If you are a chess player, I have a question to ask you. When was the last time that you successfully launched a Kingside pawn storm attack against your enemy's position starting on the first move of the game? If you answered "never", it's because its obvious that such a strategy is not possible in a standard 8 x 8 chess game. Trying such a strategy obviously leaves your own King vulnerable to attack early in the game and attempting to play such a strategy will almost certainly lead to a lost game.

Well, the purpose of this page is to show prospective players that a Kingside pawn storm, played from the very outset of Magi, is a viable strategy in my chess variant! Of course, it helps if your opponent does not try a viable counter strategy, but a kingside pawn storm launched at the start of a game can work. With that, I will proceed to show a game that I played against the Zillions of Games program, set to play at roughly mid - level strength, where I defeated the program carrying out such a strategy. Indeed, replaying the game revealed that I could have defeated the program with perhaps 10 fewer moves that it took for me to defeat the program in this game.

Click here (63kb) to see an image of the initial board setup. I am playing with the White pieces against the computer, which has the Black pieces.

Game Notation: Piece moves without a letter in front of the move indicate a pawn move. D = Duke, Kn = Knight, K = King, W = Wizard, R = Rook, Q = Queen, C = Cardinal, and B = Bishop. Squares are notated in small letters. Note that I also do not notate all of the moves.

Piece fonts: The Wizard piece is represented by the font that is triangle shaped with a moon in its center. Cardinals are represented by the font piece that is helmet or hat shaped, with a cross in its center. Dukes are represented by the font piece which is square shaped at the bottom, but branches outwards at its top. The Duke font piece resembles a crown. All other pieces use standard chess piece fonts used in normal chess.

1. The second image (67kb) shows the game at the end of move 4:

1. h2 - 5, Kn - i10 - h8; 2. i2 - i5, (Lead Pawn) g8 - g6; 3. h5 - h6, g9 - g8; 4. Dj3 - i3, B h10 x Da3...

So far, I've advanced my H and I pawns and moved my kingside Duke into a position where the Duke is behind them. Meanwhile, the computer advanced its G pawns so that it could let out its kingside Bishop. It then exchanged its kingside Bishop for my queenside Duke, to which I took back with my Knight. The computer also tried developing its kingside Knight and advancing its kingside Duke. This will cause problems for the program, as we shall see.

2. 5. Kn b1 x Da3, Dj8 - j5; 6. Wg1 - h3, Dj5 - j7; 7. j2 - j5, Dj7 - h7...

The third image (69kb) shows why advancing the kingside Duke was a bad idea for the computer. I developed my Wizard to the H3 square, which forced the Duke to fall back. Now, I've advanced my G3 (the lead pawn on the G file) and J pawns to join my H and I pawns on the attack!

3. In this image (69kb), We are now on move 15. The advance of my kingside Pawns has forced the computer to move its kingside Duke towards the middle of the board to avoid being stampeded. Meanwhile, the program has developed its queenside Knight and developed its queenside Duke towards the middle of the board.

I've started a fianchetto of my queenside Bishop in preparation of castling queenside. On move 15, I advanced my J pawn to the J7 square which made the program react by retreating the Black Wizard to its starting square at G -10.

4. We are now on move 23 (68kb). The program has broken my initial kingside pawn storm attack, but at a cost. The program had to reposition its kingside Knight to avoid the pawn storm. Also, now I have brought in my Cardinal in on the offensive to join the kingside Duke and Kingside Rook. The Queen and the White Wizard stand within one move each of joining the attack.

5. We are now on move 31 (69kb). Since the last move, Dukes have been exchanged. Also, I've taken Black's J Pawn with my Cardinal. Since this directly challenged the computer's kingside Rook, the computer took my Cardinal with the Rook, which left me free to take the computer's Rook with my kingside Rook. This effectively allowed me to go up a pawn.

The computer dropped its Queen back to defend the now exposed H pawn. This left me free to advance my Queen and Wizard up towards the site of the battle, while castling my King on the queenside.

Things are looking very bad for the computer!

6. We are now on move 32 (69kb). Black's kingside flank has nearly been destroyed. The computer is attempting to defend its now vulnerable King with a Pawn, a Queen, a Knight, and a Wizard. However, viewing the image should make it clear that Black will not be able to bring any more forces towards the scene of the battle before any new developments occur.

And occur they do. With the Wizard leaps... 31. Wj5 - h7 and 32. Wh7 - j8, the White Wizard uses his magic, attacking the Black Queen and forcing her to move to F10, away from the battle scene.

7. In move 33 (68kb), the White Wizard snatches the remaining black kingside pawn, simultaneously undermining the position of the Black Knight and attacking the Black Queen. The White Wizard and Black Wizard face off and confront each other, just within each other's spheres of influence!


