Loop Chess

Author: King Reza

Another example:

I’m playing White.



Messy game! Just look at my King, exposed and unprotected. Luckily my opponent doesn’t have enough material to take him.

He takes the Knight on e7 with his Rook. I sense the mate and I have enough extra pieces. So I don’t bother taking the Rook. I go straight or a mate:

Author: King Reza

I could have mated him in another way too: First drop the Knight on f2 forcing him to take it by his Rook, and then drop a Queen on g1. But the first one looked more beautiful!



Here’s another example, this time more complicated:

Author: King Reza

And now, we come to endings. Basically, an ending is a mate or a draw. I personally like it to be a mate, and a mate of my opponent’s King!

I’ll show you through some examples how mates work in Loop Chess. I’ll start from an easy mate and will continue to more complex mates.

This is the position in move number 17 of a game of mine:



As you have probably guessed, I’m playing as Black. The White King is at the corner and is blocked by Pawns and the Rook. I have many pieces to drop and I’m sure there’s a mate. For you, well, you can assume that there’s one.

Author: King Reza

Loop Chess games can become really hard to play, or absolutely easy to play. Look at the following example:



I’m playing as White! As you can easily see almost the whole board is white and I have an army of waiting-to-be-dropped-onto-the-board pieces. It shouldn’t surprise you that Black resigned the game at this point.

As you see the board is quite simple to understand. But there are positions that players may get ‘scared’ looking at:

Author: King Reza

Black has some options:

• Moving the Queen to either e7 or c8 and putting her out of a possible pin.
• Moving the Rook. This is totally out of the question because the only square black can move the Rook to, is g8. After he does that, I’ll simply take the Pawn on f7 with my Bishop and fork the King and the Rook together and win a Rook.
• Blocking my Knight or Bishop from having access to f7. As you all know, Knights cannot be blocked since they can jump. So Black should really try blocking my Bishop by moving the Pawn on d6 to d5.

I think the last option is the best one. After moving the Pawn to d5, I’ll capture it with my Pawn on e4. Black cannot take my Pawn immediately by the Knight on f6 because I’ll take that too with my Bishop on c4. Instead, he can move his Bishop to g4 and threaten my Queen. This opens the way for the Black Queen to have access to square d5 too. Now, Black can take my Pawn on d5 and then my Bishop if I take the Knight as well.

Author: King Reza

Loop Chess is a very challenging variation of Chess in which captured pieces can be returned to the Board and used as the player’s own piece. This brings to the game excellent and artistic strategies. The ability to put back the pieces onto the board makes the games always exciting and ‘uncertain.’ A lost game in Regular Chess can sometimes be turned into a win for the losing side in Loop Chess. Players can never be sure what happens next. There are many possibilities to consider and both players must always keep their eyes and full attention to the board. If you know how to play, it’s quite easy to win. But if you don’t, well you’ll have to learn!

In Loop Chess, unlike Regular Chess, material advantage is not very important. You can even forget about a lost Queen and continue playing in hopes of a mistake in time from your opponent’s side so that you can take your Queen back by putting a pawn onto the board on the right place. Of course it doesn’t mean you can give up half your pieces and have hope for winning, but even in a very bad situation, you might still get lucky and even win.

There are two types of playing Loop Chess:

• Playing the game aggressively, capturing what you can and then putting them back onto the board the next move and changing the position to your favor fast.
• Playing defensively, first making sure your own King is safe from possible attacks and then slowly trying to improve your attack position.

I personally prefer the first tactic. I usually play aggressively trying to shock my opponent with all the extra pieces that are dropped to the board.