does not completely throw out opening theory.

Setup

Pieces

Same as in standard chess.

Rules

The rules are identical to rules of Chess except for board setup above and for castling. The same criteria for castling apply but instead of just two, there are 5 castling positions, The positions below are for board #1. The castling positions for board 2 are similar and can be deduced.

1. One Step K-Side Castling
   White moves king from e1-f1 and rook from h1-e1
   Black moves king from d8-c8 and rook from a8-d8
2. One Step Q-side Castling
   White moves king from e1-d1 and rook from a1-e1
   Black moves king from d8-e8 and rook from h8-d8
3. Two Step K-Side Castling
   White moves king from e1-g1 and rook from h1-f1
   Black moves king from d8-b8 and rook from a8-c8
4. Two Step Q-Side Castling
   White moves king from e1-c1 and rook from a1-d1
   Black moves king from d8-f8 and rook from h8-e8
5. Three Step Q-side Castling
   White moves king from e1 to b1 and rook from a1-c1
   Black moves king from d8-g1 and rook from h8-f8.

Notes

As noted above, Displacement Chess has been suggested and tried out before. It seems to have been forgotten despite it being less of a change than Fischer Random Chess.
The Castling Rules were adapted from an earlier form called free castling, and are also used in my large board games such as Birds and Ninjas.

This game seems far more sensible than the remarkably destructive rules suggested by others to correct an alleged draw problem in chess. Re-starting opening theory, this game could ensure that chess opening theory remain fresh for another 200 years.

Of course preliminary opening theory is necessary to discover at least if the advantage to White is acceptable in this game. I believe it is probably much more balanced than some of the positions arising in Fischer Random, so this should not be a problem.

It was suggested by Kasparov to play from only a few start positions of Fischer Random. The two start configurations of this game could also be played alongide. This would certainly inject more novely into the first 20 moves of a GM chessgame.

Other games of interest:
• Stealth Ninja Chess
• Birds and Ninjas

Last revised by H. G. Muller.