— I believe Hostage the most interesting, exciting variant that can

be played with a standard chess set. Mating attacks are the norm.
Anyone can hope to discover new principles and opening lines.
Grandmaster Larry Kaufman
2008 World Senior Chess Champion

— Fascinating, exciting, extremely entertaining—–what a wonder-

ful new game!
Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett
Chess World Championship Candidate

— Probably the most remarkable chess variant of the last fifty years.
Captured men are hostages that can be exchanged. Play is rarely less
than exciting, sometimes with several reversals of fortune. Dramatic
mates are the rule, not the exception.
D.B.Pritchard
author of “The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants”

— Chess is not yet played out, but it is no longer possible to perform

at a high level without a detailed knowledge of openings. In Hostage
Chess creativity and imagination flourish, and fun returns.
Peter Coast
Scottish Chess Champion

— With only a few rule changes, Hostage Chess creates a marvelously

exciting variant on the classical game.
Lawrence Day
International Chess Master

— Every bit as intriguing as standard chess. Beautiful roads keep

branching off in all directions, and sharp eyed beginners sometimes
roll right over the experts.
Robert Hamilton
FIDE Chess Master
 Published 2012 by Aristophanes Press

Hostage Chess Copyright © 2012 John Leslie. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a re-
trieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or
conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written per-
mission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations em-
bedded in critical articles and reviews.

John Leslie ( johnlesl@uoguelph.ca ) invented the game of Hos-

tage Chess. A Canadian university teacher, his hobbies include
mountaineering, canoeing, board games, and writing books like
“Universes” (Routledge), “The End of the World: the science and ethics
of human extinction” (Routledge), and “Infinite Minds” (Oxford Uni-
versity Press).

Website:
www.hostagechess.com
Hostage Chess
John Leslie
Contents
Chapter 1

Introducing “Hostage” 5
Chapter 2

Rules and Notation 18

Chapter 3

Tactics and Strategy 29

Chapter 4

Illustrative Games 59
Chapter 5

A Chess Master in Trouble 87

Chapter 6

More Master Games 90

Chapter 7

A Grandmaster Victory 118

Chapter 8

Games by the Computer 124

 Chapter 1

Introducing “Hostage”

Starting with all the normal rules of chess, the normal chessboard,
and the normal thirty-two chess pieces in their normal starting posi-
tions, Hostage Chess adds rules about hostages. That means all chess
pieces — usually just called “men” , so that even a queen is a “man” —
that have been captured during the game and haven’t yet been rescued.

You rescue men captured by your opponent through “ransoming”

them, “paying for” them, which you do by releasing men that you yourself
have captured. That is called “an exchange of hostages”. What makes
Hostage Chess so exciting is that men released or rescued can parachute
back into the fight. “Parachuting” just means returning to the board,
“as if being dropped from the air”.

Prisons for captured men are at the side of the board, each near
its owner’s right hand. They are simply areas, right next to the board,
where the players “imprison” all captured men, keeping them fully
visible — so prisons have no walls and roofs. Until captured men are
placed in them as “hostages” waiting to be exchanged, the prisons
are just empty areas on the dining table, coffee table or whatever else
is the thing on which the board rests.

There are airfields as well, each near its owner’s left hand. Once
5
again, they are simply areas right next to the board. (It’s a good idea
to put things like saucers, plates or beer mats in these areas, to help
you to remember that they are airfields and not prisons, but you don’t
have to.) Any men in the airfields were sent there when released from
prison, so they don’t need to be “paid for”. No longer hostages, they
have become paratroops ready for action.

The full rules of the game will be explained later. Here, though,
are the TWO MAIN NEW RULES which make Hostage Chess
so different from normal chess.

— Rule #1 To rescue a man your opponent has imprisoned, PAY

by releasing a man OF GREATER OR EQUAL VALUE that you
have imprisoned.

(Values run in steps starting from PAWN, then up to

KNIGHT-or-BISHOP, then ROOK, then QUEEN. So, for
instance, you could rescue a pawn by releasing an imprisoned
rook. Or you could rescue a bishop by releasing a knight, because
that’s equal in value.)
- Push the released man (“the payment”) forward into your
opponent’s airfield.

- Then AT ONCE “parachute” the man you are rescuing onto

an empty square. (Just make sure you don’t parachute pawns onto first or
eighth ranks.)

— Rule #2 Anything in an airfield waits there until a turn is used

for parachuting it. (Once again, pawns can’t be parachuted onto first or
eighth ranks.)

Here’s how it works. Playing as in normal chess, two beginners

might reach this position in which Black has captured a bishop while
White has captured a knight:

6
 (Black’s prison, holding the (Black’s airfield, at present
captured white bishop) empty, shown by a double line)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
B{rdbdk4wd}
{dp0wdpdp}
{whqdp0wg}
{0wdpdwdw}
{Pdw)wdBd}
{dwdw)w)w}
{w)PHN)w)}
{$wdQIRdW}n
llvllllllllV
(White’s airfield, also (White’s prison, holding
empty) the captured black knight)

Instead of using the next turn as in standard western chess, suppose

that White chooses to make use of Rule #1. This means releasing
the black knight from the prison and pushing it forward into Black’s
airfield. Since knights and bishops are of equal value, releasing the
knight allows White to rescue the imprisoned white bishop, which must
immediately parachute back onto the board. Well, let’s say that White
uses the parachuting bishop to attack the queen, as in Diagram 1:
uuuuuuuuCuu
{rdbdk4wd}n
{dp0wdpdp}
{whqdp0wg}
{0Bdpdwdw}
{Pdw)wdBd}
{dwdw)w)w}
{w)PHN)w)}
{$wdQIRdW}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 1

7
 White’s turn has ended. The black knight has gone forward to Black’s
airfield, to “buy” the white bishop. The bishop had to parachute AT
ONCE, as Rule #1 said. It could parachute onto absolutely any empty
square, and it now threatens the queen. Should Black capture it?
There’s a far better move — a move using Rule #2. The airfield knight
is available for parachuting, and this looks the right moment for using
it to attack White’s king as in Diagram 2:

uuuuuuuuCuu
{rdbdk4wd}
{dp0wdpdp}
{whqdp0wg}
{0Bdpdwdw}
{Pdw)wdBd}
{dwdw)w)w}
{w)PHN)n)}
{$wdQIRdW}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 2

The knight has moved from Black’s airfield to the board. Black can
do nothing else in this turn, but wouldn’t want to anyway — for it’s
checkmate!

Scenes from an actual game

In the next chapter you’ll be told the complete rules of Hostage

Chess. But first, it’s best to get a really good idea of the game’s central
mechanism by looking at a longer sequence of moves, ones which
only need those two new rules. The sequence ends in checkmate by
a parachuting queen.
Remember that in the diagrams, the airfields — to each player’s
left — are shown by double lines. A player’s prisoners (“hostages”)
are simply grouped at the side of the board, by the player’s right hand.
8
 The game is shown starting from the position after Black’s eighth
move. So far, no use has been made of parachuting (very often called
“dropping”, while men that parachute become “drops”).
uuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
QN{rdwiwdn4} N{rdwiwdn4}q
{0p0bgp0p} {0p0bgp0p}
{wdndwdwd} {wdndwdwd}
{dwdw)wGw} {dwdQ)wGw}
{wdwdwdwd} {wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdNdw} {dw)wdNdw}
{PdPdP)P)}q {PdPdP)P)}
{dwdRIBdR}pp {dwdRIBdR}pp
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
1. White to move. White’s prison con- 2. White has now pushed the imprisoned
tains three hostages. Black’s contains black queen into his opponent’s airfield, res-
two. With the hostage queens waiting cuing his own queen and at once dropping
to be exchanged at any time, expect it near the center of the board. (Remem-
fireworks! ber, anything rescued must immediately be
dropped.)

uuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdwiwdn4} N{rdwiwdn4}
{0p0bgp0p} {0p0bgp0p}
{wdndqdwd} {wdndQdwd}
{dwdQ)wGw} {dwdw)wGw}
{wdwdwdwd} {wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdNdw} {dw)wdNdw}
{PdPdP)P)} {PdPdP)P)}q
{dwdRIBdR}pp {dwdRIBdR}pp
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
3. To stop mate by the white queen, 4. White has captured Black’s queen, so it
Black has taken the queen from his has returned to being a hostage.
airfield and dropped it to defend his
threatened bishop. (The black queen
could have been left in the airfield, but
Black wanted to use it at once.)

9
 cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
NQ{rdwiwdn4} NQ{rdwiwdn4}
{0p0bgw0p} {0p0bGw0p}
{wdndpdwd} {wdndpdwd}
{dwdw)wGw} {dwdw)wdw}
{wdwdwdwd} {wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdNdw} {dw)wdNdw}
{PdPdP)P)}q {PdPdP)P)}qb
{dwdRIBdR}pp {dwdRIBdR}pp
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
5. White’s queen has itself now been 6. White has captured and imprisoned a
captured and imprisoned. black bishop, and attacks the black king.

cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
NQ{rdwdwdn4} NQ{rdwdwdn4}
B{0p0biw0p} B{0p0Riw0p}
{wdndpdwd} {wdndpdwd}
{dwdw)wdw} {dwdw)wdw}
{wdwdwdwd} {wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdNdw} {dw)wdNdw}b
{PdPdP)P)}qb {PdPdP)P)}qb
{dwdRIBdR}pp {dwdwIBdR}pp
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
7.The king has captured the attacker — 8. White’s rook has captured Black’s bishop,
but shouldn’t the knight in the corner giving check.
have made the capture? Well, Black
feared an exchange of hostage bishop
for hostage knight, the rescued knight
then dropping to attack king and rook
simultaneously.

10
 cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
NQ{rdwdwdn4} Q{rdwdwdn4}b
BR{0p0kdw0p} BR{0p0kdw0p}
{wdndpdwd} {wdndpdwd}
{dwdw)wdw} {dwHw)wdw}
{wdwdwdwd} {wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdNdw}b {dw)wdNdw}
{PdPdP)P)}qb {PdPdP)P)}qb
{dwdwIBdR}pp {dwdwIBdR}pp
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
9. The black king has captured the rook. 10. White has pushed an imprisoned bishop
The king is in great danger because a into Black’s airfield, rescuing a knight (of
queen-for-queen hostage exchange is equal value to the bishop) and dropping it
possible. so as to give check.
cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
Q{rdkdwdn4}b QR{rdkdwdn4}bb
BR{0p0wdw0p} {0p0Bdw0p}
{wdndpdwd} {wdndpdwd}
{dwHw)wdw} {dwHw)wdw}
{wdwdwdwd} {wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdNdw} {dw)wdNdw}
{PdPdP)P)}qb {PdPdP)P)}q
{dwdwIBdR}pp {dwdwIBdR}pp
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
11. The black king has fled, but the 12. Another exchange of hostages. White
square chosen for the flight is no safer pushed a bishop into Black’s airfield, rescu-
than any other. ing and dropping a bishop to attack Black’s
king once again. White now has two white-
square bishops, but that’s legal.
cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
QR{rdwiwdn4}bb R{rd iQdn4}bb
{0p0Bdw0p} {0p0Bdw0p}q
{wdndpdwd} {wdndpdwd}
{dwHw)wdw} {dwHw)wdw}
{wdwdwdwd} {wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdNdw} {dw)wdNdw}
{PdPdP)P)}q {PdPdP)P)}
{dwdwIBdR}pp {dwdwIBdR}pp
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
13. The king has run away once more. 14. Then came the queen-for-queen hos-
Unfortunately, nowhere was safe. tage exchange. Pushing the black queen into
his opponent’s airfield, White rescued and
dropped his own queen, with checkmate.

11
 The fascination of Hostage Chess

“Shogi” is the great chess game of Japan, where it is hugely popular.

Millions play it. Top players become millionaires. What makes it so
exhilarating is that its chessmen change sides when captured. Shaped
like spearheads, they turn their points towards their old allies and
parachute back into the fight. Only one or two per cent of the contests
end in draws. The game offers immensely much room for skill. There
are hundreds of techniques that the professionals need to master.

Hostage Chess — Hostage for short — uses western chessmen in a

Shogi-like game, with parachuting. However, western chessmen tend
to be more powerful than Shogi ones, and there are fewer of them
in each army. This means that if they simply swapped sides when
captured, like Shogi men, then we’d have a game ruined by sudden,
huge alterations in the strengths of the battling armies — a game of
continual tactical violence and hardly any strategy. In Hostage, how-
ever, captured men never swap sides. Instead they are “held hostage”
(imprisoned) and can be parachuted back onto the board only when
hostages have been exchanged. And although hostage exchanges can
never be refused, the player who forces an exchange must give equal
or higher value — a queen to buy a queen, for example, or a rook to
buy a pawn — and therefore should never rush into this blindly. It
all works so well that the games expert David Pritchard, who played
standard western chess on England’s team, gives Hostage a chapter of
his book Popular Chess Variants before going on to describe Shogi itself.

