Nihongi

Chess is the art of analysis.
Mikhail Botvinnik

NIHONGI
Kosintsev I.G.
kosintsev.i.g@gmail.com
(03.06.2010)

Hello chess players!
Let me introduce the new 4D chess variant Nihongi (日本棋). The game was developed as an playable 3x3x3x3 alternative to Chesseract, invented in 1999 by Jim Aikin and played on a 4x4x4x4 board [1]. This 81-cell chess variant has properties of the real puzzle but at the same time is using exclusively the classical reduced to 30 pieces chess set [2] well known to all chess players.

The 4D board is actually a 3x3x3x3 tesseract (four-dimensional hypercube) sliced into equal spaces across each of its four major faces and well known at Japan for the puzzle Sudoku [5] and for the traditional Japanese chess Shogi [6].


Here is used partly the design of the classical chess from [4].

White:

1. (P) Pawn: a4, a5, b4, c3, d1, d2, e1.
2. (H) Horse: a3, b3.
3. (B) Bishop: c1, c2.
4. (R) Rook: a2, b2.
5. (Q) Queen: b1.
6. (K) King: a1.

Black:

1. (P) Pawn: e9, f8, f9, g7, h6, i5, i6.
2. (H) Horse: h7, i7.
3. (B) Bishop: g8, g9.
4. (R) Rook: h8, i8.
5. (Q) Queen: h9.
6. (K) King: i9.

Rules:

1. The orthogonal mode of the movement O or O(n), where n is the number of the path cells.






2. The face diagonal mode of the movement F or F(n), where n is the number of the path cells.





3. The space diagonal mode of the movement D or D(n), where n is the number of the path cells.



4. The hyper diagonal mode of the movement H or H(n), where n is the number of the path cells.



1. (P) The pawn moves, with or without capturing, by O(1) mode.
Pawn may not advance in its first move.
The capture «en passant» is absent.
It also promotes for any another (at the player's choice) piece when it reaches the position of the opposite king.
2. (H) The horse moves by O(1) or by D(1) mode.
3. (B) The bishop moves by F mode.
4. (R) The rook moves by O mode.
5. (Q) The queen moves by O or F modes.
6. (K) The king moves by O(1) mode or by D(1) mode during the game, provided that he hasn't been checked before he makes his D-move. It loses the right to make a D-move after the check.
Castling doesn't exist. (Compare with Chaturanga [3].)
Other rules of this game are identical with rules of classical chess [2].

Internet resources:

1. Chesseract.
http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/contest/chesseract.html
2. Chess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess
3. Chaturanga.
http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/chaturanga.html
4. Chess.com.
http://www.chess.com/
5. Sudoku (数独).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku
6. Shogi (将棋).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi