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Cylinder chess

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Cylinder chess

Cylinder chess (or cylindrical chess) is a chess variant. The game is played as if the board were a cylinder, with the left side of the board joined to the right side.

The cylindrical board is used in some fairy chess problems.

The game is played as if the left and right sides of the board are connected. When a piece goes off one edge of the board, it reappears from the other edge. For example, it is legal to move a rook from a3 to h3, even if there is a piece on b3, since the rook can move left from a3; a bishop on c1 can move to h4 by going from c1 to a3, and then going up and left from a3 to h4; if White has a pawn on a5, Black has a pawn on h7 and Black plays 1...h7–h5, White can capture the black pawn en passant with 2.axh6; and so on.

Castling can be handled in one of three ways:

One possible rule variation in cylinder chess is to allow null moves, or moves such that every piece stays in the same place, as long as any piece performing such a move travels a nonzero distance by crossing over the edge of the board; only a rook or queen can perform such a move. This variation is rare in actual play, but it is often seen in cylinder chess problems.

In cylinder chess, the traditional hierarchy of piece strengths is changed, with bishops being significantly stronger than knights. The knight and rook do not gain much more power from the cylindrical board, but bishops and especially queens become stronger. The center squares are unimportant to control, and moving a pawn to the center in the opening is very weakening because it opens the player's center to attacks by the opponent's bishops, which have been allowed faster access to the flank squares.

Cylinder chess also has different endgames than standard chess. For example, unlike in standard chess, a king and rook cannot force checkmate against a lone king on the cylindrical board. Additionally, two rooks cannot deliver a ladder mate against an opposing lone king along the files as the latter would wrap around to the other side (but are still able to do so on the ranks).

Piece values according to H. G. Muller are as follows:

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