The two games play very similarly. For instance, both often end
in long sequences of checks. Also both can lead into forests so thick
that nobody can see far through them. A beginner at Hostage Chess
can hope to ambush even the most expert players of today.
That’s where much of the fascination of Hostage lies. Added to the
usual difficulties of western chess, there’s the need to imagine what
could happen if hostages were exchanged and parachuted. Mightn’t
you think, then, that weaker players would stand much less chance
12
than usual? In fact quite the opposite is true. Expertise in the ortho-
dox western game — orthochess for short — does carry over strongly
into Hostage. Here, however, daring and luck often triumph over
talent, experience and careful calculation. At orthodox western chess,
in your typical small-town club of ten to twenty members, the best
player could probably beat the worst player fifty times in a row. Not
much fun to be had from that! In Hostage, in contrast, a player of
very ordinary skill will have entertaining fights against the world’s
strongest, with real chances of winning from time to time.
After I’d dreamed up the central idea of the game — exchanging
prisoners and then parachuting them — the rules more or less wrote
themselves. Anything much different would have led to something
obviously inferior. Then I tested the game with my friend Roger
Smook whose passion in life is chess. He is about as strong as you
can get without becoming a professional and spending years studying
the openings.

It was quickly clear that we’d stumbled on a wonderful game, and

that Roger would quite often be defeated. In orthochess, chess of
the West without parachuting, he would come out of the openings
just slightly ahead, then grind me down in the standard western
fashion. If you lose a knight or a bishop in the orthodox game, you
often might as well resign. Lose a pawn, even, and your opponent
can start exchanging pieces, almost emptying the board until being
a pawn behind means defeat. Not so in Hostage, where there can be
huge swings of fortune. In spite of Roger’s enthusiasm for orthochess
he found Hostage more addictive.

It isn’t just the difficulty of predicting what will happen that makes
Hostage so intriguing. There is also the fact that having the initiative,
having an attack so strong that your opponent cannot disregard it,
can be much more important than being ahead in material. There’s
the fact, too, that after an attack has failed its intended victim will
typically have built up “airfield” forces for a dangerous counterattack.
Battles frequently include many checks in swift succession. Multiple
13
sacrifices are often made. It may be impossible to calculate whether
they will work. This game can be just too difficult for calculations!
Sacrifice you must, or you will surely lose. But if the checks and the
sacrifices don’t end in victory it will be your turn to try living through
a storm.

You can employ plenty of cunning. Sometimes your opponent

will regret capturing something for you can rescue it next move and
parachute it at the head of an assault. When the enemy queen is sit-
ting in your prison, having your own queen sent to prison sometimes
gives you a win. A queen-for-queen hostage exchange follows, and
you then perhaps parachute a checkmate. Even capturing one of your
pawns might lead your opponent to disaster. At times your prayer will
be that he or she won’t realize how dangerous it would be to capture
something. Yet occasionally you’ll make a move that would be senseless
(grabbing a protected pawn, say, with an unprotected rook) unless you
wanted your man to be captured so that you could ransom it, “buy it
back” through exchanging hostages and parachute it in some deadly
fashion. Then your opponent’s difficulty won’t be in detecting what
you have in mind. It will be in knowing how to survive.

Exchanging hostages can be a good way of launching an attack,

but it’s a risky business. Yes, it gives you new paratroops for breaking
up a king’s defenses. But when an exchange of hostages puts, say, a
knight into the opposing airfield, then this enemy knight, ready to
swoop down onto any empty square, can be roughly as strong as a
rook on the board. That’s why having four or five pieces you could
parachute doesn’t always mean having a win. If those pieces are sit-
ting in the enemy prison, only needing to be “paid for” by giving your
opponent four or five new airfielders, think twice before paying for
them! Occasionally, though, it is good to pay a queen for a mere pawn
which then drops onto the board in some lethal way.
Hostage games can begin with eight or more moves in which the
new rules appear to be doing nothing. But appearances are often
illusory. In reality those rules may be hard at work, pushing play
14
away from orthodox chess openings which would run into trouble
from paratroopers. Then comes the first exchange of hostages, and
soon after you find yourself in what feels like an orthochess “middle
game” of an extraordinarily interesting type. In the standard western
game, Grandmasters almost always have several plans they would love
to put into practice. For ordinary mortals, in contrast, forming any
plan at all can be extremely hard. In Hostage Chess, however, the
big difficulties are of choosing between several tempting avenues of
attack — or of resisting temptation so as to defend instead.

As in real warfare, attack is often a good means of defense, quite

a bit more than in orthochess. Still, Hostage is a field whose theory
remains in much need of development. Maybe straightforward defense
ought always to be your first thought? Well, my hunch is that even
when its theory has been well developed Hostage will strongly reward
aggression. And certainly there is less need than in orthochess for
subtle positional play. Positions almost never become so blocked that
delicate maneuvering is the only option. This may be something of
a pity. It may be a pity, too, that there is no endgame in which just a
few pieces move around very carefully. Such a stage cannot be reached
in Hostage where captured men are forever returning to the board.
So, sorry, much rich and beautiful chess theory simply isn’t applicable
to Hostage Chess.

In compensation, drawn games occur hardly ever, except through

perpetual check which happens only rarely. And — see the chapter
on Tactics and Strategy — Hostage is packed with new techniques
to be learned. Perhaps best of all, there will never be heavy volumes
of opening theory all having to be mastered before you can hope to
become really strong. After each player has made a few moves, the
possibilities become astronomically numerous. A computer that could
remember them would have to be gigantic. You can become impres-
sively skilled at Hostage Chess without memorizing any openings.

Hostage is above all a friendly game. When defeated you can very
often blame it on bad luck. Only demons could have calculated all the
15
variations in detail. This is one of the few games that remain intriguing
when you play “left hand against right”: controlling both armies, you
know each side’s plans, but there’s often no knowing whether they will
work. In Hostage you can lose (yes, even to a much weaker player)
without feeling bruised. You can genuinely admire the surprising
fashion in which you got mated. If, though, you find yourself beaten
with depressing regularity by some very strong opponent then don’t
hesitate to accept a handicap. Before starting the next battle remove
a hostile knight, bishop or rook from the enemy ranks and place it
in your prison.

Games usually end after fewer moves than in orthochess, but a time
limit of fifteen or twenty minutes for each player can still produce an
extremely tense struggle since it is so easy to blunder, so hard to see
beyond the next three or four moves. For a satisfying contest without
clocks, allow at least fifty minutes.

Playing by mail or on the Internet, will even the strongest players

soon need to fear that their invisible opponents are actually comput-
ers? It seems unlikely. The possible paths branch with such speed
that not even the fastest computers can hope to keep sight of them.
For many years to come, Hostage will probably be a game in which
humans remain the champions. It calls for “intuition”: in other words
for the kind of high level pattern-recognition that computers remain
so bad at. None the less Paul Connors has developed a computer
program, “HostageMaster”, which will often win against players who
are graded Expert in the orthodox game and who aren’t newcomers
to Hostage. Grandmasters, too, could have a tough time when they
set the computer to move every ten seconds and then tried to do the
same themselves.
David Pritchard wrote the first article on Hostage for Variant Chess,
journal of the British Chess Variants Society. He said it dethroned a
game he had earlier called “variant of the decade” and it soon became
popular. The rules and specimen games were also given prominent
treatment in a website run by Hans Bodlaender in the Netherlands.
16
Next Fabrice Liardet of Switzerland gave it star billing on his own
website. Further articles appeared in later issues of Variant Chess, in
the Italian journal Eteroscacco, in NOSTalgia, journal of the Knights
of the Square Table who mostly live in the States, in the Canadian
journal Abstract Games and in the high-circulation U.S. journal Games.

The chapter in Pritchard’s Popular Chess Variants has helped the

game to spread as far as Australia where Steve Evans wrote the first
computer code allowing it to be played by the Zillions game-playing
engine. The new computer program by Connors plays it well enough
to merit the attention of gamers worldwide. It will beat most comers
but they’ll enjoy the experience. Win or lose, Hostage is fun.

A final note: Orthochess, orthodox chess, the standard western

game, is itself only a variant (with a much more powerful queen to
add excitement) on a game popular in medieval times. It’s a par-
ticularly fine variant, though, and the good news for its admirers is
that becoming strong at Hostage will boost your orthochess rating.
Hostage gives you dazzlingly many chances for trying out the kinds
of maneuver — attacking combinations above all — which are so easy
to overlook in your orthochess games. It develops your imagination,
your sense for the big fish lurking in chess waters.

Many thanks to all the players whose enthusiasm, comments and game
annotations helped the book to move forward, and above all to Brad
Arnold, Josh Biedak, Hal Bond, Peter Coast, Paul Connors, Lawrence
Day, Fergus Duniho, Robert Hamilton, Larry and Ray Kaufman, Tom
Leslie, Adam Lisiewicz, David Plaxton, David Pritchard, Roger Smook,
Kevin Spraggett, Jed Stone, Alex Thompson and Paul Yearout.

17
 Chapter 2

Rules and Notation

COMPLETE RULES OF HOSTAGE CHESS

To the normal rules of western chess, Hostage Chess adds these

new rules:

(1) Each player owns two areas at the side of the board: a prison for
“hostages” — captured enemy men — near the player’s right hand,
and an airfield near the player’s left hand.

In each turn you do only one of three things. You

(a) move normally;

or else

(b) make a hostage exchange and drop, which means rescuing

(“buying”, “ransoming”) just one man from your opponent’s prison
by pushing a man WHOSE VALUE IS EQUAL OR HIGHER
from your prison into your opponent’s airfield, then at once para-
chuting (“dropping”) the rescued man onto an empty square;
or else
(c) parachute just one man from your airfield onto an empty
square.
18
 (2) VALUES run from PAWN upwards to KNIGHT-OR-
BISHOP, then ROOK, then QUEEN. So, for example, by pushing
an enemy knight from your prison into the enemy airfield you can
rescue a knight, bishop or pawn from the enemy prison. There is no
need to get your opponent’s permission before making this exchange
of hostages.
(3) Parachuting can place a player’s two bishops on squares of the
same color.
Pawns cannot parachute onto first or eighth ranks.

Pawn jumps from the second rank, and acts of castling, may
involve men that reached their squares by being parachuted onto
them, no matter where they were positioned before they became
hostages.

(4) A pawn can promote only by changing places with a queen, rook,
bishop or knight in the enemy prison. The player, not the owner of
the prison, chooses the piece for this changing of places if more than
one piece is available. Unless the prison contains such a “promotion
piece”, a pawn one step away from promoting is totally frozen. Unable
to move forward, it cannot even give check. Similarly, it cannot attack a
square so as to prevent castling.

A frozen pawn is said to “pseudo-check” a king instead of genuinely

checking it. However, when your king is in pseudo-check you cannot
legally capture a queen, rook, bishop or knight. That’s because captur-
ing it would unfreeze the pawn, putting you into a genuine check.

Comments on the Rules:

— To put men you capture into your prison, just place them beside
the board near your right hand. For the airfields, use beer mats, sau-
cers, plates or other flat objects: books, perhaps. This is not a rule but

19
it can be of great help. (Without my beer mats, I can’t keep track of
what’s happening.)

— When rescuing an imprisoned bishop, for instance, by pushing

an imprisoned knight forward into the enemy airfield, it can be help-
ful to say “Knight buys bishop”. First push the knight into the airfield,
then grab the bishop and parachute it immediately. (But note that
HostageMaster, the powerful computer program developed by Paul
Connors, requires you to parachute the bishop first. Then, if there’s
a choice, it asks what you want to push into the enemy airfield as
“payment”.)

— Quite often in books on chess, and throughout this book, “a

piece” means a king, queen, rook, bishop or knight, but not a pawn.
“A man” means just any unit, even a rook or a queen.
— If it feels strange to speak of “men in airfields” then you can always
refer instead to “men in hand”. And instead of saying “parachuting”
or “dropping” you could talk of “re-entering” men into the battle.

— The rules dictate that when you make an exchange of hostages,

the man you “buy” must straightaway be parachuted. You cannot
store it for use in some later turn. In contrast, you can accumulate in
your airfield as many men as you please. Having several men in your
airfield, men you could parachute in successive turns, often gives you
a winning attack.
— There is never any need to ask what men did before being taken pris-
oner and then parachuting. So a pawn dropped onto a normal starting
square for a pawn always has the option of jumping two steps forward
when it first moves. And though (just as in orthodox chess) moves by
the king make castling permanently impossible, a rook dropped onto
a home corner square can be used for castling exactly as if it had stood
there unmoved since the beginning of the game — even if it started
the game in the other home corner, and even if it was captured when
in the center of the board. Above all, there is no need to ask whether

20
a bishop was a black-square bishop or a white-square bishop before
being captured. A bishop can always be dropped onto any vacant
square. How that square is colored makes no difference.
— Since all the rules of western chess apply except when otherwise
stated, a pawn that could be taken en passant must have reached its
present square by jumping two steps forward. If dropped onto that
square, it is safe against en passant capture.

— The only slightly tricky rule is the one about pawn promotion.
Promotion is always by moving to the very far end of the board and
then immediately changing places with a piece in the enemy prison.
As well as ensuring that no man ever falls out of the game entirely,
this means there is never any need to borrow additional units (new
queens or other pieces) from a second boxful of chessmen. It also means
that a pawn one step away from promoting can be less strong than
it seems. Any such pawn may find itself unable to move forward or
even to give check because there is no imprisoned piece with which
it could change places. And even when it can move forward, it may
be able to promote only to something fairly useless. Consequently,
dropping pawns in the hope of promoting them isn’t a tactic powerful
enough to dominate and unbalance the game.

