Omega Chess - Brief Overview

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Omega Chess is a commercial chess variant designed by Daniel MacDonald in Toronto. The game is played on a 10x10 board with an extra square in each of the extreme corners where the wizards are placed at the start of the game. The game is laid out like regular chess with the addition of a "champion" in each corner and a "wizard" diagonally behind each champion.

Initial Setup for Omega Chess Advanced

Part of the reason for adding the new pieces was to equalize the number of jumping pieces with sliding pieces. The wizard was created specially to be a color-bound piece, a parallel to the bishop. Because of the symmetry and four additional corners, Omega Chess creates new tactical possibilities, including the possibility of checkmate with two knights.

Omega Chess has garnered endorsements by grandmasters Michael Rohde and Alex Sherzer.

Differences from standard chess

The new pieces

• Champion: 

Jumps 2 squares in any direction or slides 1 square orthogonally. 

Champion showing actual possible moves by X's and area of influence in blue.

• Wizard:

 A colorbound piece, jumps {1,3} or {3,1} squares in any direction, or slides 1 square diagonally.

Wizard showing moves possible and area of influence.

Pawns:

• The Pawn may slide one, two or three squares in the forward direction, on its first move only.

• Capture, promotion and movement (following the first move) are otherwise identical to the pawn in standard chess.

• The en passant rule also applies. 

Omega Chess Advanced:

In 2008, the authors of Omega Chess developed an extension to the game called Omega Chess Advanced.

• A special move was introduced called Guarding. This move is equal to Castling but it is executed by Queen and Rook. For Guarding to be legal, both the Queen and Rook must never have made any previous moves, and there may not be any pieces between them.

• A new piece is introduced called the Fool. Each player owns exactly one.

• The Fool has no starting position on the board. Instead, when a piece makes its first move in the game, its owner may choose to place the Fool at that piece's starting location, within 20 moves or if a piece has been taken by one of your pieces the Fool may enter the game at the originating square of the move. When Castling or Guarding, the Fool can be placed on either of the two available squares.

• The Fool moves and captures like the piece or pawn that the opponent last used. For example, if White moves a Queen, then Black's Fool may move or capture as a Queen.

• The following two rules are optional parts of Omega Chess Advanced:

• The Fool may immobilize an opponent's piece on an orthogonally adjacent square, thus preventing it from moving. An immobilized piece can move again if the Fool moves away or is captured. In addition, an immobilized piece can move if it is also orthogonally adjacent to a friendly Fool.

• The Templar Knight.

 The Templar Knight moves like an ordinary Knight, or can move as a Templar in which case it moves as shown below.