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Any one want to play me some Janus Chess at BK?
Posted:
Sep 17, 2010, 10:53 PM
Janus chess. a interesting variant not played enough. although popular in europe, it is virtually uncharted on the internet. the board has a wider playing field than regular chess giving more room to coordinate attacks and maneuver. and the new dual set power piece called a Janus is a interesting idea. it has both the abilities of a bishop and a knight combined. i have been brainstorming new ideas for opening attacks but i dont have enough players to try them on. any takers? you can play me this game at brainking.com
heres a little about the game;
Janus Chess is a chess variant played on a 10×8 board. It features a new piece, the Janus (also known as archbishop or cardinal), with the combined moves of a bishop and a knight. This piece is named after the Roman god Janus because this god was usually depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions. Janus Chess was invented in 1978 by Werner Schöndorf from Bildstock (Germany).
The usual set of chess pieces is extended with two pawns and two Januses per player. Each Janus is placed between a rook and a knight. The relative position of the king and queen is reversed compared to Chess. After castling the king is placed on either the b-file or i-file and a rook is placed on either the c-file or h-file, depending upon which side to castle is chosen.
Note that the Janus is the only piece in this game which is able to checkmate the opponent's king without the assistance of any other piece, if the king is in a corner.
This chess variant is quite popular in Europe. Several chess grandmasters play this game including Viktor Korchnoi, Péter Lékó and Artur Yusupov.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Any one want to play me some Janus Chess at BK?
Posted:
Sep 21, 2010, 10:40 AM
Yeah, I played this a couple of times with a friend many years back at university, he was Austrian and had played it heaps of times and was much better than me. He seemed to know a lot of openings using the Janus, although at the time I thought he called it the 'Jonas'.
Anyhow, I might give you a game or two of it zoeyk, I won't promise anything in the way of good play though because my chess game was never that great. You should ask Alison to play it with you as I can't take a game off her.
One other thing, your icon for the janus looks like a cross between Mutley and Snoopy. Perhaps you should call it a Smutley?