The difficult thing, though, is remembering that when your king

is in “pseudo-check” from an enemy pawn, not real check, because
your prison contains no piece with which the enemy pawn could
change places, then you cannot legally capture anything except
pawns (unless, that’s to say, the king itself does the capturing, which
of course moves it out of the pseudo-check). If you captured a bishop,
for instance, then the pseudo-check would change into a real check
since the enemy pawn could now in theory move forward, promoting
to bishop. Of course it would never actually move forward, capturing
the king and then promoting. In Hostage Chess just as in orthodox
western chess, no king is ever actually captured. But having something
to which the pawn could promote makes it able to move forward “in

21
theory” and this is what allows it to give check.

Do not disregard being in pseudo-check! Although the check isn’t

real, you may be in very big trouble since your opponent can spread
destruction with pieces you cannot legally capture.
All the same, it sometimes helps if you turn a real check into a
pseudo-check, which is often possible. Suppose a pawn attacks your
king. You seem checkmated. But what makes the enemy pawn’s check
into a real one, not a pseudo-check? Answer: the enemy rook in your
prison, for the prison contains no other man with which that enemy
pawn could change places. Well, perhaps you could remove the rook
from the prison by using it in an exchange of hostages. You might,
for instance, use it to “buy” a bishop. The enemy pawn would then no
longer give check since promoting to rook would no longer be possible.

These points will be illustrated shortly with the help of diagrams.

Notation for recording Hostage Chess

Normal chess notation (algebraic system) with the following

additions:
N*c7 means that a knight from an airfield parachutes onto c7.
(B)N*c7 means that an imprisoned bishop goes to the enemy
airfield and a knight is rescued, the knight then at once parachut-
ing onto c7.

*g3 means that a pawn from an airfield parachutes onto g3.

(R)*g3 means that an imprisoned rook goes to the enemy air-

field and a pawn is rescued, the pawn at once parachuting onto g3.

gxf8=R means that a pawn on the g-file captures on f8 and

then promotes to rook by changing places with a rook in the

22
 enemy prison.

f8=B means that a pawn steps forward to f8 without capturing

anything, then at once promoting to bishop by changing places
with a bishop in the enemy prison.

For people new to the algebraic system, here are more details.
Squares are given by rank and by file. Ranks range from 1, nearest
to White, to 8 which is nearest to Black. Files start with a, which is
to White’s left, and end with h, to White’s right. R d5 means that a
rook moves to square d5. If two rooks can travel to this square, you
must specify the file or the rank from which the journey starts, as in
R(h)d5 or R(3)d5. Capturing is shown by “x” followed by the square
on which the capture is made, as in R xb3, and any doubts about
which piece does the capturing are once again removed by specifying
file or rank, as in R(f)xb3 or N (6)xh7. A pawn move to square d3
might be recorded as P d3 but it is usual to write d3 only, leaving out
the symbol “P”, while exd3 means that a pawn on the e-file captures
on d3. An e-file pawn’s en passant capture of a pawn which jumped
over square d3 is shown as “exd3 e.p.”. Castling is O-O if kingside,
O-O-O if queenside. Check is + or else ch., or perhaps dis.ch. or
dbl.ch. for discovered check and double check. Moves are given in
numbered pairs. When mentioning just one move you insert dots,
as in 7...N c6, if it is a move by Black.

To show the notation in action, here is a short game:

23
 cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rhb1kgn4} {rhb1kgw4}
{0p0w0p0p} {0p0w0p0p}
{wdwdwdwd} {wdwdwhwd}
{dwdpdwdw} {dwdPdwdw}
{wdwdPdwd} {wdwdwdwd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{P)P)w)P)} {P)P)w)P)}
{$NGQIBHR} {$NGQIBHR}p
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
1 e4 d5 White’s pawn goes to e4 and 2 exd5 Nf6 The e-file pawn captures on d5,
Black’s then goes to d5. and Black’s knight goes to f6.

cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rhb1kgw4} {rhb1kgw4}
{0p0w0p0p} {0pdw0p0p}
{wdwdwhwd} {wdpdwhwd}
{dwdPdwdw} {dwdPdwdw}
{wdPdwdwd} {wdPdwdwd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{P)w)w)P)} {P)w)w)P)}
{$NGQIBHR}p {$NGQIBHR}p
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
3 c4 A white pawn advances. 3...c6 So does a black one.

cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rhb1kgw4} P{rdb1kgw4}
{0pdw0p0p} {0pdw0p0p}
{wdPdwhwd} {wdndwhwd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{wdPdwdwd} {wdPdwdwd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{P)w)w)P)} {P)w)w)P)}
{$NGQIBHR}pp {$NGQIBHR}pp
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
4 dxc6 The d-file pawn captures on c6. 4...Nxc6 A knight takes revenge.

24
 cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rdb1kgw4}p {rdb1kgw4}p
{0pdw0p0p} {0pdw0p0p}
{wdndwhwd} {wdwdwhwd}
{dwdPdwdw} {dwdPdwdw}
{wdPdwdwd} {wdPhwdwd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{P)w)w)P)} {P)w)w)P)}
{$NGQIBHR}p {$NGQIBHR}p
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
5 (P)*d5 Exchange of hostage pawns, 5...Nd4
White’s rescued pawn dropping on d5.

cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rdb1kgw4}p {rdb1kgw4}
{0pdw0p0p} {0pdw0p0p}
{wdwdwhwd} {wdwdwhwd}
{dwdPdwdw} {dwdPdwdw}
{wdPhwdwd} {wdPhwdwd}
{dwdwdNdw} {dwdwdNdw}
{P)w)w)P)} {P)p)w)P)}
{$NGQIBdR}p {$NGQIBdR}p
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
6 Nf3 6...*c2 The pawn from Black’s airfield
drops on c2. Wrongly thinking the
queen is lost, White resigns. (In real-
ity, the queen is in no immediate danger
since the black pawn cannot promote —
there is no imprisoned black queen,
rook, bishop or knight with which it
could change places — and therefore
cannot move forward.)

Here is all of the game whose final moves were shown in chapter
one: 1 d4 d5 2 Nc3 e5 3 dxe5 d4 4 Nf3 dxc3 5 Qxd8+
Kxd8 6 Bg5+ Be7 7 bxc3 Nc6 8 Rd1+ Bd7 (this was the
position in the first diagram given in chapter one) 9 (Q)Q*d5 Q*e6
10 Qxe6 fxe6 11 Bxe7+ Kxe7 12 Rxd7+ Kxd7 13 (B)N*c5+
Kc8 14 (B)B*d7+ Kd8 15 (Q)Q*e8 mate.

25
 Finally, here is a game in which the pawn promotion rule features
very interestingly. It starts 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 f5 4 d3
f4 5 d4 Nxd4 6 Nxd4 exd4 7 Qxd4, and then comes:

cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
PN{rdb1kgw4} N{rdb1kgw4}p
{0p0pdw0p} {0p0pdP0p}
{wdwdwhwd} {wdwdwhwd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{wdB!P0wd} {wdB!P0wd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)P)} {P)Pdw)P)}
{$NGwIwdR}pn {$NGwIwdR}n
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
7...Nf6 This is the position just before 8 (P)*f7+ White now pushes an impris-
the first hostage exchange. Black uses his oned pawn into the enemy airfield,
seventh move to advance his knight. buying a pawn which parachutes with
check. The check is a real check, not just
a pseudo-check, because the pawn is
in theory able to promote to knight by
changing places with the imprisoned
white knight. Th is allows it to move
forward.

cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdb1wgw4}p {rdb1wgw4}pn
{0p0piP0p} {0p0piP0p}
{wdwdwhwd} {wdwdwhwd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdNdw}
{wdB!P0wd} {wdB!P0wd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)P)} {P)Pdw)P)}
{$NGwIwdR}n {$NGwIwdR}
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
8...Ke7 The king moves out of check. 9 (N)N*f5+ Another exchange, this time
of hostage knights, and the king is in check
from a parachuted knight.

26
 cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rdb1kgw4}pn {rdb1kgw4}pn
{0p0pdP0p} {0p0pdP0p}
{wdwdwhwd} {wdwdwhwd}
{dwdwdNdw} {dwdw!Ndw}
{wdB!P0wd} {wdBdP0wd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)P)} {P)Pdw)P)}
{$NGwIwdR} {$NGwIwdR}
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
9...Ke8 The king returns to the square on 10 Qe5+ The white queen gives check.
which it was in check earlier. Because
no longer able to promote to knight,
White’s pawn no longer attacks that
square. It’s pseudo-check only.
cuuuuuuuuCuu cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rdb1kdw4}pn {rdb1kdw4}pn
{0p0pgP0p} {0p0p!P0p}
{wdwdwhwd} {wdwdwhwd}
{dwdw!Ndw} {dwdwdNdw}
{wdBdP0wd} {wdBdP0wd}
{dwdwdwdw} {dwdwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)P)} {P)Pdw)P)}
{$NGwIwdR} {$NGwIwdR}b
llvllllllllV llvllllllllV
10...Be7 A black bishop blocks the check. 11 Qxe7+ Is it checkmate? It is. See the
next diagram.

cuuuuuuuuCuu
Q{rdbdkdw4}pn
{0p0p1P0p}
{wdwdwhwd}
{dwdwdNdw}
{wdBdP0wd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)P)}
{$NGwIwdR}b
llvllllllllV
Black would like to play ...Qxe7, cap- .. Never forget: WHEN IN
turing the white queen and creating PSEUDO-CHECK FROM A PAWN,
this situation. But the move would be YOU CAN CAPTURE ONLY PAWNS
illegal, for it would simply replace one — unless, of course, you capture with your
check by another. That’s because the pseudo-checked king, which gets you out of
white pawn, suddenly able to promote the pseudo-check. (You can capture pawns
to queen, would be giving a real check because a pawn cannot “promote to pawn”
— not just the pseudo-check it was by changing places with a captured pawn.)
giving previously.

27
 To end the chapter, here is a rules summary for sending to your
friends:

HOSTAGE CHESS Rules as in normal western chess, except

these:

I. Each player owns two areas at the side of the board — a prison
for captured men, to the player’s right, and an airfield to the player’s
left. Imprisoned men have VALUES running from PAWN upwards
to KNIGHT-OR-BISHOP, then ROOK, then QUEEN.

II. In each turn you (i) move normally,

or else (ii) rescue just one man from the enemy prison by transfer-
ring a man WHOSE VALUE IS EQUAL OR HIGHER from your
prison to the enemy airfield, then at once dropping the rescued man
onto an empty square,

or else (iii) drop a man from your airfield onto an empty square.

III. Dropping can place a player’s bishops on squares of the same

color. Pawns cannot drop onto first or eighth ranks. Pawns dropped
onto a player’s second rank can later make two-square leaps from it,
and rooks dropped into corners can later take part in castling.
IV. A pawn promotes by changing places with a queen, rook, bishop
or knight in the enemy prison. Unless the prison contains such a piece,
a pawn one step away from promoting is “frozen”. It cannot move or
give check or prevent castling.

28
 Chapter 3

Tactics and Strategy

Estimating the Value of Material

A man can be parachuted when it sits in an airfield, obviously. Do

not forget, though, that it is also available for parachuting — it is “a
droppable man” — when it sits in a prison but can become active at
any moment since the other prison contains something which could
be exchanged for it.

Because they can move to so many squares, droppable men tend to

be quite a bit more important than men on the board. Trying to judge
who leads in material, you have of course to consider all the men on
the board and in the airfields. However, you should add something
to each player’s score for every man that’s an airfielder (and therefore
droppable without having to be “paid for” by an exchange of hostages)
instead of being on the board.
Just how much should you add? Let’s start by asking how much
men on the board are worth. It can be useful to think of them as
having point values roughly like these:

Pawn: 1 Knight: 3 Bishop: 3 Rook: 5 Queen: 9

In suggesting the value of 5 for a rook, I have kept in mind that
losing a rook means putting into the enemy prison a hostage that
your opponent could use for ransoming (“buying”) a rook or else for
29
ransoming a knight or a bishop. This extra flexibility should increase
your eagerness not to lose the rook which, if considered simply as
a piece roaming the board, could be worth somewhat less since in
Hostage Chess the board is typically too cluttered for rooks to move
around easily.

Why give bishops the same weight as knights, when in Hostage a

knight can usually move around more easily than a bishop? The answer
is that this reason for weighting knights more heavily is counteracted
by the fact that losing a knight in return for the capture of a bishop
is often good because having a bishop to put in your prison can be
better than having a knight to put in it. Imagine, for instance, that an
enemy bishop is the sole man in your prison. Your opponent’s prison
contains a knight of yours, again as its sole man. Well, this allows
you to ransom a knight — a piece tending to parachute very power-
fully. Your opponent can ransom only a bishop, and bishops tend to
be weaker paratroopers.

Now, here are what men in airfields are typically worth:

Pawn: 2 Knight: 5 Bishop: 4½ Rook: 6½ Queen: 12

Note that airfield knights tend to be worth more than airfield

bishops, and the immense power of an airfield queen.

Comparing point values, we find that the increase in worth of men

that have gone to your airfield, instead of remaining on the board, is
roughly as follows:

Pawn 1; Knight 2; Bishop 1½ ; Rook 1½ ; Queen 3.

