Dawson's Chess

Equipment:

A 3 x n chessboard, n white pawns (or counters) and n black pawns (or counters)

Number of players:

2

The Set-up:

Players decide on the size of board. Our examples use a 3x8 board i.e. three rows of a chess board. The set up is as follows:

A Move:

At your turn you move one of your pawns forward one square. However if you are in a position to capture one of your opponents pawns (one square diagonally forward to left or right as in normal chess) then you must capture that pawn. Capturing is mandatory in this game! White always moves first in a game.

A Win:

The last player to move wins. If you have no legal move then you lose.

Notes:

In Dawson's Chess sequences of moves can occur where there is no choice for either player. For example suppose White on his first move moves one of his edge pawns:

Then Black is forced to capture this pawn:

White in reply is forced to capture this Black pawn:

The Black and White pawns at the right of the board cannot now make any further moves in the game.

Who wins, if they play their best move at each turn, in a 3 x 3 game, in a 4 x 3 game and in a 5 x 3 game, White or Black?

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