Season 1 - The Pawn Sovereign
Rules
Checkmate your opponent's last standing pawn, and you win!
If you promote your last remaining pawn, you win!
Move the same pawn directly forward on three consecutive turns, and you win! *Caveat
Before play starts, draft* three cards and place them face up. Those cards are rules that affect both players.
"That was very tense" - first time player
Argon Chess is based on our favorite game, but hopefully less impacted by computer-assisted cheating. I find this variant fun, with an emphasis on creativity vs. memorization. New rules will be added here in new "seasons" if any engine is competing well at the game.
About the Creator
I'm a chess kid at heart! I grew up in chess clubs, going to local tournaments, and playing with my dad from the ripe age of 4. A top childhood highlight was getting "Attacking Chess" signed by Josh Waitzkin in the convention center at the first ever SuperNationals in Knoxville in 1997. (That one became the pristine copy, and I got another to read.) I've never competed well at the game, but it kept on giving: When I moved to a big city in an especially introverted phase, meeting up at a four-handed-chess club helped me break out of my shell.
I started prototyping Argon Chess in 2023, but I felt like the project would benefit from a delayed release. In the intervening time, it's gone through major revisions as well as card-by-card improvements. I've also realized that my overarching goal is to connect people with deep creativity. I think this approach to chess encourages creative play, and hopefully gives us a break from superficial AI "creativity" we see everywhere.
This is a pure passion project at this point. No money's been raised for it, though some has been spent on it. In the future, I would love to commission some custom artwork. That said I'm very thankful for all of the lovely public domain I could incorprate. Also, thanks to Dan Motzenbecker (and other contributors) for the fantastic P2P WebRTC project Trystero, which is what makes the real-time sandbox chessboard experience come to life.