A New Chess Variant for Gaming AI

In this article, we explain a new chess variant that is more challenging for humans than the standard version of the game. A new rule states that either player has the right to switch sides if a ‘chain’ or link of pieces is created on the board. This appears to increase significantly the complexity of chess, as perceived by players, but not the actual size of its game tree. ‘Search’ therefore becomes less of an issue. The advantage of this variant is that it allows research into board games to focus on the ‘higher level’ aspects of intelligence by building upon the approaches used in existing chess engines. We argue that this new variant can therefore more easily contribute to gaming AI than other games of