This game is being played under Benedict Chess rules. Click the 'info' tab for more information.
1. e3 Clock started on 12/09/2007
1... c5 2. Qf3 Qa5 3. Qd5 Nf6 White defaulted
No captures, no checks or mates. Attacked piece flips (changes the colour). Unique game with very specific tactical patterns.
Game Rules
The game uses Standard Chess pieces, and standard chess initial position. Pieces move as in Standard Chess, except that captures are not allowed.
When a moved piece attacks (threatens it with what would be a legal capture in Standard Chess) the attacked piece changes colour - it defects. A piece that changes colour - a traitor - has full function for the new side and can be moved on the very next move; but it does not attack an opposing piece to change its colour until it is moved on a subsequent move.
Black just played Qd3
Discovered or uncovered threats have no effect. Nor do “chain reactions” occur. Only the piece that is moved can attack an opposing piece to cause it to defect.
When pawns promote, the promotion piece (for example, the queen) attacks as a moved piece would; that is, upon “queening”, opposing pieces and pawns that are attacked by the new queen defect.
The object of Benedict Chess is to change the colour of the opposing player’s king. This is done by attacking it with a moved piece.
There is neither check nor checkmate. If the player with the turn has no legal moves available, but still has an unflipped king, then it is considered stalemate and the game is drawn.
When castling, only the King is considered to have moved and hence to attack adjacent squares. The Rook does not attack as a result of a castle.
Castling is allowed on the following conditions:
- neither king, nor the rook has moved,
- rook has not been flipped (if your opponent flips the rook, then you re-flip it, castling is no longer allowed)
Note: it is possible to castle through the check (or rather something what would be a check in normal chess) - there is no concept of check in Benedict.
Tips and tricks
Benedict tactics are quite different from standard chess. You will have to play a few games, or review other player's games, to get a "feel" for this variant. Games are usually quite short, often ten moves or fewer. Most games are won by mounting a series of threats directly against the king, although sometimes it is possible to gain control over the game by flipping most of the opponent's pieces, and only then go after the king.
The most useful attacking pieces are the queen and the knight. The queen is by far the most powerful piece, and generally the first player to safely bring out the queen has a decisive advantage. Because of the lack of capturing, the defender's king can sometimes hide behind a wall of pieces, and this can be difficult to break through. Sometimes the defender has no choice but to shuffle the king back and forth, turning surrounding pieces to the friendly colour with each move. In these sorts of positions, a knight is usually quite effective at finishing the king off. See this game for simple example.
Another important tactic is to flip opponent's pawns on their starting squares. This often creates a threat of promotion, or ties down the opponent's pieces blocking the pawns from promoting. In this regard, the pawns on d2 and d7 are especially important, since if they are flipped to the opposing colour, the queen is often effectively paralyzed (if the queen moves out too far, the pawn can move to d1 or d8, promoting and flipping the king). When promoting a pawn, keep in mind the option to promote to a knight, sometimes that is the strongest play.
Sometimes a key play is to place a piece on a square preventing the opponents piece from being able to occupy that square. This is a useful tactic to prevent knight forks. The queen placed where the knight would play (c3,c6:f3,f6) prevents the attack.
Example games
Game Page Help
The Action Bar
The Action Bar is the most important part of the game screen, this is where you interact with the game by entering moves, conditional moves, comments, draw offers, resignations, and much more (if you are not viewing one of your own games, the Action Bar is not shown). The Action Bar is in four parts, from left to right:
- The Move Input Box: where your move or conditional move is shown; it is possible to type into this box, but not recommended, you can enter your move by dragging and dropping the pieces on the board.
- The Action Selection Dropdown: this is where you select the action you want to do, for example, move, enter a comment, accept a draw offer, claim a draw, etc. Only the actions which are relevant to the current game are shown.
- The Continue Button: this button sends your action back to our server; sometimes you might see a pop-up text box before the action is sent, this is so that you can write a message to your opponent. You can set your preferences so that this box is always shown to confirm you move (under the "Chess Board" tab "Confirm moves before committing), some people find this helpful as a "blunder check".
- The Next Game button: clicking the button will take you to the next game for which it is your move.
The Game Information Panel
Under the Action Bar, you should find the Game Information Panel. This gives you more information about the game; because there is too much information to see on one screen here, it is arranged into "tab"; you can move between the various screens by clicking the buttons, from left to right:
- Game Overview: this tab shows the full history of the game, including comments (you cannot read the comments from another player's game, unless the game is marked as "public"), leave taken, etc. You can click the moves to see the position on the chess board.
- Hide Comments: this tab shows the moves of the game only, without the distraction of the comments shown on the game overview tab.
- Material Balance: this tab shows the captured pieces in the game. If you are playing CrazyHouse chess, or a similar game, you can drag pieces from here to the board to make a "drop".
- Tags: You can "tag" games, this makes it easier to come back to games, you can find the games you have tagged from the game database screen.
- Variant Information: this tab is available for some chess variants, it will show you a description of the variant.
- Opening Book: In standard chess games, this tab will show you information about the chess opening you have been playing, taken from the Game Explorer.
- Analysis Board: Opening this tab will overlay an "analysis board" on the main chess board; you can move the pieces around freely on this board to try out various ideas in the game.
- Engine Analysis: This tab allows you to analyse the game using a chess engine; because the use of engines is not allowed on SchemingMind, this tab is not available for ongoing games.
- Share: The share tab will allow you to share your game on social media (if someone becomes a member by following one of your links, you will be rewarded with a complimentary extension to your full membership); you can also download the game as either an animated GIF or in PGN format, and you can copy the current position to your clipboard in FEN format.
- Help: If you are reading this, you have already figured out what the help button does!
The Chess Board
The chess board shows the current position in your game; if it is your move, or if you can enter a conditional move, you can drag and drop the pieces on the chess board.
If you wish to castle, simply drag your king over the rook on the side you wish to castle on. When you promote a pawn, you will see a pop-up prompting you to select the promoted piece.
We have a number of different designs for chess boards and pieces, you can select the one you prefer from your personal preferences.
Under the chess board is a navigation toolbar (this toolbar looks slightly different if you are looking at the analysis board).
From left to right:
- Settings: This button will bring up your chess board and pieces display settings.
- Move to Start: This button will show the start position of the game.
- Previous Move: This button will move position shown on the board back one move.
- Next Move: This button will show the next position on the board.
- Last Move: This button will show the current position on the board.
- Flip: This button will show the board from the other player's perspective (by default you see games from White's perspective unless you are Black; you can select an option to always show the board from White's perspective in your personal preferences).
- Animate: If you are not looking at the last move in the game, this button will animate the game from the shown position to the last move.
- Stop Animation: This button will stop the animation.
View this article in the Knowledge Base.