Balanced Chess, or Temporary Marsellais Chess

Marsellais Chess is a variant of Chess in which each player makes two moves per turn. A player loses his second move for a given turn if he checks the King on his first move on that turn. A further variant, Balanced Marsellais Chess, gives White only one move on his first turn.

This provides a close balance between the two players, but having two moves per turn results in a game quite a bit different from ordinary Chess.

One way to provide a game with a precise balance between the two sides might be to start with Balanced Marsellais Chess and make a few more changes:

• White first makes one move on his turn.
• Thereafter, players make two moves with two different men on each turn, as long as neither player gives check.
• The King can not be moved so that it is temporarily within check between the two moves of one's turn.
• A player may only make one capture on his turn; if the capture is made on the first move of his turn, that turn consists of only one move.
• A player may only give check on the first move of his turn, which not only becomes the only move of his turn, but which also means that in all subsequent turns, both players now only make one move per turn as in normal Chess.
• Victory is by checkmate, stalemate, or bare King.

The idea is to both eliminate the large margin of insufficient material which produces draws, but also to precisely equalize the initiative of both players through an initial phase of two moves per turn, but one which can be ended equally well by either player, so that instead of the game remaining, until the end, a game of two moves per turn, different from regular Chess, it is Chess made symmetrical through having only an initial portion of the game differ in that significant respect from regular Chess.

Retaining existing endgame theory, by making stalemate inferior to checkmate, might still be desirable, but rather than the system noted above, where 100 points are given for the game, one that gives more credit for bare King would be appropriate:

• 10/0 for forcing checkmate;
• 9/1 for forcing stalemate;
• 8/2 for baring the opponent's King

rather than even, say, 10/0 for checkmate, 8/2 for stalemate, and 6/4 for bare King, so that instead of bare King being almost a draw, but with slight credit for one side, it is more than half as significant as a checkmate (the point differences between the sides being 10, 8, and 6, rather than 10, 6, and 2).

It may be, however, that the 10/0, 8/2, 6/4 system would also work, if the consequence was that bare King was the usual form of victory, but the extra points for forcing stalemate or forcing checkmate were a valuable bonus given to a player whose attack created a larger advantage.

Also, the condition that the two moves in a turn be made by different pieces is said to slow the game down; this condition was included because rather than regarding it as a bad thing, I regard it as helping to fulfill the goal of keeping the game as much like regular Chess as possible.