PROF. LUCIANO IMOTO
Inventor and designer of the LOCKING CHESS

 

I WAS ALREADY ABOUT TO GIVE UP CHESS.

 

It didn’t make sense to spend hours and hours memorizing and preparing dozens of openings and derivative lines to try to surprise the opponent with an unexpected move out of the books…

And engines like STOCKFISH, in addition to favoring cheaters in online and even over the board games, have already shown that to be a chess Grandmaster you need to be born with a prodigious photographic memory and have started playing tournaments in childhood.

I suspected that, like me, there were thousands of others in the same playful zugzwang…

 

TO PLAY OR NOT TO PLAY, THAT IS THE QUESTION…

 

We chess players are martial artists fighting on the board with all our might. Win or lose, we’ll smile inside because we know we’re alive and fighting and that’s already worth all the sacrifice. And we fight for what we love!

Fortunately, the potential of human intelligence borders on infinity (only our senses are limited) and chess has become increasingly refined and sophisticated since the birth of its grandfather, Chaturanga, in India 1,500 years ago.

Many dismiss any attempts to improve chess as “yet another variant”, but, in this logic, chess is also a variant derived from other variants originating from Chaturanga.

Some of the main changes implemented in the past were: the first pawn moves one or two squares ahead, the increase in the range of the Vizier (which became the Queen) and the Bishop and, later, castling, the addition of en passant capture and several modernizations in the rules to convert the game into a professional sport recognized by the Olympic Committee, with time restrictions, trophies, sponsors etc.

All those changes that have been made to the Indian Chaturanga and the Persian Shatranj since millennia were aimed at optimizing and accelerating the pace of matches. Just like its ancestors, chess was still unfinished, and many chess players realized this, but never found the last piece of the puzzle…

 

IT WAS FOUND IN 2022!

 

After years researching the origins and history of chess in classic books such as “A HISTORY OF CHESS” by H.J.R. Murray and “THE CLASSIFIED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHESS VARIANTS” by D.B. Pritchard and studying and experiencing some of its variants on the Internet, a discovery prevented me from abandoning the game.

 

FROM INDIAN CHATURANGA TO FISCHER’S CHESS960

Stacking layers of boards on top of each other was not the solution because it mischaracterizes the concept of chess, as well as creating boards with strange shapes, pieces with exotic powers or copying rules from other games.

And, as well as shuffling the order of the pieces in the starting position, others have tried to move the squares and change the positioning of the board. None of these modifications were sufficient.

There are countless examples of unsuccessful attempts to improve chess.

I understand the good intentions of its authors, but it is very easy to pollute and mess up the classical board.

All these variants kept chess incomplete because, since its conception in India, its inventors never suspected that there was another way to play chess.

 

THE THIRD DIMENSION

On October 22, 2022, I made a simple chess implementation that reinvented and updated it for this century!

What was missing to complete chess, and this just wasn’t tried before because it was so obvious that it went unnoticed, was the THIRD DIMENSION.

In the real physical world, all objects have and move in three dimensions: width, length, and height.

 

AND HEIGHT DIMENSION WAS WHAT CHESS MISSED!

 

The hardest thing was realizing that chess was incomplete and stagnant in time, and then starting to look for the “missing link” to make it more fun and updated. The element that caught my attention was before everyone’s eyes: the Knight’s strange L-shaped movement.

 

 

It was thanks to this “chess joker” that I found the solution!

Research the Knight’s history and you will see that this strange piece is the only one that has not undergone any modification.

It was as if the Knight had been born ready for chess!

This makes sense because the Knight is inevitable. Without it, there would be a missing piece capable of occupying the squares that other pieces are too limited to cover in closed positions. Movements only in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal would not be enough. Only the Knight jumps around in a circle over the middle pieces, as if they weren’t even there.

Thus, this jumping power of the Knight was borrowed and adapted by the other pieces, allowing them to rise and first superimpose a piece of their own color and once superimposed, move over the others, lock and pin pieces or capturing from above as if they were on a second chessboard level.

 

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

 

Finally, the two-dimensional battle played out on the chessboard incorporated the third dimension: the HEIGHT!

 

“LOCKING CHESS”

That’s the name I gave this new chess.

LOCKING CHESS preserves the original chess concept with a large volume of tactical and strategic possibilities of its predecessors. It is more complex because the possibilities of attack and mate have increased with the inclusion of a new type of castling, the CASTLOCK, and two checkmates, the LOCKMATE and REFUGEE MATE, as well as the means of defending the Kings and of capture pieces, among other special features like the EN PASSANT Superimpose.

 

IRON SHARPENS IRON

Testing the LOCKING CHESS with some friends in Brazil, USA, and Poland, we found that the Knight had become more powerful, as well as all the other pieces, including the King and pawns!

Those checkmates in less than five moves in orthodox chess were easily neutralized. And even an amateur, if creative enough, was a tenacious opponent!

LOCKING CHESS games are complex and in the future a team of programmers will develop engines to study this game. Eventually, there will be LOCKING CHESS bots too!

Another positive effect of LOCKING CHESS is that the view of the chessboard is enlarged. All it takes is an oversight for that piece, superimposing or locked under another piece, to participate in the game in a decisive way.

By the way, a precise observation of the position of the pieces on top of each other is an excellent exercise for training and developing cognitive and spatial skills.

In LOCKING CHESS there are twice as many first opening move and Kings have become Spartan generals in order not to be surrounded and locked behind castling. The algebraic notation of the games remains the same, only underlining or adding an asterisk in the moves in which a piece superimposes another or takes its place after a capture.

 

CHESS GOT MUCH MORE DYNAMIC AND CHALLENGING!

