User:Jay11028/test

Raumschach (German for space chess) and contrary to popular belief not the "3-D Star trek" chess, is almost an ancient game invented by the Herr Doktor Ferdinand Maack in the revolutionary year 1907 long before star trek was even written. Herr first tried to set up the game with an 8x8x8 array but over the later years it was decreased to that of a 5x5x5 array which is comparatively less complicated and yeilds a much nicer game.

Notation
Different types of algebraic notation have been used for recording Raumschach games over the years.: the most common and easiest to perceive is : A, B, C, D, and E denote the 5 vertical levels, with A being White's home level and E being Black's. Within each level, ordinary algebraic notation applies. Thus,viewed from the "front" (White's side), the front, left, bottom "square" (or cell) is Aa1, whereas the diagonally opposite square is Ee5

The pieces
Symbol 	Piece K / k 	King Q / q 	Queen R / r 	Rook B / b 	Bishop N / n 	Knight U / u 	Unicorn P / p 	Pawn

The Layout
From the lower level through the upper most.

Level A:

Level B:

Level C:

Level D:

Level E:

Their movements
the moves of the Bishop, Rook, and Knight are the same as in orthochess, plus taking into account the extra dimensions. the plane which intersects a departure square can be used a two dimensional chess board, and he set of all the cells at the forward end of the board, xy1 (where both the variables are arbitrary) forms a two-dimensional board whereon the normal 2-D chess rules apply. also the rules for the other cases are similar. Rooks, bishops, and knights move as they do in chess in any given plane. Rooks, for eg., move through the walls of the cubes in any rank, file or column. Bishops move through the edges of the cubes, and knights make a 0,1,2 leaping move same effect as one step as a rook and one as a bishop. Unicorns move in a manner special to a 3D space called triagonal movement through the corners of the cubes. Thus each unicorn can reach only 30 cubes; each player's pair, 60. Rooks go up down left right forward and backward and bishops only go diagonally forward and up, diagonally forward and down, diagonally backwards and up, diagonally backwards and down, and the four other directions within the x-y coordinates. However the 'unicorns' move "diagonally" in other directions accross the "vertices" ie. from a1 on the bottom board to e5 (opposite corner) on top board, and naturally can stop on any square between that. ie. c3 on 3rd board. You may notice that there are only certain specific squares the unicorn can be on in this instance and so there are some squares it can never be on, but other one can like white and black square bishops in ordinary chess. The queen combines the moves of a rook, bishop and unicorn. The king moves the same as a queen but one step at a time. Pawns move forward as in chess, or one step directly upward if white or downward if black. Pawns capture diagonally as in chess, including one step upward white or downward black through a front or side cube edge. Promotion occurs where pawns cannot move further, namely the rank E5 for white pawns and A1 black pawns. There is no pawn double-move, en passant or castling. White moves first, and the object is still to checkmate the opposing king.