Rules / Must Capture
Must Capture chess: rules and the opening trap to know
Must Capture is regular chess with one extra law: if you have a legal capture, you have to make one. You still win by checkmate, and stalemate is still a draw. That single law changes how you read a position, because your opponent can now choose some of your moves for you.
The rules
- If any of your pieces can legally capture, you must capture. If there are several captures, you pick which one.
- En passant and capturing promotions count as captures.
- A capture that would leave your King in check isn't legal, so it doesn't force you. A pinned piece can stand next to a free pawn and ignore it.
- If you're in check, the duty is lifted. You may answer the check any legal way, with or without a capture.
Unlike Antichess, where you try to lose all your pieces, the goal here is the normal one. Kings keep their royal status, and castling is unchanged.
Why 1.e4 d5 loses the queen
In ordinary chess, 1.e4 d5 is the respectable Scandinavian Defense. Here it's a blunder, and every step after it is forced for Black.
- 1.e4 d5 2.exd5. White has exactly one legal move, because the pawn capture is available.
- 2...Qxd5. Black also has exactly one legal move. The queen is dragged to the center.
- 3.Nc3. White has no capture available, so any move is allowed. White plays a useful developing move and hands the turn back.
Now Black has to take. The queen's three options are Qxa2, Qxd2+ and Qxg2, and there's nothing else on the board Black may play. Each pawn is protected: the rook or knight retakes on a2, the bishop, queen or King on d2, and the bishop on g2. Black gets one pawn for the queen.
The choice of third move matters. 3.h3 looks just as quiet, but it puts a pawn on the long diagonal of the bishop on c8, which became open when the d-pawn left. Black can then answer 3...Bxh3, which satisfies the duty to capture, so the queen isn't lost yet. That's the habit this variant teaches: before a quiet move, list every capture it makes available to the other side.
Three habits that win games
Count what you're offering
Every pawn you push and every piece you develop may create a new forced capture. A move can be good or bad purely because of the capture it allows. Look at the board from your opponent's side before you let go of the piece.
Use sacrifices as steering
A cheap piece can pull a defender off the square it guards. If your opponent's only capture is with the knight protecting their King, giving up a pawn moves that knight, whether they like it or not. If they have two captures available, the trick may fail, so check that the capture you want is the only one.
Keep your queen away from loose captures early
The line above works because a queen in the open has long lines full of defended pawns. Bringing the queen out early is risky in normal chess. Here it can lose on the spot, since one defended pawn along its line can be enough once it has no other move.
Reading the screen
When a capture is available, EX Chess draws a thread of light from the attacker to its target. Picking any other move shows a warning. You can try the line above against the computer in a few seconds.
Next: Shadow King