Of course points given for material are only extremely rough guides
to who is ahead in the game. Far more clearly than in standard western
chess, who’s really winning depends on the details of the situation. In
Hostage the winner often puts a huge force into the enemy airfield
during a mating attack. All the same, you will be defeated if you
forget the typically great difference in power between airfielders and

30
mere men on the board.

Far the simplest way to find out who leads in material is as follows.
First, total the point values of each of the player’s PRISONERS, and
afterwards add a few extra points for each of the player’s AIRFIELDERS
on the scale given just a moment ago: Pawn 1; Knight 2; Bishop 1 1/2;
Rook 1 1/2; Queen 3. When you then compare the two player’s totals,
you get the right result for who is ahead, and by how many points.
(Much, much simpler than adding up the point values of all the men
on the board and then counting an airfield queen, for instance, as
“plus 12 points”.)
But shouldn’t your prisoners perhaps be counted a second time as well
since each of them, in addition to meaning that there’s one enemy man
fewer on the board, is also “cash” for ransoming a man imprisoned
by your opponent? The answer is a definite No. When all you can
do with a prisoner is exchange it for some man in the enemy prison,
“paying” equal or higher value—a rook to buy a rook, for instance,
or a rook to buy a pawn—then you cannot count the prisoner as pure
profit! Any enemies that you’ve imprisoned can in fact be constant
threats to you. Yes, you can picture them as money for purchasing
paratroops. But picture them also as bombs which could be purchased
by your opponent and dropped on you.
Still, taking another look at the prisoners can lead you to revise
your point totals in two ways:

First, you should remember that having an enemy bishop in your

prison and a knight of yours in the enemy prison is usually better for
you, because a knight that you ransom will tend to parachute more
powerfully than a bishop ransomed by your opponent. In many situ-
ations, therefore, add a little to your point count if yours is the prison
containing the bishop.

Second, you should ask whether only one player has the chance
of forcing a hostage exchange. That’s often worth a point or two.

31
Suppose the enemy has imprisoned a knight and a pawn while your
prison contains just a rook. Your opponent cannot use the knight or
the pawn to buy the rook. You, on the other hand, can use the rook
to buy the knight or the pawn — which would usually be a poor
idea, yet there are many times when dropping a knight or dropping
a pawn can be crucial.

Weaknesses that Paratroops Attack

All the usual weaknesses of chess position are made worse when
paratroops can exploit them. Pieces become easier to fork or to skewer.
(A “fork” attacks two men simultaneously. A “skewer” attacks a man
which then can’t move without exposing another that lies behind
it.) Trappable men become more readily trapped. Unprotected men
become especially vulnerable, and it is more important than ever
to protect pieces with pawns rather than with other pieces. Being
mated on your back rank by rook or by queen can be harder to avoid
(although sometimes the reverse is true because men can be dropped
to prevent it). Threats of smothered mate become particularly severe.
A king tends to be in especially great trouble when enemy guns are
trained on neighboring squares, or when those squares are empty so
that paratroops can land on them. Castled positions that have been
weakened by pawn movements tend to collapse more frequently. And
as droppable forces grow larger, everything becomes more and more
tense. As soon as there are three or four “drops” you could make,
perhaps through exchanging hostages, look hard for a mating attack!

Exchanging Hostages, and Using Up Your Airfielders

When your opponent “pays” for a hostage by releasing another

of at least equal value, you can never refuse the exchange; but just
how often should you be the one who forces such an exchange? It’s
a delicate question. Remember, when a hostage exchange is of your
own making then you must immediately drop the hostage that you
ransom. In contrast, your opponent gets a new paratrooper for drop-
ping at any later time. Particularly when the enemy airfield already
32
contains one or more paratroopers, building up the force on it can be
hazardous. It is wrong, therefore, to force hostage exchanges so as to
obtain slight improvements on the board. The result is that experts
will sometimes have quite large populations in their prisons before
any hostages are exchanged.

There can often be a big advantage, though, in forcing a hostage

exchange. It could be the start of an attack in which the enemy has to
answer each drop with another drop, getting no chance to accumulate
more and more airfielders. Besides, games frequently end with a player
adding impressively many men to the opposing airfield but delivering
checkmate before any of those men can be used.

Note that forcing an exchange of men on the board — capturing a

man, your opponent then having to “recapture” (capture the capturer)
so as not to fall behind in material — gives you the first opportunity
to force an exchange of hostages, and therefore of dropping your man
first. You capture; your opponent recaptures; and then you decide to
exchange hostages and drop. Attacks often begin like that.
What if you greatly shrink the forces in your airfield when you
attack? Particularly if your opponent has to answer each drop of yours
with another drop, this often won’t matter very much. And it will
never matter if you are speeding towards victory.

The Queen

An enemy queen in your prison may sometimes be of little help

to you. True, it can be used for ransoming just any hostage from the
enemy prison, but (unless this leads to a quick mate) you probably won’t
want to use it for ransoming anything less than a queen. Using it to
ransom a rook, for instance, could be an extremely poor transaction.
Sometimes, then, it is good to lose a queen in return for capturing, say,
an enemy knight plus an enemy bishop. You get two new prisoners,
useful cash for rescuing men from the enemy prison. Your opponent
gets more cash, but in a single lump which in effect cannot be used.

33
 All the same, having the enemy queen in your prison can often
be very useful: just about as useful, sometimes, as having an airfield
queen. This is because one of the most feared maneuvers in Hostage
Chess is the queen-for-queen hostage exchange. As soon as both
queens have left the board, being the player who made the first
queen capture can give you a winning advantage. You captured the
enemy queen; your opponent then captured yours; and now you can
exchange hostage queens and drop your queen first. Admittedly the
enemy queen (which has gone to the enemy airfield) is available for
dropping at once, but “at once” can be too late. An attack headed by
a parachuting queen is frequently so strong that not even another
parachuting queen can stem it.
Of course what’s crucial here isn’t actually who makes the first
queen capture. Instead it’s who gets to make the queen-for-queen
hostage exchange. A short game illustrates this: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3
Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5 d5 5 exd5 Nxd5 6 Nxf7 (the “Fried
Liver Attack” of standard western chess) ...Kxf7 7 Qf3+ Ke6
8 (P)*f5+ Kf6 9 Qxd5 Qxd5 10 Bxd5 (now both queens
have been taken hostage) 10 ...Nd4. Black is threatening to mate
next move with ...(Q)Q*e2, but White gets there first, as follows:
11 (Q)Q*f7+ (the queen-for-queen hostage exchange, here made
by the second player to make a queen capture; this player goes on to
win almost at once) (Diagram 3)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdbdwgw4}qp
{0p0wdQ0p}
{wdwdwiwd}
{dwdB0Pdw}
{wdwhwdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{P)P)w)P)}
{$NGwIwdR}np
llvllllllllV
Diagram 3

34
 11 ...Kg5 12 h4+ Kf4 13 g3+ Kg4 14 (N)N*e3 mate.
This was one of my earliest games of Hostage, and one of my son
Tom’s earliest wins.

Since making the first queen drop can be so murderous, queens

often become “rampagers”. Suppose yours is the only queen to have
been captured. The enemy queen may now “rampage”, rushing around
taking your protected men. If ever you dare to capture it, you’re at
once faced with a queen-for-queen hostage exchange and could easily
end up being mated. The situation in Diagram 4 is a case in point:
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdbdkdw4}
Q{0pdwdp0w}
{w1pdpdwd}
{dwdpdw0w}
{wdwdwdwd}
{)RgP)wdw}
BB{wdPdndP)}
NN{dKdRdwdW}n
llvllllllllV
Diagram 4

White has just dropped a rook on b3 in answer to a check from the

black queen. Unfortunately this simply causes the queen to rampage:
...Qxb3+. When White captures the queen with cxb3, it returns at
once: ...(Q)Q*b2 mate.

Here comes a more complex queen rampage. It is conducted by

Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett, playing Black. His opponent, another
very strong player, has just captured a bishop with dxe7, his eighteenth
move (see the diagram below). Fairly new to Hostage Chess, White
tells himself that the queen sitting in Black’s prison won’t be much

35
use for ransoming anything, for who’d want to use a hostage queen
to ransom anything less than another queen? Yet planning to use a
hostage queen to ransom another queen is what a queen rampage is
all about, as he’ll shortly find out! (Diagram 5)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PQ{rdw1kdn4}p
{dwdw)p0w}
{pdbdpdw0}
{dp0w)wdw}
{wdNdwdw)}
{dwdPdNdw}
{PGwdK)Pd}
B{$wdwdwdR}nb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 5

Black at once shoots down the nice path that has just been opened:
18 ...Qxd3+ (the queen sacrifice that starts the rampage) 19 Kxd3
bxc4+ 20 Ke3 (Q)Q*e4+ (return of the queen through a hostage
exchange) 21 Kd2 Qd3+ 22 Ke1 (N)N*c2 mate.

The Rook, and Castling

Rooks tend to be less powerful than you’d expect. Hostage Chess
never gets to an endgame as in orthochess (orthodox western chess)
in which rooks really shine. Frequently knights can seem more or
less as strong. Still, you should usually grab a rook for a knight if you
can, if only because the rook is more valuable “officially”. You can
use a hostage rook to buy a hostage knight. You cannot use a hostage
knight to buy a hostage rook.

Imagine, for instance, that your prison holds an enemy rook and
nothing else. Your opponent’s prison contains a knight, a bishop and
a pawn. The airfields are empty. First thoughts suggest that you are
at quite a large disadvantage in material, which may well be true —
but in Hostage having the initiative can be vital, and here you have a
36
choice of three men to parachute while your opponent cannot parachute
anything. It might actually put you in the lead.

A common tactic is dropping a knight so as to fork two enemy pieces,

one of them a rook which you then capture. Even when the knight
is sure to be taken, this is often a good idea — for rooks do tend to
be worth more than knights. However, the parachuting knight must
come either from your airfield (meaning that you use up a potentially
very helpful paratrooper) or else from a hostage exchange that puts
something (perhaps a very dangerous knight) into the enemy airfield.
The knight drop might therefore be inadvisable. After congratulating
yourself on your clever knight fork, you could end up deeply regret-
ting it. All depends on the details of the situation. If your knight
finished in a corner, able to do little, your opponent might not even
bother to capture it.

What about castling? In Hostage just as in orthochess, castling

early can be an excellent plan. It tends to put the rook in a better
position. The king tends to end up better protected. Even more than
in orthochess, however, you have to make sure you aren’t castling into
trouble. And your castled king can be so vulnerable to paratroops that
it may make sense to reinforce the castle by, for example, dropping
an extra pawn in front of it.
Think seriously of reinforcing your castle if your opponent gets a
queen or a bishop or a rook lined up on it, or could sacrifice a knight,
a bishop or a pawn just ahead of it, forcing one of its pawns to move.
In such circumstances it can be foolhardy to wait until the enemy has
droppable forces that could join an attack on the castle. In Hostage
droppable forces can arrive in a flash, through on-the-board exchanges.
After three on-the-board exchanges your castled king could be facing
an attack into which three additional men were going to be thrown
when the newly imprisoned hostages were exchanged.

After your opponent has castled, you’ll often have a knight and a
bishop attacking the pawn that the enemy rook protects. If the king is
37
its only other protection, how about capturing that pawn? When the
little skirmish ended, an enemy pawn and rook would have entered
your prison while your knight and bishop had entered the enemy’s
prison. Who would have gained from the skirmish?

In orthochess capturing rook and pawn in return for knight and

bishop usually means getting a bad bargain, but in Hostage evalu-
ating the bargain becomes very complicated. (i) One factor is that
the rook might at any stage ransom either the knight or the bishop,
pieces that could parachute powerfully. In contrast, the knight or
the bishop could ransom only the pawn, not the rook, and swapping
an imprisoned knight or bishop for a mere pawn is usually a poor
idea. As holder of the rook and the pawn, you could benefit from
the resulting tension for quite a long period during which nobody
ransomed anything. (ii) Then, too, you must consider such sequels as
the following. An enemy pawn captures a pawn of yours. Your oppo-
nent expects you to recapture, which would allow time for guarding
against a pawn-for-pawn hostage exchange by which you could cause
havoc. Because of the little skirmish, however, your prison already
includes a pawn to fuel such an exchange. You therefore proceed with
it immediately, causing the havoc.

The Bishop
Like rooks, bishops tend to be less strong than in orthochess. The
board seldom empties enough to give them full freedom of movement.
Pawn drops can trap them, or at least block their lines of attack. They
are even none too strong as paratroops. If a dropped bishop attacks a
man, the defender can often get rid of the threat by dropping some-
thing to block the bishop’s line of fire — a solution unavailable when
the attacking piece is a knight instead. Admittedly bishops can be
especially useful because they can parachute onto any empty square
regardless of its color. In practice, though, this is often of little help.
For one thing, when you have bishops of the same square-color then
half the squares on the board cannot be reached by them. Sure enough,

38
they can protect each other — but so, too, can one of them obstruct
the other when it wants to retreat. As droppable pieces, therefore,
bishops tend to be less useful than knights.

This means it is often best to get your knights forward quickly and
then lose them in exchange for your opponent’s bishops. Always bear in
mind that when your opponent captures a knight while you capture a
bishop, you are the one getting the knight to parachute if hostage knight
and hostage bishop are exchanged.
Once again, though, all depends on the details of the situation.
A bishop drop will sometimes be much more useful than a knight
drop. In a far forward position and in company with a friendly pawn,
a dropped bishop can be very powerful, perhaps immobilizing the
enemy king.

