ACM Chess is a variant of traditional chess played on a 6x6 board with modified rules and piece compositions. Each player starts with:
- 6 Pawns
- 1 Castle (Rook) on the far-left side
- 1 Knight next to the Castle
- 1 Queen and 1 King in the center (Queen takes its color)
- 1 Bishop to the right of the King
- 1 Star (special piece) on the far-right side
The objective of ACM Chess is to Capture your opponent’s King while following the modified board and piece movements.
Pawns move as follows:
- Forward movement: Can move one or two squares forward, but cannot capture directly in front of it.
- Capturing: Can capture diagonally forward one square to the left or right.
- Special moves: If this piece reaches the end of the board, it promotes into a Joker.
- Moves any number of squares horizontally or vertically.
- Cannot jump over other pieces.
- Moves in an L-shape: Two squares in one direction, then one square perpendicular.
- Can jump over other pieces.
- Moves any number of squares diagonally.
- Cannot jump over other pieces.
- Moves any number of squares horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
- Cannot jump over other pieces.
- Moves one square in any direction.
- Moves: one square in any diagonal direction, or jump two squares horizontally or vertically.
- Can jump over other pieces.
- This piece is only obtained if you manage to promote a pawn into it by reaching the opposite side of the board.
- Moves: One square in any diagonal, horizontal or vertical direction. Or jump two squares in any diagonal, horizontal or vertical direction.
- Can jump over other pieces.
- Board Setup: The board is 6x6, reducing the number of total pieces compared to standard chess.
- Promotion Rules: When a pawn reaches the last rank it promotes into the power Joker piece.
- King Capture: If a player’s King is in captured the game ends, with the last standing king winning the game.
- Draw conditions: If the game does not end within 50 moves (each side) the game will be considered a draw.
- This tournament follows a round-robin format, where each team plays against every other team twice (one game as White and the other as Black)
- Scores:
- Win: 3 points
- Draw: 1 point
- Loss: 0 point
- The ranking will based on the total score of each team after all matches are finished.
- Tie-breaking methods: If two or more teams have the same scores, tie-breaking rules will be applied in following order:
- Sonneborn-Berger: This is calculated by adding up the tournament score of each opponent you defeated, and half the tournament score of each drawn opponent.
- Direct encounter: If any players are still tied at this point, and all tied players have played against each other in the tournament, then the player with the most points out of those games is the winner.
- Number of wins: The player with the highest total number of wins breaks the tie.
- Random Score: Each tied player will be assigned a random score to break the tie.