This is in response to a special request from Qoheleth - I'll leave it to him to explain the finer points of the game. I know we've just purged a few, but this sounds quite intriguing, so I'm willing to give it a trial run, and I hope you all get involved!

... gives the floor to Qoheleth ...

*watches intently*

*waits eagerly*

:/ Nothing's happening.

We'll have to make it up ourselves if they don't tell us soon!

Checkmate.

Damn. I never was any good at chess.

Dibs on Ron Weasley for my team!

In that case, I'm on Christopher's team!

You were my next pick, Katy. It's that good Weasley - Chess mojo:)

KNIGHT TO E THREE!!!!

*gets killed*

YARRRRRGGGHHH!!!! I was always more of a checkers lady.

I've never understood checkers. My sister though was great at it. Either that or her opponent (me) sucked.

I'm flattered Christopher, but if you knew how very bad at chess I was, I'd be bottom of your list.

Wow. I'd forgotten just how quickly people update on this forum. Clearly, I'm going to have to start checking it a lot more often, if I want to referee this thing properly.

Anyway, here it is, the long-awaited: Harry Potter Chess: The Rules.

1. All the basic rules of chess apply (bishops can only move diagonally, only knights can jump over other pieces, the king must be protected when in check, etc.). Some of the more abstruse regulations, such as the 50-move rule, can probably be safely ignored, but we’ll handle those situations as and if they come up.

2. Each Harry Potter character represents one, and only one, chessman. Once this man is determined, the character represents that man for the rest of the game.

3. Posters shall not identify what man a character represents; this must be deduced from his or her moves. It may not be possible to identify the man a character represents until his or her second move (or, conceivably, even later); this is, in fact, an essential part of the game.

4. Moves are to be considered licit until this is logically impossible. Thus, if a character can be one of two chessmen and makes a move that would be illicit for one of these men, he (or she) is therefore established as the other.

5. In the case of a definitely illicit move, I, as the referee for this thread, shall declare it illicit and explain the reasons why. This move, along with any that may have followed it, shall be null and void, and play shall continue from the last licit move.

6. Check shall not be declared, but the rules for check still apply. Rule 4 also applies here: if a move may or may not have put one side’s king in check, and the next player for this side does not move to protect the king, it is thereby established that the first move was not a check, with all that this may entail.

7. Checkmate, on the other hand, must be declared, since it is the whole point of the game. Checkmate shall only occur, however, when there is no interpretation of the moves made thus far that permits a safe move for the king. (Of course, if one side or the other resigns, that's another matter entirely.)

8. The alternation of White and Black shall be strictly observed. Any attempt, on Black’s turn, to move a character who has already been established as a White chessman (or vice versa) shall be declared illicit.

9. Posters shall not attempt to play both sides of the table. If you have moved on White’s turn, you will play White for the rest of the game. Any attempt on your part to play on Black’s turn shall be declared illicit.

10. In the interest of collaboration, no poster shall make a move when he or she has already made one of the last two moves for his or her side. Any attempt to do so shall also be declared illicit.

11. Since there are only 32 chessmen on a board, there can only be 32 characters named in this thread. Any attempt to name a 33rd shall, once again, be declared illicit. (Queened pawns shall remain the same characters as they were before; they’ll simply be able to make more moves.)

12. Some notes about notation: Although the movie version of PS used the algebraic notation for its chess game, we on this thread will be using the English descriptive system, on the grounds that it requires more careful attention, which is a good habit to develop in this game. The basic principle behind English notation is that each file (that is, column of squares) is identified by the major chessman that starts off the game in that file. The squares are then numbered in ascending order as you go up the board. Thus, the knight closest to the queen starts off the game at Queen’s Knight 1 (or QKn1, for short); the pawn in front of it starts at QKn2; the next square up is QKn3, and so on. (Remember that the space that White calls QKn1 is, from Black’s perspective, actually QKn8. Remember also that, when a player for White looks at his chessmen at the beginning of a game, the queen is to the left of the king, whereas, when Black looks at his men, the queen is on the king’s right.)

