PIECE PROMOTION CHESS (PPC)

The official rules

The Laws of Chess apply, except as follows:

Each player’s back three ranks are his or her territory. The two middle ranks are neutral territory. (In algebraic notation, ranks 1-3 are White’s territory, ranks 4-5 are neutral, and ranks 6-8 are Black’s.) Rooks, Knights, and Bishops must promote upon reaching the opposing player’s territory. This is called piece promotion, and the effects are immediate and permanent. A promoted Rook, or Rooking (R’), can still move and capture like a Rook; a promoted Knight, or Kniking (N’), can still move and capture like a Knight; a promoted Bishop, or Bicking (B’), can still move and capture like a Bishop. However, each promoted piece can also move to any empty adjacent square, or capture on any enemy-occupied adjacent square.

A Pawn promotes on the opponent’s back rank as in chess, but it must promote to either a Queen or a Kniking.

A player with no legal moves loses; thus, delivering either checkmate or stalemate is a win. It is still illegal to put or leave one’s King in check.

Unless there is no other legal move, it is illegal to put the opponent’s King in check with a move that repeats the position that occurred exactly two moves (four plies) before. For the purpose of determining such an Illegal Repeated Check (IRC), repeating a position means simply that pieces of the same kind and color occupy the same squares. An IRC must be retracted like any other illegal move, with the consequences prescribed in the Laws of Chess, except that the touch-move rule does not force a player to move the piece with which he or she made the IRC.

A valid threefold repetition claimed by either player, as defined in the Laws of Chess, if obtained without IRCs or other illegal moves, ends the game. If neither player individually has more than two pieces left (not counting Kings and Pawns), the result is a draw. But if either player has three or more such pieces, threefold repetition produces a null game—defined as an official game with no result. After a null game, the two players are given a short break, during which their clocks are not reset but have an equal amount of time added. The players then play a new game. The player who was White in the null game is White again. If the second game also meets the above conditions for a null game, Black wins by forfeit (except in casual play, when a null game is equivalent to a draw).

The two players may agree to end the game in a draw, but this is only allowed if neither player individually has more than one piece (not counting Kings and Pawns).

The fifty move rule of chess is changed to a twenty-five move rule: either player can claim a draw after at least twenty-five moves (fifty plies) in which there are no captures, pawn moves, or piece promotions.

When only the two Kings remain on the board, the game ends immediately in a draw.

A player scores two points for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss or null game. The only draws are those specified in rules #5-8.

Mechanics of piece promotion: Piece promotion is accomplished by replacing the unpromoted piece with the corresponding promoted piece. Promoted pieces must take a physical form easily distinguishable at a glance from their unpromoted counterparts or any other pieces. Depending on this form, a piece promotion move is considered to have been made when the unpromoted piece has been removed from the chessboard and the player’s hand has released the promoted piece after placing it on the promotion square, or when the unpromoted piece has been released on the promotion square and altered in such fashion as to mark it as promoted (e.g., by attaching a marker to it or turning it upside-down). However, as soon as the player releases the unpromoted piece, he or she is committed to promoting it on that square.