A dropped bishop can also be used to pin the enemy queen. You can
sometimes set up a fatal pin in two stages. First you drop a bishop onto
a protected square, pinning the queen “absolutely”: it cannot legally
move out of the line of fire since the bishop would then be giving
check. Your opponent drops a knight, say, on the square between
the bishop and the queen. You capture the knight with the bishop.
The queen, capturing your now unprotected bishop, is thereby drawn
forward. And you next use the captured knight as cash for ransom-
ing the bishop — which you drop onto the same protected square as
before. It is now right up against the drawn-forward queen.

The Knight

Droppable knights are wonderful things to have. When you attack

by dropping some other piece, an enemy man can often block the
attack: it can be used to shield the king, for instance. A dropped knight
simply cannot be countered in this way. It can be lethal either by itself
or in company with a second dropped man. Followed or preceded by
a dropped queen, a dropped knight is often decisive.

39
 Dropped knights can fork devastatingly. When a knight is in the
enemy airfield, would you be likely to place your king and queen so
that the knight could attack them simultaneously. Not unless it was
your first game of Hostage! When the enemy airfield is empty, how-
ever, it is easy to become careless. A knight takes a bishop of yours,
perhaps. You capture the knight. Your opponent captures something
protected by your queen. And now you see, too late, that if the queen
recaptures then it will fall to a bishop-buys-knight hostage exchange
and a fork from the knight when it parachutes. The knight entered your
prison as a bomb ready to be bought and then dropped on your head.

A parachuting knight can be particularly powerful if it lands on

a square protected by a fellow knight. If the parachuted knight is
captured, the fellow knight captures the capturer — and can now
proceed to do whatever the parachuted knight had been threatening
to do. The success of knight forks very often depends on this trick.
So does the effectiveness of knight attacks on the castled king.
Again, knights can quite often “rampage” as effectively as queens,
for in many positions capturing them would lead only to being forked,
to being checked and chased into danger, or to suffering smothered
mate as in Diagram 6:
cuuuuuuuuCuu
B{wdwdwdw4}r
{0pHQdw0w}
{wdp0wgk0}
{1wdw0wdw}
{wgwdP)wd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{P)P)ndP)}
{$NGwdRdK}pn
ll llllllllV
Diagram 6

A black knight has just been captured — but it can be ransomed.

Black starts by playing ...R*g1+. When the white rook takes the

40
intruder, Black’s answer is ...(B)N*f2 mate.

The power of knights dropped one after the other features dramati-
cally in the following game: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Nf6
4 d3 d5 5 exd5 Nxd5 6 Nxd5 Qxd5 7 (P)*e4 Qe6 8 Bd2
Bc5 9 a3 *g4 10 Ng1 O-O 11 g3 Nd4 12 Be3 (N)N*f3+
13 Nxf3 Nxf3+ 14 Ke2 (N)N*g1+ 15 Rxg1 Nxg1+ 16 Kd2
Nf3+ 17 Kc1 Bxe3+ 18 fxe3 (B)B*d2+ 19 Kb1 Bxe3
20 b3 (R)N*c3+ 21 Kb2 Nxd1+ 22 Rxd1 a5 23 c3 Nd2
24 c4 Bd4+ 25 Kc2 Nxf1. (Black has missed a quick win, for
25 ...Qxc4+ would have made his queen a rampager. If captured by
26 bxc4, it could have parachuted back through a queen-for-queen
hostage exchange, ...(Q)Q*b2 mate.) 26 Rxf1 (B)N*e3+ 27 Kb1
Qxc4 (Diagram 7)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
QP{rdbdw4kd}
P{dp0wdp0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{0wdw0wdw}
{wdqgPdpd}
R{)PdPhw)w}
BB{wdwdwdw)}
NN{dKdwdRdw}n
llvllllllllV
Diagram 7

Black has at last remembered that queens can rampage. Capture

of the queen would once again be answered by ...(Q)Q*b2 mate.
But his move was not a check and therefore White can now launch
an attack. With two knights in his airfield, he springs into action:
28 N*e7+ Kh8 29 N*g6+ hxg6 30 Nxg6+ fxg6 31 Rxf8+
Qg8 32 (N)N*f7+ Kh7 33 (R)N*g5 mate.
Suppose the airfields are empty. One side has imprisoned a bishop
and a knight. The other side’s prison contains two knights. Knowing

41
nothing else about the situation, which player should you prefer to
be? It is hard to say. One player has two droppable knights — knights
simply needing to be purchased with the “cash” of the knight and the
bishop. Since dropped knights tend to be so strong, that looks very
attractive. However, the other player can drop knight or bishop, or
first the one and then the other. Well, having more choice of what
to drop can be quite an advantage.

The Pawn

Dropped pawns can be surprisingly effective. Naturally, they are

especially useful when placed so that they might soon promote. Enemy
pieces may then be rendered almost useless through having to keep an
eye on them. Again, a parachuting pawn may fork two pieces. Or it
could disorder a king’s defenses, for instance by appearing right in front
of the monarch’s castle. Or perhaps an exposed king will have a pawn
dropped at it with check. It may then have to become yet more exposed
by moving forward to capture the pawn, as in the following game: 1 e4
d5 2 exd5 Nf6 3 d4 Nxd5 4 Nf3 Bg4 5 Be2 e6 6 O-O
Bd6 7 Ne5 Bxe5 8 dxe5 Bxe2 9 Qxe2 Nc6 10 Rd1 Qh4
11 (B)B*g3 Qe7 12 (P)*d6 Qd7 13 c4 Nb6 14 dxc7 Nd4
15 Rxd4 Qxd4 16 (B)N*d6+ Kd7 17 Be3 B*d3 18 Qd2
Nxc4 19 Bxd4 Nxd2 20 Nxd2 *h3 21 Nxf7 (R)N*e2+
22 Kh1 hxg2+ 23 Kxg2 (Diagram 8)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdwdwdw4}b
Q{0p)kdN0p}
{wdwdpdwd}
{dwdw)wdw}
{wdwGwdwd}
{dwdbdwGw}p
{P)wHn)K)}pp
R{$wdwdwdW}nq
llvllllllllV
Diagram 8

42
 Here Black sees a chance to parachute a pawn check which draws
the white king forward into a mating attack: 23 ...(P)*h3+ 24 Kxh3
Bf5+ 25 *g4 (Q)Q*h5+ 26 R*h4 Bxg4+ 27 Kg2 B*h3+
28 Kh1 Bf3+ 29 Nxf3 Qxf3+ 30 (P)*g2 Qxg2 mate.
In some cases a king will be forced to capture a pawn even if it is
not giving check, because if left un-captured it would protect the drop
of some more powerful man. And sometimes two pawns will drop
one after the other, the first drawing the king forward and the second
bringing it still further forward or kicking it sideways to somewhere
more dangerous for it.

This sort of thing can of course happen to other pieces as well.

Dropped pawns can draw them forward or kick them sideways, get-
ting them to where they are useless or endangered.

Again, pawns may be very threatening when dropped close to the

enemy king or anywhere behind the enemy front lines. The threat
can be particularly severe if a first pawn makes its appearance and
a second then arrives to protect it, or perhaps to stand next to it on
the seventh rank so that there are two pawns ready to be promoted:
if one then promotes and is captured, the other promotes by captur-
ing the capturer. A player will often have to lose a rook to get rid of
such invaders.
Pawn drops can be helpful, as well, for guarding squares; for trap-
ping unwary bishops; for compelling pieces to move so that they no
longer protect others; for blocking the lines of enemy bishops, rooks
or queens, or stopping the advance of enemy pawns; for cutting con-
nections between enemy pieces. In all such cases, the fact that pawns
are humble things makes them doubly useful. You want, for example,
to block the file down which an enemy rook is glaring. Parachuting
a mere pawn blocks it — and if the pawn is then at once taken by an
enemy pawn, so what? The enemy pawn now does the blocking and
you’ve lost only a pawn.

43
 “Drop where your opponent wants to!” is important advice. If you’ve
filled a square with a paratrooper, no enemy man can parachute there.
Pawns are the men most often used in this connection. When wishing
to deny landing places to enemy paratroops, why use valuable pieces
if lowly pawns can do the job? An example comes from Diagram 9:

cuuuuuuuuCuu
BP{wdwdkgn4}
{dp0wdw0p}
{wdw0p1wd}
{dNdPdwdw}
{wdwdPdwd}
{dwHwdndp}
{P)Pdw)w)}p
{$wGQdRdK}rb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 9

Black has just dropped a pawn on h3. He threatens to mate by

dropping another on g2. But White drops where the enemy wants
to, (P)*g2, and this gives him a fighting chance.

What if your opponent has tried out a gambit on you, sacrificing a

pawn to get a positional advantage? Gambits do sometimes work well
since Hostage Chess is such an attacking game. However, the player
who gambits away a pawn will typically find that the enemy then gets
the first opportunity to make a pawn-for-pawn hostage exchange. Well,
in Hostage having the first chance of doing something can often be
profitable. And of course, one thing which a pawn-for-pawn exchange
might achieve is reconstruction of a shattered position.

Next imagine that, playing Black, you have castled kingside. Pro-
tected by a bishop, a pawn from the enemy airfield parachutes onto h6
to attack the castle. You play ...g7xh6. The protecting bishop captures
on h6. You next play ...(P)*g7, driving the bishop back to its original

44
position and rebuilding the damaged castle. Things are exactly as
they used to be except that you have “gained a tempo” since it is now
your turn to move, not your opponent’s.
Draw all the profit you can from the details of the pawn promotion
rule. In one game a pawn forked my rooks on their home rank. In
reply, I got rid of the sole piece in my prison — got rid of it by pushing
it into the enemy airfield, that’s to say, since I used it for ransoming a
hostage. The pawn was no longer able to capture anything because now
there was nothing to which it could be promoted. (Remember always
that a pawn one step away from promoting can make a capture only if
able to promote, and that it can promote only by changing places with
an imprisoned piece.) This little trick left me feeling so smug that in
the very next game I overlooked something crucial. An enemy pawn
promoted to knight. At once I took the knight with my queen. As I
saw things, moving my queen to a less threatening position had been
the enemy’s sole purpose in promoting that pawn. But unfortunately
the pawn had ended up where the promotion rule had sent it. I now
held it hostage in my prison. My opponent had been longing for a
pawn he could ransom. He had one now, and his next move was a
dropped-pawn checkmate.

Be sure you know all about pseudo-checks. When can a pawn,

one step from the far end of the board, give genuine check to a king
who stands there? Only when there is at least one “promotion piece”
— an imprisoned queen, rook, bishop or knight — with which the
pawn could in theory change places. And remember, a genuine check
becomes a mere a pseudo-check when the very last “promotion piece”
leaves its prison through an exchange of hostages. Here is a remarkable
case where a player, turning a check into a pseudo-check, manages to deliver
mate in the very same move. 1 e4 e5 2 d4 exd4 3 Qxd4 Nc6
4 Qa4 Bc5 5 c3 Nf6 6 Bg5 O-O 7 (P)*d4 Be7 8 Bxf6
Bxf6 9 Nd2 d6 10 Bd3 Bd7 11 Qc2 g6 12 N(g)f3 Re8

45
13 O-O-O a6 14 R(d)e1 b5 15 h4 Bg7 16 h5 *h6 17 hxg6
fxg6 18 d5 (B)N*b4 19 cxb4 Nxb4 20 Qb1 (P)*c3 21 bxc3
Bxc3 22 *b2 Bg7 23 (P)*c3 Nxd3 24 Qxd3 *g4 25 Nd4
(B)N*f4 26 Qf1 g5 27 g3 Nxd5 28 B*b7 Nb4 29 cxb4
Bxd4 30 Bxa8 Bxb2+ 31 Kxb2 Qf6+ 32 B*c3 (N)N*a4+
33 Kb1 Qxc3 34 N*f6+ Kh8 35 (B)*g7+ (Diagram 10)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{Bdwdrdwi}b
B{dw0bdw)p}
{pdw0wHw0}
{dpdwdw0w}
{n)wdPdpd}
{dw1wdw)w}
{PdwHw)wd}
{dKdw$QdR}rn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 10

Black decides to end the check by leaving the g7 pawn with nothing
to which it could in theory be promoted. He releases the imprisoned
white bishop, playing ...(B)N*a3+, and right away the game is over.
Because it no longer has the bishop as “promotion piece”, the white
pawn has become frozen. It no longer attacks the black king — so
it’s White who is in check, and checkmated!

Promoting, since it involves changing places with an imprisoned

piece, is sometimes a shabby affair: promotion just to bishop, perhaps.
It can even be impossible until something new has entered the enemy
prison. A common tactic, then, is sacrificing a piece to make a promo-
tion possible — the piece returns to the board when the pawn promotes
— or to allow a promotion to be splendid instead of shabby. A queen,
for instance, takes a protected rook and is itself taken immediately,
but it returns to the board through a pawn promoting to queen.