13. Moves that result in captures shall be identified by those captures. For instance, if Severus Snape is moved onto the square that Albus Dumbledore has already been established as occupying, the move shall be described, not as “Severus Snape to KB5”, but as “Severus Snape x Albus Dumbledore”. (If you wish to capture a chessman that has not yet moved, you may simply select a character who has not yet been named and announce his or her capture.)

14. Castling – that delightful little move in which the king moves two spaces toward a rook and said rook then moves to a space adjacent to the king, but on the opposite side of him from where it used to be – shall be identified simply by the symbol “0-0” (if it was the king’s rook that moved) or “0-0-0” (if it was the queen’s). There is no need to identify either the king or the rook by name.

15. Finally, it should be noted that the nature of the characters need have nothing to do with the chessmen they represent. Male characters can be queens; females can be kings and bishops; and good and evil can be mixed indiscriminately on both the White and Black sides of the board.

To illustrate the above principle, I will hereby make the first move of the game, for White: Bellatrix Lestrange to QB3.

So there you go. Make plans, anticipate opponents, capture pieces, force your adversaries into hopeless situations and watch them squirm - but most of all, have fun.

The rules in the last post were taken from the kickoff post of my old forum. Looking back on them, it strikes me that there ought to be some sort of penalty for calling checkmate when the king can still be saved. So call this Rule 7.5: Anyone who calls checkmate when there is an interpretation of the moves that permits a safe move for the other side shall be ejected from the game. (The move that this person made, however, shall stand.)

So, basically, we chose a carachter and umm...

I am not sure exactly what we have to do:(

And you name the square you want to move that character to. Pretend you're looking at a regular chessboard, figure out which piece you want to move where, and describe that move.

Luna Lovegood to K4.

Nymphadora Tonks to C6

??

Sorry, I think we might have posted at the same time...I assume you're playing black?

Either way, Qoheleth wants us to use descriptive notation...just for the challenge of it, I guess. :-p

Okay, this is interesting. According to the strict definition of the rules, Sadie was playing White, since her post came directly after a post for Black. Therefore, since C6 (or QB6, in descriptive notation) is completely unreachable by any white piece, the move was illicit. On the other hand, if she had said "Nymphadora Tonks to QB3", it would also be illicit, since there already is a white piece at White's QB3. They've got you coming and going.

White's second move is therefore null and void. Play continues from Black's first move.

Sorry about that, Sadie. You're welcome to try again if you want.

i may be completely off and taking a stab in the dark here... but if Luna Lovegood's playing for Black, shouldn't she be at K5, not K4? since if she's a pawn, pawns can only move two spaces on their first move (so, from K7 to K5); and if she's a knight, she couldn't reach that spot from either side; and if she's anything else, she couldn't move until a pawn's cleared out of the way...

the only way LL could reach K4 on her first move would be if she was playing for White as a pawn for K2... and she's coming from Black. so it should be K5, right? O_o

Good point, but remember what I said about White's Q1 being Black's Q8? When a player says "K4", she means the fourth square in the king's file, starting from her own side. In other words, every square has two names, and which one you use depends on what side you're playing. So when Ember moved Luna to K4, she did indeed mean the square that a White player would think of as K5, but, because she was playing for Black, she called it K4.

Now, at this point, you're going to ask me why I'm reviving this absurd system of notation. Well, personally, I always thought that half the fun of chess lay in the esoteric phrases that it was infested with: "rank", "skewer", "en passant", "fianchetto", and so forth. It loses all the mystique if you identify the squares as though you were playing Battleship or something.

gotcha. well, mostly ;D- no idea what the phrases mean in a chess context... the only remotely nifty move i've ever pulled is castling, which is enough to trip up my brother and my favorite cousin who're the only people i've ever played anyways... sometimes w/ Harry Potter chess pieces, i might add.

ok, so, for White- Charlie Weasley to KN3

(and wow, it feels weird sticking a Weasley and Bellatrix on the same side... oh well. ;D)

Does the same person have to move the same piece every time? Is that a stupid question?

