1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
|
bughouse
Bughouse (or siamese chess) is a "wild" variant of chess played between two
player teams on two separate boards. The special feature of the game is that
pieces you capture are transferred to your partner, who is playing with the
opposite color pieces from yourself. He may "drop" such a piece on an empty
square as a subsequent move in his game.
STARTING A BUGHOUSE MATCH
First, use the "partner" command to select a partner. Next, find an
opponent team. You may use the Team channel for this purpose (channel 25),
and the command "who B" lists players who are members of a current bughouse
team.
Then, one of your team challenges his desired opponent on the other team to
a "wild bughouse" match. (A useful alias for this is "alias bug match @ 2 12
bughouse" where "bug user_name" is all you would need to type in order to
match user_name to a bughouse game.)
When the match is accepted and all four players are present, then two games
are initiated simultaneously: one between the challenger and the challengee
with the desired colors, and one between the other partners, with colors
opposite from their partners. The same time control applies to both boards,
though "moretime" can be used independently on each board. Each player is
notified of the game number of their partner's game, so he may observe it as
well as playing in his own game.
To help you form bughouse partnerships and bughouse matches, two channels
have been established: channels 24 and 25. Channel 24 is for matches and
channel 25 is for partnerships.
PLAYING BUGHOUSE
As you play, you will be periodically notified when your partner passes you
captured pieces. You will be told the piece that was passed, and the set of
pieces that you are currently holding. You are also notified when your
opponent's holdings change. Both player's holdings are displayed whenever
your board position is refreshed.
A new move notation is needed to drop one of your held pieces onto the
board. The notation for making a drop is "P@fr", where P is a piece you are
holding [PNBRQ] and "fr" is the empty destination square.
You may talk to your partner. It is recommended to set up convenient
aliases for common messages, such as "I need a knight!!", "Don't give him a
bishop!", and "Are you out of your mind?!". The "ptell" command is used for
this purpose; only your partner will hear it.
The match is finished when one player is checkmated, resigns, or is flagged.
At that point the wild ratings of *all* match players are adjusted, whether or
not the team result was because of their game. A draw request should be made
and accepted at *both* boards before the match is ended as a draw [a near
impossibility].
Note that checkmate is defined differently: there must be no *possibility*
of avoiding checkmate by a drop interposition. Even if your opponent is
holding no pieces that he can drop, he may later get a piece to interpose from
his partner. Thus, only contact and knight checks can give a "decisive"
checkmate.
RESTRICTIONS
Pawns cannot be dropped onto your first or eighth rank, although they may be
dropped onto the seventh rank and promoted on the next move.
Pieces that had been promoted revert to pawns when captured and passed to
your partner.
Your partner variable is not saved between logins. You should set it prior
to starting your first bughouse match in a server session and when you want to
change partners.
Observers should observe both games to see the full match. Kibitzes and
whispers, however, go to observers (and players) of *both* games. Observers
will also be notified of pieces transferred to each player's reserves. (Note
that kibitz can be used as a shortcut to tell your partner something if you
don't mind your opponents hearing it. It also makes the game more exciting
for the observers.)
Strength assessment takes held pieces into account.
This mode of play may break client interfaces. Contact the author of your
client to determine if you can play bughouse with it. If a client relies on
the board position rather than moves, things should work OK. No new styles
have been added to support bughouse.
Because this is such a nonstandard type of play, there are a number of
commands that are not applicable to a bughouse game:
1. The move record is not saved. Adjournments and disconnections end both
games and the match cannot be resumed. (This leaves a lot of room for abuse,
but hey, bughouse is just for fun, guys!) Disabled commands are: adjourn,
sposition, mailstored, examine, mexamine, unexamine, backward, forward,
revert.
2. Simul commands cannot be used for bughouse games. [FDA regulation to
avoid frying the brains of the participants. :) ]
3. Takeback is disabled (for now). At best, takeback would work only on non-
capture moves (including drops) to avoid having to take held pieces away from
the other game.
4. Switch is disabled (for now).
5. Moves, oldmoves, mailmoves and mailoldmoves do work during a game, but
they now break the PGN format, which doesn't allow drops. Moves are shown as
"P/@@-fr" and "P@fr" in the old and PGN formats. Only moves and drops are
recorded, not changes to a player's holdings. Theoretically, knowing the
duration of each move in both games allows you to reconstruct the holdings as
well. (But who'd want to analyze or store a bughouse game??)
6. Except for commands which terminate a game, commands affect only one of
the two games in a bughouse match.
For notes on strategy in bughouse chess, see the "bughouse_strat" help file.
See Also: bughouse_strat match partner ptell set variables wild
[Last Modified: December 17, 1995 -- Friar]
|