46
Standard Chess Openings Can Fail

Orthochess openings often run into quick trouble, usually start-

ing with a dropped pawn. Here, for example, a normally successful
handling of the Queen’s Gambit Declined leads to Black’s ruin: 1 d4
d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bg5 N(b)d7 5 cxd5 exd5 6 Nxd5
Nxd5 (in the standard western game this works beautifully, but we
are about to see that in Hostage it fails) 7 Bxd8 Bb4+. If the white
queen now had to block the bishop’s line of fire, it would be captured
with check so that Black gained the time needed for capturing the
d8 bishop. This being Hostage, however, White can play 8 (P)*d2
so the loss of Black’s queen remains unavenged.

Next, a Staunton Gambit leads to disaster. 1 d4 f5 2 e4 fxe4

3 Nc3 Nf6 4 f3 Nc6 5 d5 Ne5 6 fxe4 d6 7 Bf4 Ng6
8 Bb5+ Bd7 9 Bxd7+ Qxd7 (Diagram 11)

uuuuuuuuCuu
BP{rdwdkgw4}
{0p0q0w0p}
{wdw0whnd}
{dwdPdwdw}
{wdwdPGwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{P)PdwdP)}
{$wdQIwHR}bp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 11

Instead of defending with the move recommended in orthochess,

N(g)e2, White can play 10 (P)*f7+, with the threat of dropping a
bishop on e6. It’s no use replying 10 ...(B)B*g8 to turn the check into

47
a pseudo-check and attack the pawn, for this just leads to 11 B*e6
Qd8 12 Bxd6. The bishop now cannot legally be captured since
this would turn the pseudo-check back into a real one. It can next
move to c7; the knight can advance to b5; etcetera.

Finally, here are three ways in which White can get into hot water
when playing the Ruy Lopez:

In the first example a queen is lost to a dropped knight: 1 e4 e5

2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Be7 6 d4 exd4
7 e5 Ne4 8 Nxd4 (good in orthochess, bad in Hostage) ...Nxd4,
after which recapturing with 9 Qxd4 means that the queen can be
forked by ...(N)N*e2+.

The second case features an exchange of hostage queens: 1 e4 e5

2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Bxc6 dxc6 5 d4 Bg4 6 dxe5 Qxd1
7 Kxd1 O-O-O+ 8 Ke1 (successfully played by Lasker against
Marshall, but in Hostage it is a beginner’s blunder) ...(Q)Q*d1 mate.

In the third instance a minor piece finds itself unable to escape:

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Nxe4
6 d4 d5 7 dxe5 (in orthochess this would be fine) 7 ...b5 8 Bb3
(P)*c4 and now the bishop attacked by the pawn cannot retreat.

Trapping

We have just seen a bishop being trapped: a pawn pestered it, and
after it moved it was attacked by a second pawn arriving by air. Next,
here is a parachuted bishop helping to trap a queen. 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3
Nc6 3 Bc4 Be7 4 O-O Nf6 5 Nc3 O-O 6 d4 d6 7 Bg5
Bg4 8 Bxf6 Bxf6 9 h3 Bxf3 10 Qxf3 Nxd4 11 Qg4
(B)B*e6 12 Bxe6 fxe6 13 B*c4 (B)N*f4 14 (B)N*h5 Nxh5
15 Qxh5 (N)N*f4 16 Qg4 (Diagram 12)

Black plays ...B*h5, attacking the white queen and adding to the

48
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rdw1w4kd}b
{0p0wdw0p}
{wdw0pgwd}
{dwdw0wdw}
{wdBhPhQd}
{dwHwdwdP}
{P)Pdw)Pd}
NB{$wdwdRIW}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 12

pressure building up around the white king. White replies 17 Bxe6+

in the hope of deflecting one or other of the black knights. But Black
simply steps out of check, ...Kh8, and now 18 Qg3 cannot save the
queen because of ...N(d)e2+ 19 N xe2 N xe2+ 20 Kh2 N xg3. White
thinks it best to lose the queen right away, playing 18 Qxf4. The
game is soon over: ...exf4 19 Bc4 f3 20 g3 Qd7 21 N*f4 Qxh3
22 Nxh3 (Q)Q*g2 mate.

Exchanging Hostages to Limit Your Opponent’s Options

Imagine that at some point you fear a knight drop much more
than a bishop drop. By making a hostage exchange, you may be able
to do something about it. Let’s say you’ve imprisoned a bishop and a
knight. The enemy prison contains only a bishop. The hostile airfield
is empty, but the knight in your prison could mate you if ransomed.
What if you now exchange hostage bishop for hostage bishop? Your
opponent will then no longer hold an imprisoned bishop for use in
ransoming the knight.
Again, imagine that the airfields are empty; that you have a knight
and a pawn in your prison; and that a pawn has just entered the
previously empty enemy prison. Looking to see what damage you
could suffer through an exchange of the hostage pawns, you find two
places where a pawn drop would really hurt you. Exchanging the

49
pawns and then following the rule “Drop where your opponent wants
to!” therefore cannot help you. You can, however, buy the pawn in
the enemy prison with your knight, leaving your opponent without
any “cash” for a pawn-purchase.

Bear in mind, too, that you may want to exchange hostages so as

to make an enemy pawn unable to promote, or so as to leave nothing
powerful to which it could be promoted. By exchanging hostage queens,
for instance, you would stop the pawn promoting to queen. Or, after
exchanging off the only piece in your prison, you could surprise your
opponent by castling out of trouble, your king passing over a square
which the enemy pawn had previously controlled. Suddenly unable
to promote, the pawn would only give pseudo-check to the king as
it crossed that square.
Sacrificing

In Hostage, sacrifices are frequent. In the following game a queen

is sacrificed to kill a knight that guards a square. A piece then drops
onto the square, lethally: 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nc3 d5 3 Nf3 e6 4 Bf4
a6 5 e3 c5 6 dxc5 Bxc5 7 (P)*d4 Bd6 8 Bxd6 Qxd6
9 (B)B*e5 Qd8 10 Bxf6 gxf6 11 Be2 Rg8 12 Nh4 Nc6
13 Qd2 b5 14 O-O-O b4 15 Na4 Qa5 16 b3 *c3 17 Qe1
(Diagram 13)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
B{rdbdkdrd}b
{dwdwdpdp}
{pdndp0wd}
{1wdpdwdw}
{N0w)wdwH}
{dP0w)wdw}
{PdPdB)P)}
{dwIR!wdR}n
llvllllllllV
Diagram 13

50
 Black plays ...Qxa4. The sequel is 18 bxa4 B*b2+ 19 Kb1
(N)N*a3 mate.

Another reason for sacrificing is that you want to capture some

piece, any piece, so as to be able to ransom something the enemy
has imprisoned — something you cannot ransom at present because
your own prison contains absolutely nothing to give in exchange.
You capture, say, a bishop with your rook, at once losing the rook.
The bishop was doing you no harm, so your rook-for-bishop sacrifice
could seem senseless. However, the captured bishop is the cash you
needed for buying a knight. Ransoming and dropping the knight,
you win quickly. To get the bishop for buying the knight, you would
happily have sacrificed your queen.
The reverse of this coin is that whenever your opponent has just
captured something you must ask yourself what this something
could ransom. In the next game Black blundered disastrously when
he took the enemy queen. His thinking was that the queen had cap-
tured a knight in order to prevent a quick mate. Well, so it had, but
that was no excuse for grabbing the queen without asking what the
newly imprisoned knight could ransom. The game started as follows:
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Nxe5 d6 4 Nc4 Nxe4 5 Nc3 Nxc3
6 bxc3 Be7 7 d4 O-O 8 (P)*h6 g6 9 Bd3 *e4 10 Bxe4
d5 11 Bxd5 Qxd5 12 Ne3 Qe4 13 (N)B*g7 Re8 14 Qd3
Qh4 15 O-O Bd6 16 g3 Qh3 (Black has here missed 16 ...N*f3+
17 Kg2 Qxh2+ 18 Kxf3 Bg4+ 19 N xg4 (N)B*g2 mate.) 17 f4 b6
18 Nd5 Nd7 19 Qb5 N*e2+ (Diagram 14)

The dropped knight can be captured not just through desperation

but in complete safety: 20 Qxe2 Rxe2. White has now lost a queen,
but the enemy knight he has just gained can be used to ransom some-
thing sitting in Black’s prison. The beauty of parachuting a knight
onto a square protected by a fellow knight is about to be demonstrated:
21 (N)N*f6+ Nxf6 22 Nxf6 mate.

51
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdbdrdkd}
{0w0ndpGp}
{w0 gwdp)}
{dQdNdwdw}
{wdw)w)wd}
{dw)wdw)q}
{PdPdndw)}
{$wGwdRIw}pp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 14

Playing Hostage Chess at a friendly pace, almost anyone could

blunder as Black did. Note, by the way, how Black’s king has been
fenced in by a parachuted bishop protected by a parachuted pawn.
Similar formations, sometimes with pawn ahead and bishop behind,
are fairly common.

Exchanging Downwards

“Exchanging downwards” when you exchange hostages is sacrificial

play of an often useful type. Giving up a queen to purchase a mere
knight makes perfect sense if checkmating then comes quickly or (as
in this next game) immediately: 1 d4 d5 2 Nc3 e5 3 dxe5 d4
4 Nf3 Nc6 5 e3 dxc3 6 Qxd8+ Nxd8 7 bxc3 Bd7 8 Bc4
Ne6 9 O-O Nh6 10 Rd1 Be7 11 Bxe6 fxe6 12 e4 Nf7
13 Be3 Bc6 14 Nd4 Bd7 15 (N)B*h5 g6 16 Bg4 N*c5
17 Bxe6 Nxe6 18 Nxe6 Bxe6 19 (N)N*g7+ Kf8 20 Nxe6+
Ke8 21 (Q)N*g7 mate.
Now, here is a game which sees hostage bishop exchanged for
hostage pawn, again during a mating attack: 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nc3 d5
3 Bg5 Bf5 4 f3 N(b)d7 5 Bxf6 Nxf6 6 (N)B*g5 h6 7 Bxf6

52
N*e3 8 Qcl Nxc2+ 9 Kdl exf6 10 e4 (B)N*e3+ 11 Ke2
dxe4 12 fxe4 (P)*d3+ 13 Kf2 Qxd4 14 B*f4 Ng4+ 15 Kg3
Qf2+ 16 Kh3 Be6 17 *f5 Nxal 18 fxe6 h5 (Diagram 15)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdwdkgw4}
R{0p0wdp0w}
{wdwdP0wd}
{dwdwdwdp}
{wdwdPGnd}
{dwHpdwdK}
{P)wdw1P)}
{hw!wdBHR}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 15

19 (B)*d7+ (the sacrificial exchanging downwards) ...Kd8

20 Bxc7+ Kxc7 21 Nd5+ Kd6 22 Qc7+ Kxe6 23 (P)*f5+
Qxf5 24 exf5+ Kxf5 25 Qf4+ Kg6 26 (Q)B*f5 mate (more
exchanging downwards). This last game is fascinating for its marked
reversal of fortunes. White looked just about as beaten as you can get.
In Hostage, always think long and hard before resigning.

Dying So As To Return By Air

Maybe the most important type of sacrifice involves losing a man

which then returns to the board through an exchange of hostages.
Queens and knights are not the only men able to “rampage”. Rooks
and bishops can rampage as well. You sometimes even see a pawn
rampager: a pawn that would be ransomed as soon as it was captured,

53
then doing decisive damage. If this sort of thing occurred often enough,
you’d hardly ever dare capture anything. Luckily it doesn’t. The vast
majority of good orthochess captures would be good in Hostage
Chess as well. Taking a rook at the cost of a mere bishop, or a queen
at the cost of a mere rook, is almost always worthwhile. Still, forcing
the capture of something which then returns to the board in some
crushing fashion is a classic Hostage Chess stratagem. Correspond-
ingly, a classic Hostage Chess blunder is taking something which then
returns to mate you — or, less dramatically, noticing too late that the
something had better not be taken, “too late” perhaps meaning when
you want to avenge the capture of a man.

The thing to remember is that when your opponent holds prisoners

which could be used for ransoming what you capture, you have to
look carefully before capturing anything. You don’t want to imprison
something that will quickly be ransomed in a way you’ll regret. In
Diagram 16, an incautiously captured bishop returns to checkmate
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RN{rdwdrdkd}bp
{0p0wdpdp}
{wdwdwGwd}
{dwdq)pdw}
{wdw)pdnd}
{)wdwGwdN}
{wdP)w)P)}
{!wdwIwdR}bn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 16

the capturer. White has just made his nineteenth move. Black replies
19 ...Nxe3 (the incautious capture of the bishop). We then get
20 (B)N*h6+ Kf8 21 (N)B*g7 mate.

54
Attacking and Defending

In Hostage, the scales of fortune can swing wildly in reflection

of who has the attack. Aggression is usually the key to success, par-
ticularly for the weaker player. The tree of possible moves branches
explosively, and by attacking you keep the explosiveness under your
own control. If challenged by a much stronger opponent, play aggres-
sively or not at all. A large proportion of all Hostage games end in
flurries of checks, with men parachuting one after another. You want
to be the one who does the checking.

Parachuting can add remarkably to the fury of a mating attack.

Again and again, the attacker will have a wide choice of where to
drop a man. The defender will typically have little or no choice of
how to reply. The attacker’s message is “Move your king to such and
such a square, or else position a man between it and my attacking
man! Your only alternative is immediate defeat.” But the king that
moves obediently is at once re-attacked. And when something is
instead placed between attacking man and king, this something can
often be captured. No doubt whatever makes the capture will next
itself be captured, but in that case each prison will have gained a new
inhabitant so that the attack can probably begin once more, fueled by
a new hostage exchange.