Now even the King can apply checks and win when the other King is locked under some other piece or vulnerable on top of another.

To maintain speed and balance, only one superimposition per piece is allowed per chessboard level. And the pieces that are on top of the superimposition can capture other pieces that are also superimposing.

Thus, the battle takes place on land and in the air, above the chessboard, as if there were a virtual square on top of each piece.

Gameplay has not been compromised and anyone who already knows how to play chess learns the new LOCKING CHESS rules in just one instructional game.

It’s hard to cheat here because there are no engines programmed with LOCKING CHESS rules yet.

Another interesting point is that chess players are not obliged to superimpose their pieces, but they will inevitably find positions where they can win or draw if they use this ingenious resource. Of course, the ghosts of the draw and the stalemate continue to haunt, as it is also a display of creativity and skill to manage to draw in a supposedly losing position.

In LOCKING CHESS nothing has changed on the 8×8 board, as well as the number of classic pieces and pawns, and its initial setup configuration. It is also easy to include LOCKING CHESS rules in CHESS960 and other variants. The official rules remained unchanged, as well as en passant capture, castles and draws (with the addition of the special moves of the EN PASSANT Superimpose and the CASTLOCK. See the OFFICIAL RULES).

The final objective has become more evident, and all tactics are still possible, including new checkmates in different ways!

This game notation below is a sample of LOCKING CHESS with a LOCKMATE in 32 moves and easy to understand:

 

 

 

1.e4           e5

2.Nf3         Qe8*

3.Bg2*      Bg7*

4.O-O* (Short Castlock)  Nf6

5.Re1         Be5*

6.Ra2*      d5

7.d3           Nc6

8.Be3         d4

9.Bxd4       Nxd4

10.Nxd4    Bd4*

11.Rd1*    Ba7*

12.Nb5      Qb5*

13.Rb1*    Bg5

14.f3          Bxf3

15.Bf3*     Qxb1*

16.Qxb1    Bg1*

17.Nxc7+ Ke7

18.Nxa8    Rxa8

19.Ra8*    Nh5

20.gxBf3* Nf4 (threating LOCKMATE with 21. …  Nh3#)

21.Qf1       Kf6

22.Bd5      Kg5

23.Bxb7     Kh4

24.Qf2+    Bf2*

25.BxRa8*  Kh3

26.Ra2*      h5

27.RxBf2*  h4

28.Rf4*       f6?

29.Qxh4!+  Kxh4

30.Rh4*      Ng6

31.Kh2*      NxRh4*

32.Kg3#      1 – 0

 

* In LOCKING CHESS algebraic notation, the move in which one of the pieces superimposed the other is underlined or annotated with an asterisk symbol.

There are other DEMO GAMES for readers to appreciate the subtleties of the LOCKING CHESS.

 

CHESS HAS BEEN REBORN WITH THE ADDITION OF THE DIMENSION IT WAS MISSING, CREATING TWO EXTRA CHECKMATES AND TYPES OF DRAWS NEVER IMAGINED!

After normal checkmate, the most common mate in LOCKING CHESS is called “LOCKMATE”.

LOCKMATE happens when a King locked under a piece is in check without being able to move, and any other friendly piece cannot block, capture, or lock the attacking pieces. In addition, there are games in which LOCKMATE is applied with the King, the “ROYAL LOCKMATE”, giving check to the opposing locked King.

Another unusual checkmate is the “REFUGEE MATE” in which a King superimposed on a piece receives a check and has no other piece to escape to, nor a square to go down, another piece to block or defend itself by locking the attacking piece. There are also games in which the “REFUGEE MATE” is applied with the King, in the rare and unlikely cases of “ROYAL MATE”. Matches ending in “ROYAL MATE” and “ROYAL LOCKMATE” usually occur when the two emperors advance against each other, and the battle gets much more heated and fuller of traps and ambushes throughout this duel.

And when the only legal move is from a King locked under an opponent’s piece, the game ends in LOCKOUT. The DEADLOCK applies to a refugee King superimposing any piece and whose only move could put it under the crosshairs of an enemy piece.

LOCKOUT and DEADLOCK are stalemate in LOCKING CHESS! So, you need to be even more careful…

 

“— WHAT IS THE ADVANTAGE OF SUPERIMPOSING THE PIECES TO MOVE THEM ON TOP OF THE OTHERS?”

It means multiplying the potential and arsenal of attack and counterattack in chess!

However, the superimposing of pieces and pawns will not always be an advantage and their value has not increased much, except that of Knights which, from the level of the chessboard, can shoot down superimposed pieces at the top and, when superimposed, can also capture enemy pieces on the land!

And the dogfight can start very early if White’s first move is with the Queen superimposing her King on e1 or the pawn on e2 threatening to “lock” Black’s King on e8 (although a Black Knight played on f6 is sufficient to quickly expel this intruding Lady).

 

LOCKING CHESS IS CHESS ON STEROIDS!

The chess players decide, at any moment, whether or not to take advantage of the superimposition resource. It is possible to play an entire game without any superimposition between pieces, just like a “normal” game. However, in the slightest possibility of winning, losing or drawing using the superimposition feature, everything changes to the side that applies this maneuver better and faster.

There is nothing more pleasurable than flexing the “muscles” of the mind, and LOCKING CHESS is pure mental movement!

 

Despite being the inventor of the LOCKING CHESS, I know I haven’t even touched this new creature’s fur yet!

Now, to win, memory, technical preparation and concentration will have to harmonize with CREATIVITY.

 

Capablanca, Mikhail Tal and Bobby Fischer would have loved LOCKING CHESS!

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