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Cylinder chess (or cylindrical chess) is a chess variant with unusual board. The game is played as if the board was a cylinder, with the left side of the board joined to the right side. According to Bill Wall, in 947 in a history of chess in India and Persia, the Arabic historian Ali al-Masudi described 6 different variants of chess, including astrological chess, circular chess and cylinder chess. ^[1]

Contents 1 Rules and gameplay 2 Rule variations 3 References 4 External links

The game is played as if there is no edge on the side of the board. When a piece goes off the right edge of the board in cylinder chess, it reappears on the left edge; when a piece goes off the left edge, it reappears on the right edge.^[2]

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 go to h4, by moving from c1 to a3, and then going up and left from a3 to h4. Moves, which doesn't change position, like rook a3-a3 (assuming 3rd rank is empty), are not allowed. It is allowed to capture en passant over the board edge. For example, if white has a pawn on a5, black on h7 and black plays h7-h5, white can captures it: a5xh6.

Bishops are about as valuable as rooks in this variant. In difference to chess king and rook can't checkmate the lonely king on cylindrical board.

The game is sometimes played with changed rules for castling:

• The castling is not allowed. Proponents of this rule argue, that on cylinder board there is no center files and castling doesn't make sense anyway.
• Additional to normal castling, the castling with rook over the board edges is allowed. For example, on the diagram at right (position by C. Rieseneder), white checkmates by playing 1. 0-0. By such castling king e1 moves to g1 and rook a1 moves to f1. Similar castling is possible queen-side with rook on h1 (provided there is no pieces on a1,b1,c1,d1): king moves to c1, rook h1 moves to d1.

Some cylinder chess problems allow the moves, which doesn't change the position (so-called null-moves) ^[3]. At the right an example of such a problem is shown. The solution is to put black in a zugzwang by playing 1.Rh4-h4 . Now, after any move by black white has a mate. The move 1.Rg4 doesn't work because of 1....Ka5 threatening to capture the rook.

In horizontal cylinder chess first and last rank are connected. In toroidal chess the board have the form of torus. One can get toroidal board by connecting first and last rank of cylindrical board. These two variations found only in chess problems and not suitable for play. On toroidal board even king and queen can't checkmate the lonely king ^[4].

• Cylinder chess by George Jelliss, Variant Chess, Volume 3, Issue 22, Winter 1996-7, pages 32-33.
• Cylindrical chess by Ron Porter and Cliff Lundberg.
• BrainKing.com - internet server to play Cylinder chess and many other chess variants