An assault may therefore involve many more acts of parachuting

than you’d have dreamed possible. It isn’t enough to count just the
droppable men—men in airfields and men available for ransom-
ing—that the attacker can call upon initially. In a game in the next
chapter, White begins his attack with nothing but a rook and two
pawns he could ransom, plus an airfield bishop. Fourteen successive
checks follow, the last one being a mate. Fully eight of the checks are
by paratroopers. The series of drops is constantly extended with the
help of new captures, new hostage exchanges.

55
 Generally, the details of a long attack cannot be worked out in
advance. Hostage simply isn’t that sort of game. Its complexities are
altogether too great. For the reasons just now given, however, the
attacker tends to have quite an advantage. Attack, therefore, even if
you cannot predict exactly what will happen. Attack unexpectedly after
exchanging two or three men on the board — for men exchanged on
the board become new hostages ready to be ransomed. Remember that
you can often force a succession of exchanges on your opponent because
whenever a man is captured any failure to avenge the capture means
falling behind in material. Suppose, then, that you have two men in
your airfield and see three possible on-the-board exchanges, each able
to add a new inhabitant to the enemy prison while at the same time
giving you a hostage to use in ransoming that new inhabitant. This
means you could well have five droppable men for an airborne assault.
Correspondingly, if the enemy airfield also contained two men then
your opponent could probably mobilize an equally great force for an
airborne assault on you, unless you attacked first. Now, would your
king survive being assailed by five successive paratroopers?
Attacking, you will probably need to keep exchanging hostages, and
you may sometimes have to “exchange downwards” as when you use
a rook to ransom a bishop. All this will tend to build up a powerful
army in the enemy airfield. Meanwhile your own store of droppable
men will be shrinking, possibly all the way to zero. Never mind, for
with any luck you’ll soon be checkmating. Admittedly an attack can
fail, and then woe to the attacker who now faces numerous airfielders
and has nothing to drop in self-defense! But if regularly unwilling to
risk attacking, you will lose just as regularly. Hostage Chess seldom
rewards the meek.

Here come two games in which one side triumphs very quickly
through launching a series of checks. Please don’t think that most
Hostage struggles are as brief as these. A typical contest between
56
experienced players lasts a good twenty-five moves, and quite often
forty or fifty. Still, a flurry of checks will occasionally decide matters
at a very early stage. In the first game White wins in sixteen moves
only: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 d6 4 Bb5 a6 5 Bxc6+
bxc6 6 dxe5 dxe5 7 Qxd8+ Kxd8 8 Bg5+ f6 9 Nxe5 Ke7
10 (Q)Q*f7+ Kd6 11 Nc4+ Kc5 12 b4+ Kxb4 13 a3+
Kb5 14 Nc3+ Kc5 15 (N)B*b4+ Kd4 16 Be3 mate.

The second game is won by Black with almost equal rapidity:

1 d4 d5 2 Bf4 Nf6 3 Nc3 c5 4 Nf3 Nh5 5 Bxb8 Rxb8
6 (N)B*b5+ Bd7 7 Bxd7+ Qxd7 8 N e5 Qc7 9 Nxd5
Qa5+ 10 Qd2 Qxd2+ 11 Kxd2 N*e4+ 12 Kd3 (Q)Q*d2+
13 Kxe4 Qxd4+ 14 Kf3 (B)B*e4+ 15 Kg4 Bxd5+
16 Kg5 Qf4+ 17 Kxh5 (P)*g6+ 18 Nxg6 hxg6 mate. For a
king, being drawn forward can be disastrous.

Next, here is a case where a player’s attack has failed. Fearing the
counterattack that is brewing, he resorts to an unusual defensive mea-
sure. Diagram 17 shows the position after White’s twenty-sixth move:
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdw1w4kd}
R{0pdwdp0p}
{wdw0wdwd}
{hw0wdwdw}
{wdwdPdwd}
P{dw)w!wdw}
BB{Pdwdp)w)}
NN{dw$wdbIw}nb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 17

57
 Despite having his bishop right next to the white king, Black judges
his assault has faltered, and he fears the large force in White’s airfield
plus the two pawns that White could ransom. He therefore plays
26 ...Qg5+ which deflects the white queen and leads to a draw as
follows: 27 Qxg5 (R)N*h3+ 28 Kh1 Nxf2+ 29 Kg1 Nh3+
30 Kh1 Nf2+ etc.

A draw like that, by perpetual check, is available only rarely. What’s

to be done when no such draw can be had? It is usually worth battling
onwards, hoping that the opponent’s counterattack will fail. Wait
till it seems to falter, then start attacking again. Even when nobody
blunders, some strange changes of fortune occur in this deeply mys-
terious game.
Defending instead of attacking can sometimes be an excellent
idea. Don’t just get securely castled. Drop a pawn in front of the
castle; drop a knight nearby; close any gaps in your position that are
invitations to enemy paratroops; and so forth. But all this takes time,
and in Hostage Chess time is in short supply. “Attack’s the best defense”
should therefore often be your maxim.

Space, and getting a man near the enemy king

Pushing the enemy army back can cramp it, giving you “a space
advantage”. Yet there can be an accompanying disadvantage, often
fatal. Your position comes to contain more landing spots for enemy
paratroops. More important, almost always, than gaining space, is
controlling squares close to your opponent’s king — possibly from
a distance but often better from nearby so that no drops can get in
your way. Yes, Hostage Chess attacks can seem to materialize out of
thin air. It helps make this game exciting even when beginners play
experts. But when one or two enemies enter the air around a king, it
is already getting too thick for him to breathe.

58
 Chapter 4

Illustrative Games

I played in some of these games. For their spirited play and for
suggested annotations, warm thanks to the other players — Hal
Bond, Peter Coast, Tom Leslie, Frank Parr, David Pritchard, Roger
Smook, Paul Yearout.

Game (i): Short and sweet. White faces an opponent skilled enough
to win a large majority of their games. This, though, is one of his
defeats, brought about by White’s aggressiveness. Whenever given
an opportunity the weaker player must attack. 1 d4 f5 2 Bf4 Nf6
3 Nc3 e6 4 Nf3 b6 5 e3 Bb7. A bishop fianchetto like this
tends to work poorly in Hostage: the bishop often gets traded away,
after which the square it used to occupy becomes a weakness begging
to be exploited by pawn drops or knight drops. 6 Bd3 Be7 7 Nb5
d6 8 Qd2 Nh5 9 Bg3 Nxg3 10 hxg3 Nd7 11 O-O-O Nf6
12 Ng5 (Diagram 18)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
B{rdw1kdw4}
{0b0wgw0p}
{w0w0phwd}
{dNdwdpHw}
{wdw)wdwd}
{dwdB)w)w}
{P)P!w)Pd}
{dwIRdwdR}n
llvllllll
Diagram 18 llV

59
 Black has stumbled into a severe problem. Defending his threatened
pawn with ...Qd7 would be useless since White’s knight would cap-
ture it anyway; the recapture ...Qxe6 would be answered by N xc7+,
a knight fork which wins the queen. He tries 12...(B)N*f8 but soon
gets into a mess: 13 B*f7+ Kd7 14 Qc3 Nd5. The attack on the
white queen threatens to win the g5 knight, but White replies vigor-
ously: 15 Nxe6. White has concluded that his king is more secure
than Black’s so that capturing second in an exchange of queens, and
therefore giving his opponent the first opportunity to exchange queen
hostages, will not put him at a disadvantage. Well, Black now doesn’t
like playing ...Nxe6 instead of going ahead with the queen exchange,
for White’s B xe6+ would then draw the black king forward. So
play continues as follows: 15...Nxc3 16 Nxd8 Rxd8 (White was
threatening (Q)Q*e8+ Kc8 18 Nc6+ Q*d8 19 Nxe7+ Kb8 20 Qxd8+
and mate next move) 17 Bxf5+ (N)*e6 18 B(5)xe6+ (keeping up
the checks so as to restrict Black’s options, a typical Hostage Chess
procedure) 18...Nxe6 19 Bxe6+ Kxe6 (the king has now been
drawn forward dangerously, but playing ...Ke8 instead would have
been answered by (Q)Q*f7 mate). White now has so much he can
parachute — the airfield knight, plus a bishop and a queen which
can be rescued through exchanging hostages — that Black’s position
looks fairly hopeless. (Diagram 19)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
QB{wdw4wdw4}
B{0b0wgw0p}
{w0w0kdwd}
{dNdwdwdw}
{wdw)wdwd}
{dwhw)w)w}
{P)Pdw)Pd}pp
N{dwIRdwdR}nq
llvllllllllV
Diagram 19

60
 Black is all the more clearly in trouble after 20 N*f4+. He could
try 20 ...Kf6 or ...Kf5 (both answered by (Q)Q *e6+, and mate
next move by the rook) or 20...Kd7 (answered by 21 (N)B*e6+ and
then either ...Kc6, with mate by N xa7, or else ...Ke8 with mate by
(Q)Q*f7 ). What actually happened was 20...Kf7 21 (N)B*e6+
Kf8 22 (Q)Q*f7 mate. White’s onslaught ended with six checks
in a row, Black never getting a chance to counterattack. Notice how
quickly the black king was caught after being drawn forward.

Game (ii): An immensely interesting and exciting contest between

strong players. The winner, a chess professional, is very keen on Hos-
tage Chess, but the loser defeats him more often than not. 1 e4 Nf6
2 e5 Nd5 3 d4 d6 4 f4 dxe5 5 fxe5 c5 6 c4 Nb6 7 d5
Bf5 8 Bd3 e6 9 Bxf5 Qh4+ (by attacking instead of obediently
taking the bishop, Black demonstrates that he knows a thing or two
about Hostage) 10 g3 Qxc4 11 Bd3 (P)*g2 (Diagram 20)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rhwdkgw4}
{0pdwdp0p}
{whwdpdwd}
{dw0P)wdw}
{wdqdwdwd}
{dwdBdw)w}
{P)wdwdp)}
P{$NGQIwHR}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 20

Nice! Black threatens not only to take the rook but also to promote
to queen if his queen is now captured. 12 Nf3 Qxd3 (with the
same threat) 13 Rg1 Qxd5 (probably stronger would be 13...Qxd1+
14 Kxd1 (Q)Q*f1+) 14 Rxg2 Qxd1+ 15 Kxd1 (Q)Q*f1+. (What
if White had played 14 Qxd5? It looks better. After 14...exd5 15 Rxg2
the black queen would not have been able to parachute where it did,
and nowhere else seems as good. Parachuting on e4, for instance, could
61
be answered by *e2.) 16 Ne1 (P)*f2 17 (B)B*b5+ (Diagram 21)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rhwdkgw4}b
{0pdwdp0p}
{whwdpdwd}
{dB0w)wdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdwdw)w}
P{P)wdw0R)}
QP{$NGKHqdw}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 21

White felt forced to sacrifice the bishop in this way, to break Black’s
attack. 17...Qxb5 18 Rxf2 Nc6 19 Nc3 Rd8+ 20 *d6 Qc4
21 *f4 (as well as defending the e5 pawn, this restricts the movements
of Black’s queen) 21...Bxd6 (with this sacrifice Black’s attack starts
up anew) 22 exd6 Rxd6+ 23 (P)*d3 Rxd3+ (violence, establish-
ing once again that Black knows about Hostage) 24 Nxd3 Qxd3+
25 Rd2 Qf1+ (Diagram 22)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PB{wdwdkdw4}bp
PP{0pdwdp0p}
N{whndpdwd}
{dw0wdwdw}
{wdwdw)wd}
{dwHwdw)w}
{P)w$wdw)}
Q{$wGKdqdw}br
llvllllllllV
Diagram 22

26 Kc2 B*d3+ 27 Kb3 Na5+ 28 Ka3 *b4 mate.

62
 Game (iii): Played by post, and with a major reversal of fortunes at
the end. 1 d4 d5 2 Nf3 c5 3 dxc5 Qa5+ 4 Nc3 Nf6 5 Be3
e5 6 Nxe5 Bxc5 7 Bxc5 Qxc5. If White next played 8 (B)B*a3
to attack the queen, the reply ...(P)*b4 would fork his knight and
the attacking bishop, so instead we get: 8 Nd3 Qe7 9 (P)*e5
Ne4 10 Nxd5. Black had in fact seen this far, and even further: he
expected 10...*d2+ 11 Qxd2 N xd2 12 N xe7 (so both queens would
have been taken hostage) ...N e4. He now changes his mind, however,
deciding that after the continuation 13 (Q)Q*a4+ Kxe7 14 Qxe4 his
exposed king would be in too much trouble; he pictures such things
as a ransomed white bishop dropping on d6. Hence he saves his queen
with 10...Qd8. (Diagram 23)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
B{rhb1kdw4}p
{0pdwdp0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdN)wdw}
{wdwdndwd}
{dwdNdwdw}
{P)PdP)P)}b
{$wdQIBdR}pp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 23

