PAWNOGRAPHIC CHESS

c.2003 Bill Taylor
[this is an older game, only the name was coined by Bill]

This game is played on the following 8x8 square board:

 

MOVE - On each turn, each player moves one of his stones. The stones move like FIDE Chess pawns.  GOAL - Wins the player that reaches his last row or stalemates the opponent.

 

An example White moved the marked stone and wins the game. Black cannot win this race.

There is a ZRF to play Pawnographic Chess with Zillions.

Bill Taylor wrote in May 2003:

This [about another] game, with its emphasis on pawns, reminds me of one we used to play quite a bit - "all pawn chess". The players just start with their pawns on the usual place and no pieces and no kings. Pawns move as usual, including e.p, and the winner is the first to promote a pawn, or you lose by being first unable to move.

[...] When we used to play this back in student days [Bill was 58yo in 2003], one of the chaps, a chess expert, claimed that one of the positions that arose had an opportunity for a genuine sacrifice. That is, giving up a pawn, without immediate chance of regain, for a longer-term advantage. We were all a bit dubious though.

Independently, Michael Jørgensen, had almost the same idea, which he called Touchdown, played on a board with 4 rows and 8 columns (but it may change to any size) where the stones start in the first and last row, and a stalemate means a draw.

An excerpt of the original post (c.2003)

The game is played on a board with 4 rows and 8 coloumns like this (view using a fixed-width font):

OOOOOOOO
........
........
XXXXXXXX

The pieces move like pawns in chess, i.e. move forward one square at a time, but capture diagonally. The winner is the first player to reach the opposite side of the board with a pawn. It is obligatory to move if possible. If a player has no more moves, the game is a draw (a tie).

Dvd Avins answered:

Michael Jørgensen may well have come up with this independently, but it is very nearly a non-chess representation of a chess puzzle I developed and have been showing at clubs and tournaments for the past 20 or so years. The only difference in outcome would be that in the chess puzzle, if neither player can move then the player whose turn it is loses.

The position is: White has its king on g1 and pawns on a2, b2, c2, d2, f6, and h6. Black has its king on g8 and pawns on a7, b7, c7, d7, f3, and h3.

The queenside is exactly as Mr. Jørgensen, except that I'm not sure whether he's accounting for en passant captures when he says the "pieces move like pawns in chess". Any move on the kingside loses quickly for whoever made the move, so the game must be settled on the queenside (which is the Touch Down board). However if neither side can move on the queenside, in chess a losing move on the kingside is forced.

The chess puzzle is a win for White. If the number of queenside columns with pawns is reduced to three, then it is a win for Black. With Michael Jørgensen's rule allowing a draw in the case of locked pawns, I suspect that the game is a draw.

The winning strategy for White in the chess puzzle is to move a 'center-pawn' (i.e. the b- or c-pawn) two spaces, then in response to most Black tries to move the opposite wing pawn (i.e. the d-pawn after the b-pawn or the a-pawn after the c-pawn) on space, then to move the remaining center-pawn two spaces.

Anyway, given the two accounts (Bill's and Avins') it seems this game floated among game clubs (namely Chess clubs) many decades before the 2000s.

Another modern well-known iteration of this concept is 2001's Breakthrough by Dan Troyka.