How to play Sovereign Chess

Sovereign chess .

How to play ?

The rules are the same as regular chess .

Except for these changes .

For a refresher of those rules , check out this video , lay out the board and set up pieces on the outer ring of squares , matching each piece with the color and type indicated around the edge of the board in the next ring of squares , place pawns matching the colors of the adjacent pieces in the four corners instead of ponds , place matching colored knights randomly select a player to make white's first move after white's first move , the other player may choose to play as white or play as black .

Whoever plays black makes the next move then turns alternate queens , bishops and rooks may not travel more than eight squares in a single turn .

Therefore , they may not check a king that is farther than eight squares away .

Kings are allowed to move out of check by moving out of this range .

A piece may not end its turn on a square of its own color , but it may travel over a square of its own color .

Therefore , a player may not check their opponent's king with a piece of the same color as the square that that king is on .

Kings are allowed to escape check by moving to a square matching the color of the checking piece ponds move one square vertically or horizontally and capture one square diagonally towards the center of the board .

The brown lines on the board help guide ponds towards the center ponds move and capture towards either brown line .

Even if that move is further away from another brown line .

A pond adjacent to a brown line may not move across it , but it may capture across a brown line .

So long as the capture takes it closer to the center of the board .

Ponds on the outer two rings of the board may move one or two spaces away from the closest edge .

They may move like this .

Even if they have previously moved on Paan is not allowed when you move one of your pieces onto a square of another color , you then control all the pieces of that square's color and may move them .

So long as you have a piece on that square .

Once the colored square is unoccupied , then you may not move those pieces until you occupy one of the matching color squares .

Again , you are allowed to use your controlled colored pieces to control other colors .

When you move a piece to a square , that is the same color as your opponent's king .

You do not gain control of their pieces pieces that are the same color as a player's king may never be controlled by their opponent .

There are two squares of each color but only one of those squares may be occupied at a time when one square is occupied by any piece .

Whether a player controls it or not , then the other square of that color may not be occupied .

You may only capture pieces of colors that your opponent controls .

You may not capture any piece you control nor pieces that are uncontrolled by either player .

If you capture an opponent's piece that is on a colored square , you immediately take control of all pieces of that square's color .

You may escape check from a colored piece by capturing the matching colored square .

Your opponent controls giving you control of those pieces .

Instead , when a paw reaches the center four by four area marked by a black border , it must promote to any higher piece of its same color , which may include a king .

If you choose to promote a pawn to a king , you remove your current king from the board and place a new king of the same color as the pawn where the pawn was promoted .

If you promote to a king of a different color , then your previous king's colored pieces will now be controlled by the player who occupies a square of that color on your turn .

Instead of moving a piece , you may replace your king with a king of any color .

You control your turn then ends .

Unless your king is now on a square of its own color , then you must illegally move it off of that square .

You are allowed to promote to a king or change your king's color to get out of check .

There is no limit to the number of times you can change kings during the game .

You are allowed to castle with any rook you control that is on the same row as your king .

So long as all the normal rules of castling are followed to do so , move your king to any vacant square between it and the rook .

And that rook to the other side of the king , changing a king to a different color does not count as moving it .

So you may still castle the first player to checkmate their opponent wins .