Swapping Kings

Good Companions 4th Quick Composing Tourney (GC4QCT)

The Good Companions hereby announce their 4th Quick Composing Tourney (GC4QCT)! Problems of any genre utilizing the new "Swapping Kings" condition (as described below) are required. No other fairy conditions or pieces are permitted. Entries (in Forsythe notation only, please) must be received by judge Dan Meinking no later than Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004. Limit of four entries per composer. Joint compositions count as one entry for each co-author.

Swapping Kings -- An Introduction by Dan Meinking

About 2 years ago, the idea for Swapping Kings came about in an online discussion between Kevin Begley and I. After several periods of discussion, we and the Popeye programmers have agreed upon the official rules of Swapping Kings:

	- When the side on-move checks the opposing King, the Kings change places. This is known as the "swap".
	- A swap is mandatory.
	- The legality of any checking move is evaluated after the swap, except in certain cases involving castling (see below).
	- The following rules apply to castling situations where the castled Rook gives check to the opposing King:
	- castling out-of-check is illegal [eg. wKe1 Rh1, bKf8 Ba5; 1.O-O??]
	- castling through-check is illegal [eg. wKe1 Rh1, bKf8 Ba6; 1.O-O??]
	- castling into-check is legal [eg. wKe1 Rh1, bKf8 Ba7; 1.O-O!]
	- A King swapped back to its game-array square is considered "reborn", and is eligible to castle (see 2nd & 4th originals below).
	- Normal chess rules apply to all non-checking moves.
	- In notation, the traditional symbols "+" and "#" are applied after the swap (i.e. once the move is completed).
	- In notation, a swap will be represented by "%".

For the purposes of this tourney, programmer Norbert Geissler has given us permission to distribute a special beta-version of Popeye that accommodates Swapping Kings! Click here to download it. {NOTE: This is a ZIP file. You must unzip to run it. Also, it is 571kb in size} If you have any questions on installing or running the program, visit our Popeye instructions page for more information.

Here's an example Popeye test input file using the Swapping Kings condition:

begin
auth   DM & Danny Dunn
orig   original
stip   #2
piece white Ka8 Qa4
         black Ka6 Sa5 Ph7
op     maxsol 99 beep 5 movenum try def 2 var
cond   WhiteOscillatingKings TypeC BlackOscillatingKings TypeC
prot   dmddm2.s
end

Below are eight originals showing some of the many possibilities of Swapping Kings. Brief comments are included where appropriate. You'll need to install the Good Companions Fonts to view the diagrams. If you are unable to do this, you may visit our FEN page for instructions on how to read the Forsythe Notation that accompanies each diagram.

Dan Meinking
original
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h#3½ 2 solutions (3+1) C+
Swapping Kings

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