Berolina Chess

Initial setup

e1, e8: King
d1, d8: Queen
a1, a8, h1, h8: Rook
c1, c8, f1, f8: Bishop
b1, b8, g1, g8: Knight
a2-h2, a7-h7: Berolina Pawns

Moves at a Glance

Click on a piece below to see its moves

											Sliding capture or non-capture, can be blocked on any square along the ray

											Unblockable leap (capture or non-capture)
											Non-capture only
											Capture only

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Piece	ID	value	Moves (Betza notation)	Remarks
King	K	-	K	Can castle with Rook, moving 2 steps towards it
Queen	Q	9.5	RB or Q
Rook	R	5	R
Bishop	B	3.25	B	Color-bound
Knight	N	3.25		N
Berolina Pawn	P	1	mfFcfW	Promotes to Q, R, B, or N on reaching last rank

Pawn peculiarities

Pawns capture differently from how they move (diagonal move, straight capture).
Pawns can move two squares diagonally ahead from their initial position, provided they are not blocked.
On the move immediately after such a double push, they can be captured en passant by another Pawn, as if they had only moved 1 square ahead.
A diagonal move to the square skipped by the previous Pawn move is thus not an e.p. capture.
Pawns promote to another (non-royal) piece of choice when they reach last rank.

Castling

A King that has not moved before can move two squares in the direction of a Rook that has not moved before, in which case that Rook is moved to the square the King skipped over. This is only allowed if all squares between King and Rook are empty, when the King is not in check on the square it came from, and would not be in check on any of the squares it skipped over.

General rules

It is not allowed to expose your King to check.
The game is won by checkmating the opponent's King.
Stalemate (no legal moves, but not in check) is a draw.

Differences with FIDE

The capture and non-capture move of the Pawns have been swapped. As a result the initial double-push is also diagonal.

Strategy issues

It is not possible to force checkmate on a bare King with just a single Bishop or Knight (in addition to your own King). Two Knights cannot do that either.

Bishops are confined to squares of a single color. Having Bishops on both colors compensates this weakness, and is worth an extra 0.5 on top of their added value.