***** KRIEGSPIEL ***** Kriegspiel (wild 16) is a chess variant in which you cannot see your opponent's pieces! You can only see your own pieces, and you have to guess where your opponent's pieces are. When you try to make a move, ICC may tell you that your move is illegal, in which case you should make another move instead. To play Kriegspiel, just match someone for a wild 16 game: match Fred 2 12 kriegspiel The computer referee makes the following announcements where appropriate: - "White's move" - "Black's move" - "Pawn at "square" captured" - "Piece at "square" captured" - "Rank check" - "File check" - "Long-diagonal check" (the longer diagonal from the king's point of view) - "Short-diagonal check" (e.g. for a king on e1, the short diagonal is e1 to h4) - "Knight check" - "pawn tries" (number of legal capturing moves using pawns) When you try an illegal move, you are simply told "Illegal move", whether it is moving into check or moving through an enemy piece. Your opponent is not told anything when you try an illegal move. You cannot observe rated Kriegspiel games. This is to prevent people from logging in with a second account, and seeing all the pieces while they are playing on another account! You CAN observe unrated Kriegspiel games, if you're registered. If you disconnect or get disconnected during a Kriegspiel game, the game is a loss. Kriegspiel games are not adjourned. In examine mode you can see all the pieces and moves, e.g. if you have examine=1, at the end of the game you'll be able to see your opponent's pieces (you may have to "refresh"), review the move history, etc. The illegal moves tried are not recorded. Moves that are typed in must use dumb-computer format, e.g. "e2e4". Input strings such as "nxq" which might be interepreted differently depending on the enemy position are not allowed, with one exception: "px" is allowed, to save you the trouble of trying a dozen possible diagonal pawn moves when you know that precisely one of them is legal. Other acceptable forms include "e2-e4", "o-o", and "f7g8=N". Moves like "Rd3" are not accepted, because there are a few cases where they could be context-dependent. Most graphical interfaces generate strings like "e2e4" for you when you make moves with the mouse. On some old interfaces such as Slics 22f and xboard 3.4, pawn captures can't be made with a mouse and so must be typed in. Opponent moves show up in the form "?" or "?xf3". This might break some interfaces. Notes: 1. Channel 116 is the Kriegspiel channel. 2. Kriegspiel with lag is painful. Even with timestamp, your clock will run while you wait to hear that your move is illegal. 3. If you start a game and your opponent complains that he can't see your pieces, offer to abort, and suggest that he read this file. See also: wild, bughouse, refresh