I'm fairly confident they don't have to, no.

Absolutely not. The only rule is that Black players can't move White's pieces, and vice versa.

Okay...

Minerva to k6

Nice try, Mrs S. As the board currently stands, none of Black's pieces can possibly get to K6 in one move. Neither can any of White's pieces, for that matter.

Play continues from White's second move.

Perhaps I'd better let you guys continue on with this game, as I'm blind, i don't know exactly what a chess board looks like:(

While Black decides on their next move, I thought I'd share with everyone a few Ambrose Bierce-esque definitions that someone published in Chess Life back in 1962. Just for fun.

Algebraic chess notation: A system of recording chess moves, which is so logical and mathematically neat that it will never gain favor in the United States. (Hear, hear!)

Analysis: Irrefutable proof that you could have won a game you lost.

Checkmate: A self-inflicted torture by novices who don't know the phrase "I resign".

Chess ethics: Undefined. (We could find no examples of this.)

Chess problem: Any position that could never occur in an actual game.

Good sportsmanship: Concealed hatred for a victorious opponent.

Grandmaster draw: A friendly conclusion due to mutual fear.

Kibitzer: Someone who gives good advice to your opponent and bad advice to you.

Opponent: A slimy individual with an ugly face.

Patzer: A good-natured term with which you describe anyone you can beat - but an insulting epithet when used by certain wise guys to describe you.

Round-robin tournament: A competition in which you cannot talk the tournament director out of pairing you with someone you are afraid of.

Sicilian Defense: A defense originated by members of the Mafia, embodying their highest principles.

Swiss System: A pairing system that, like certain other Swiss products, is full of holes.

White: Since recent Supreme Court decisions, not so big an advantage as it once was. (Remember, this was written in 1962.)

Woodpusher: A way of describing one's chessplay so as to make opponents overconfident.

Zugzwang: There is no definition of this word.

I think I'll give this game a miss - I'm not all that bad at chess, but I need to have a board in front of me or I'm completely useless. :)

YOur lucky you have the advantage of seeing what's on the board, so, in all further adue, i'm excluded from this thread.

You guys do realize that you can set chess boards up at home and track the moves that way, right? (Of course, sometimes it's not clear which piece you're supposed to move, but that's the whole point of the game.)

Well, as I said before "I can't see." I'm good at chess with my family (as they help me) and well, I did enter the chess comp and came third!

But really, how is a blind person

supposed to know?...

I was actually talking more to the-original-hufflepuff, along with anyone else who might feel inhibited because I can't provide a diagram on this forum. You shouldn't get hung up on the diagram, but if you need one, go ahead and make one.

However, since you ask, I can't help thinking that a blind person might actually have a leg up in this game. After all, if you're good enough at picturing the board in your head that you can come in third in an official competition, the extra detail of remembering that Rita Skeeter might be either of two separate pieces shouldn't cause you too much trouble. On the other hand, imagine those poor saps who have to work it out on the board: they think they've got everything nice and straight in their minds, and then Black moves a pawn diagonally three spaces, and when they protest, the moderator just says, "Oh, yeah, Kreacher could also have been the King's Bishop. Didn't you realize that?"

However, since you ask, I can't help thinking that a blind person might actually have a leg up in this game. After all, "Huh?" Well, I am good at chess, that is when i have the board in front of me and it's an electronic board that talks or if it is like a checkers board.

"Zugzwang: There is no definition of this word."

But it's still fun to gloriously mispronounce.

By the way, if anybody's gotten lost (which is understandable), the summary of the game so far looks like this: White, Bellatrix Lestrange to QB3 (Qoheleth); Black, Luna Lovegood to K4 (Ember Nickel); White, Charlie Weasly to KN3 (lyin'). Black to play, and White to win - at least, that's my hope, although I'll confess to a slight prejudice.

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