Grasshopper chess is a

chess variant A chess variant is a game related to, derived from, or inspired by chess. Such variants can differ from chess in many different ways. "International" or "Western" chess itself is one of a family of games which have related origins and could be co ...

, in which the pawns are allowed to promote to a

fairy piece A fairy chess piece, variant chess piece, unorthodox chess piece, or heterodox chess piece is a chess piece not used in conventional chess but incorporated into certain chess variants and some chess problems. Compared to conventional pieces, fair ...

, the ''

grasshopper Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshopp ...

''. The grasshopper (shown as an inverted queen) must hop over other pieces in order to move or capture. In some variations grasshoppers may also be present on the board in the opening position, in addition to the usual pieces. For example, pawns can be moved forward and grasshoppers put along the second and seventh ranks as shown on the diagram at right. Another possibility is to replace

queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

with grasshoppers in initial position, while pawns can still be promoted to queens. Grasshoppers are capable of moving as a queen but must jump over a piece and land one spot past the piece that they jump. Pawns are not allowed to go twice for their initial move.

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Grasshopper chess
by

Hans Bodlaender Hans Leo Bodlaender (born April 21, 1960) is a Dutch computer scientist, a professor of computer science at Utrecht University. Bodlaender is known for his work on graph algorithms and parameterized complexity and in particular for algorithms relat ...

, ''

The Chess Variant Pages ''The Chess Variant Pages'' is a non-commercial website devoted to chess variants. It was created by Hans Bodlaender in 1995. The site is "run by hobbyists for hobbyists" and is "the most wide-ranging and authoritative web site on chess variants". ...

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