8. Still on move 33 (68kb), The computer is forced to defend the Knight.

9. We are now at move 36 (68kb). Both sides have made developing moves. The computer smartly repositioned its queenside Knight to the G7 square where it blocks the long diagonal and is simultaneously able to come back and help on the beleagered defense of the Black Monarch.

Meanwhile, I've moved my kingside Bishop to the J3 square. I am starting to get the remaining kingside pieces out of the way to develop my remaining queenside Rook so that I can bring the Rook into play later in the game.

Closer to the action, I've moved my Queen into check. Black has the Black Wizard and Queen available for defense. One important idea here is that I could potentially smother the Black King with the right set of moves with my Wizard.

10. We are now at move 40 (68kb). After some tense manuevers on both sides, where both sides tried to trade off Queens to its advantage (I could potentially have achieved a smothered mate if the program would have accepted my trade on move 39!), I've started advancing my center pawns in an effort to throw off Black's defense.

As it turned out, my hopes didn't work out exactly as I had hoped. It appears in the image that 2 of my pawns are simultaneously attacking Black's Queen, a Duke and a Knight. However, Black finally forces a tradeoff of Queens. I was afraid that if I didn't take the trade off, then Black would be able to manuever the Knight at f5 back towards the defense.

As it turned out, I miscalculated this position entirely here. What I should have done at move 40 is move the White Wizard from the j10 corner square to h9, which would have forced the computer to sacrifice the Black Queen (40. h7 x Wh9) to stave off checkmate. This exchange would have in turn led to the Black King fleeing his back rank fortress. However, in one replay game, I achieved checkmate at move 55.

This is an example of why I favor playing by my second form of outcomes rather than standard chess outcomes. Playing for my devised 12 point game formula forces players to figure out the best method of trying to bring about a favorable outcome to games as soon as possible.

11. We are now at move 47 (68kb). After the trade off of Queens on move 41, my subtle Wizard move from j10 - i10 threatens a smothered mate of the Black King, forcing a Black Wizard to counter with a move from f10 - g10. There, the Wizards face each other with the Black Knight holding down the h10 square between them.

From there, Black tries to manuever the f5 knight back towards the defense, but my kingside Rook gets to the scene too fast, taking the Knight that separates the Wizards and forcing the trade between the Black Wizard and the White Rook.

Meanwhile, the computer manages to extract its Duke from my pawn attack, but I form a pawn chain in the process. I then advance my pawns, forcing another Knight move. Maybe that wasn't such a bright move, since this allows the machine to bring in more defensive resources in the form of its center Pawns and Cardinal.

12. We are now at move 51 (68kb). Black has moved its Knight around forcing my Wizard to make evasive manuevers. This allows the program to bring the Black Cardinal into the game.

13. We are at move 52 (68kb). However, moving the Black Cardinal to the i6 square forces me to move the Wizard. Employing new magic, the Wizard performs a Knight leap from i7 to j9. This leads to a potential fork of the Black King and Cardinal by making another Wizard leap to the h8 square. This threat prompts the computer to move its Monarch out to Kg9 to counter the threat!

14. At this point, I have to make a decision. Good players would recognize at this point that Black's defenses are taxed right now. In theory, I could move my Rook over to the i1 square, attacking Black's Cardinal in the process. This would counter the potential move of Black taking of my Rook by its Cardinal. That move, in theory, would slow my attack.

Meanwhile, my Wizard still hovers nearby the enemy Monarch at j9, ready to barrage the Black King with a series of checks which might be enough to keep the Black King off balance for a long enough period of time in order to either promote the advancing Pawns, or to get the Knight and Bishops close enough to the battle scene to help achieve a checkmate.

Here I gambled. I took the computer's Knight at g7 with my fianchettoed Bishop stationed at b2. I was expecting Black to counter by taking my Rook with the Cardinal (effectively a kind of "spite check"), putting my King in check and necessitating that I take the enemy Cardinal with my King. Apparently the machine was not expecting my move, and made a "computer move" by taking my Bishop with the f8 Pawn that was anchoring its Knight. This left me free to move my remaining Rook to i1, threatening the Cardinal. The computer reacted by making a spite check with the Duke at c5 (move 54), and unexplicably moving the Cardinal to g8 where I promptly took the lordly Cleric with my peasant Pawn at f7. Go figure.

15. From here, the game was effectively over. There is no defense against moving my Rook from i1 - i8 on move 57, putting the hapless Black King in check. From there, all that's left is figuring out the correct set of moves that make sure that my Rook and Wizard successfully checkmate the Black King. This is accomplished on move 64, by executing a series of continuous checks on the King, using the Wizard to use his magic by holding the King in place. The Wizard cuts off any escape routes that the enemy Monarch might attempt to use and the Rook comes up to deliver the coup de grace.

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