Yet now comes 11 e3, making an escape square for the king, and
Black sees too late that the knight on d5 is invulnerable because its
death through ...Qxd5 would be followed immediately by its rebirth,
(B)N*c7+, a knight fork of king and queen. So play proceeds: 11
...*d2+ 12 Ke2 (B)B*c4 (threatening to capture the knight with
the bishop instead) 13 f3 (if you take my knight, I’ll take yours, giving
me the chance to capture that horrible pawn) ...Qxd5 14 fxe4 Qxe5
(...Qxe4 would have led to (N)N*d6+ and loss of the queen) 15 B*d4

63
Qh5+ (Black hopes that 16 Kxe2 Qxd1+ would be dangerous to
White, although 17 Rxd1 could be an adequate reply)

16 (P)*f3 (seeming to agree about the dangerousness) ...(N)N*g3+

17 hxg3 Qxh1 18 N*d6+ Kf8 19 Nxc4. White allowed the
exchange of knight and rook so as to gain time for dropping his airfield
knight and capturing the c4 bishop. Looks good! 19...Nc6 20 Bc5+
Kg8 (forced to bottle up his h8 rook, Black appears far along the
road to defeat) 21 Kxd2 Be6 22 N(c)e5 Nxe5 23 Nxe5 Rd8+
(desperation?) 24 Bd3 (looks very reasonable, but the sequel suggests
it is a game-losing move) ...Qxg2+ 25 Qe2 (Diagram 24)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RN{wdw4wdk4}p
P{0pdwdp0p}
{wdwdbdwd}
{dwGwHwdw}
{wdwdPdwd}
{dwdB)P)w}b
{P)PIQdqd}pp
{$wdwdwdw}nn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 24

White thinks Black must now exchange queens; the black attack
will then have failed. But Black has a magnificent move up his sleeve:
25...Rxd3+. Black has concluded that all three possible ways in
which his opponent could capture the rook do not work, despite the
fact that once it has been captured he must keep going check, check,
check, to avoid being mated by (R)R*f8+. His numerous and varied
possibilities of parachuting will give him an irresistible attack. What
in point of fact followed was 26 Nxd3 (N)N*c4+ 27 Resigns. A
short finale would have been 27 Kc3 (B)B*d2+ 28 Kb3 *a4+ 29 Kxa4
(R)R*a5+ 30 Kb3 (P)*a4 mate. Or there might have been this superb
sequence: 27 Kc1 *d2+ 28 Kb1 (B)N*c3+ 29 bxc3 (R)R*c1+ 30 Nxc1
dxc1=R+ 31 Kxc1 (P)*b2+ 32 Kb1 bxa1=R+ 33 Kxa1 (R)R*c1+
64
34 R*b1 (N)*b2 mate.

Game (iv): Here a Hostage enthusiast beats a real expert by attack-

ing repeatedly. The game ends with fourteen successive checks. 1 e4
Nf6 2 e5 Nd5 3 d4 d6 4 exd6 cxd6 5 Bc4 Nb6 6 Bb5+
Bd7 7 Bxd7+ Qxd7 8 Nc3 e6 9 Nf3 Be7 10 Bg5 (P)*g4.
Black’s move could seem a good one — if the knight retreats then the
bishop loses its protection — but it gives White an airfield pawn and
this, the previous chapter suggested, could be worth twice as much
as a pawn on the board.
11 Bxe7 gxf3 (...Qxe7 would have been safer for Black, who is
about to find himself in difficulties) 12 *f6 (nicely illustrating the
uses of an airfield pawn; White would meet the reply ...gxf6 by play-
ing B xf6, attacking the rook; if it moved, White could take his pick
of (P)*e7 and (P)*g7 and (B)N*g7+ and Qxf3 ) 12...fxg2 13 Rgl
(B)B*f1 (at the cost of giving White an airfield bishop, Black makes
the white king almost as insecure as the black one) 14 fxg7 (abandon-
ing the bishop so as to attack the black rook; this time, the result of
moving the rook would be (B)N*f6+ which wins the queen) ...Qxe7
15 gxh8=B (remember, the promoting pawn goes to Black’s prison,
replacing the bishop to which it has been promoted) 15...N(8)d7,
guarding against a bishop drop on f6. (Diagram 25)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
PN{rdwdkdwG}
P{0pdn1pdp}
{whw0pdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{wdw)wdwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)p)}r
B{$wdQIb$w}bp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 25

65
 Now the question is whether Black’s growing attack can beat
White’s large material advantage (which includes, don’t forget, the
advantage of having that bishop in the airfield where it is likely to be
more powerful than on the board). 16 (B)N*c7+ forks king and rook.
The game continues: 16...Kd8 17 Nxa8 Nc4 (Black is threatening
...(P)*d2+, which wins White’s queen)

18 Rxg2 (so that the queen need not lay down her life in defense
of the king) 18...Bxg2 (which fails to worry White, for he expects
that the captured rook will soon return to the board) 19 (P)*c7+
(beginning the fourteen successive checks) ...Kc8 20 (R)R*d8+
Qxd8 21 cxd8=R+ Kxd8. As well as still having the airfield
bishop, White has a queen, a rook and a pawn in his prison, while
Black’s prison contains just a rook and two pawns. But with a rook,
a bishop and a pawn in his airfield, Black’s total dropping power (for
you have to include things available through exchanging hostages)
is two rooks, a bishop and two pawns. White therefore decides he
must keep checking:

22 (P)*c7+ (once again) ...Ke7 (Diagram 26)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
PR{NdwdwdwG}bp
{0p)nipdp}rp
{wdw0pdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{wdn)wdwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)b)}
B{$wdQIwdw}rq
llvllllllllV
Diagram 26

66
 (Had Black played ...Ke8, we’d then have seen 23 (R)R*d8+ Ke7
24 B*f8+ N xf8 25 (Q)B*f6 mate.)

23 B*d8+ Kf8. (Well, how about ...Ke8 at this point instead?

Unfortunately it would fail to solve Black’s problems, for the sequel
would be 24 (R)R*e7+ Kf8 25 Rxf7+, after which there are forced
mates using the fact that White’s queen can rampage, returning at
once if captured. For instance, we might see 25 ...Kxf7 26 Qh5+ B*g6
27 Qxg6+ (rampaging) ...hxg6 28 (Q)Q*g7+ Ke8 29 Qe7 mate.)

After this, Black is checked again and again, all the way to check-
mate: 24 Bg7+ Kxg7

25 Qg4+ R*g6 26 Qxg6+ hxg6 (White doesn’t care, confident

that his queen will soon be reborn)

27 (R)B*f6+ Nxf6 28 Bxf6+ Kxf6

29 (N)B*d8+ (Diagram 27)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PR{NdwGwdwd}pp
QB{0p)wdpdw}br
{wdw0pipd}n
{dwdwdwdw}
{wdn)wdwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)b)}
{$wdwIwdw}rq
llvllllllllV
Diagram 27

29...Kg7 (if Black instead interposes something, perhaps playing

...(P)*e7, then the white bishop simply captures it; a recapture by the
king results in (Q)Q*d8 mate) 30 (Q)Q*f6+ Kh6 (if ...Kf8 then
Be7+ leads to mate next move by a ransomed rook) 31 (R)R*h5+
67
(a neat final sacrifice) ...Kxh5 32 Qg5 mate.

Although Black ended with enormously much in his airfield,

accumulating this huge force was useless because of White’s constant
checks. Captures made during an attack are wood for feeding its
fires, but when the attack fails the player who launched it can be in
deep trouble.

Game (v): Historic: the first game to feature two players very strong
at orthodox western chess, and also the first experience that these play-
ers had of Hostage — yet they managed to create a beauty. 1 d4 d5
2 c4 dxc4 3 Nc3 e5 4 d5 (If White played dxe5 instead, Black
could gain central control and development by harassing the knight
with 4...(P)*d4. Alternatively, might Black even exchange queens on
d1 ? This would give him the first opportunity to parachute a queen
after a hostage exchange. Is that important here? Probably not, for a
pawn grabbed after a forking check by the parachuted queen could
be poor compensation for putting a queen into the enemy airfield.)
4...c6 5 e4 b5 6 dxc6 (P)*d4 7 *d7 (Diagram 28)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rhb1kgnr}
{0wdPdp0p}
{wdPdwdwd}
{dpdw0wdw}
{wdp0Pdwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{P)wdw)P)}
{$wGQIBHR}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 28

7...Nxc6. This last move exploits the fact that Black is only in
pseudo-check since the white pawn cannot promote — there is no

68
imprisoned piece with which it could in theory change places — and so
cannot move forward or give check. Taking advantage of that feature
of the pawn promotion rule tends, however, to be very dangerous.
8 Qxd4: an example of the sort of danger you run into. The queen
has become “a super-rampager”. Black cannot legally capture it. Send-
ing it to his prison would be giving check to himself because the d7
pawn, at present delivering pseudo-check only, would then be made
in theory promotable—promotable to queen—and so would deliver
a real check. 8...Bxd7 (capturing the pseudo-checking pawn, and
consequently making it legal to capture the queen) 9 Qd1 (hurried
retreat of Her Majesty, therefore) ...(P)*d4 10 Nd5 Bb4+ 11 Bd2
Bxd2+ 12 Qxd2 Be6 13 a4 (Black’s ingenious next moves
will show that the pawn should have gone to a3 instead) 13...Bxd5
14 exd5 (B)B*b4 15 *c3 dxc3 16 bxc3 Bxc3 (White’s queen,
pinned by the sacrificial bishop, will be drawn forward to its doom)
(Diagram 29)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PN{rdw1kdn4}
PP{0wdwdp0p}
{wdndwdwd}
{dpdP0wdw}
{Pdpdwdwd}
{dwgwdwdw}
{wdw!w)P)}
B{$wdwIBHR}bp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 29

17 Qxc3 (N)B*b4 (the drawn-forward queen is attacked again,

and this time the attack is a fatal one)

18 Qxb4 Nxb4. As reward for his ingenuity, Black has taken

69
White’s queen. Looking just at the prisoners, we might judge him
well ahead in material. However, his advantage is reduced by the fact
that two white pieces are now airfielders and therefore stronger than
if they were on the board. Further, he could be unlikely to want to
exchange the imprisoned queen for a mere bishop or pawn. White, in
contrast, might usefully exchange bishop for pawn so as to have two
pawns dropping in swift succession, or could even give up both hos-
tage bishops to buy pawns; hence his total dropping power is knight,
bishop, pawn, pawn, pawn. He might still win, therefore, because
Hostage Chess is so full of tricks. 19 Rbl (P)*d2+ (Diagram 30)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdw1kdn4}
Q{0wdwdp0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dpdP0wdw}
{Phpdwdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
P{wdw0w)P)}
BN{dRdwIBHR}bb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 30

20 Kxd2: it was the king’s turn to be drawn forward, this time by

a sacrificial pawn. An alternative was Kd1, taking refuge behind the
pawn, but one problem with this was that Black’s queen could then
rampage since its capture would be followed by its immediate return
to the board, ...(Q)Q*e1 mate. Hence the queen could, for instance,
capture the d5 pawn without fearing the knight fork N*c7+. Putting
the king on d2, however, has its own big disadvantage, which is that
the queen captures on d5 with check: 20...Qxd5+. The end now comes
quickly. 21 Kcl (dropping the airfield pawn on d3 would have been
somewhat better) ...Na2+ 22 Kc2 (P)*b3+ 23 Kb2 (Q)B*c3+
(I said Black could be unlikely to exchange queen for bishop, but there
he’s done it) 24 Ka3 b4 mate. White’s total dropping power was

70
great enough to make Black extremely keen to keep checking again
and again.

Game (vi): Seizing a chance to go on the offensive, White outplays

a vastly stronger opponent. The game ends with an interesting queen
sacrifice. 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 d3 d6 5 Nc3
Bg4 6 h3 Bh5 7 g4 Bg6. White may have advanced his kingside
pawns a little recklessly. His vague hope was that the black bishop
would one day find itself trapped by a dropped pawn. 8 Nd5 Na5
9 Bg5 f6 10 Bd2. That White is the weaker player seems to have
been illustrated here. Black’s pawn push has opened a square for the
bishop, which need no longer fear being trapped. It has also given
Black a tempo, used at once for a maneuver which should have been
guarded against: 10...Nxc4 11 dxc4 Bxe4. As well as gaining a
pawn, Black has exchanged his knight for an enemy bishop. That,
remember, is usually a good idea (because ransoming and dropping
a knight tends to be better than ransoming and dropping a bishop).
What’s more, White now feels forced to put the knight into Black’s
airfield, making it worth about a rook on the board, for he plays
12 (N)B*f5 to get rid of the e4 bishop. Black, however, does not bother
about his threatened bishop. Instead he at once uses his new airfielder
to attack: 12...N*g2+. The trouble with this, though, is that White
manages to defend well: 13 Kf1 Bxf3 14 Qxf3 Nh4 15 Qg3
Nxf5 16 gxf5. Black, it seems, has accomplished nothing. Instead
he has used up that nice knight drop, and he faces a highly charged
situation. Because of the hostage knights and bishops waiting to be
exchanged, each side now has a dropping power of knight plus bishop,
and White might even instead drop knight plus pawn or bishop plus
pawn (which shows that even being a pawn down can sometimes have
its advantages since a pawn in the enemy prison is a pawn you might
usefully ransom). Worse still, there is the white knight on d5, a bone
in Black’s throat, and the white pawn on f5 which controls the empty,
unprotected square e6. Finally, the position of White’s queen means

71
that castling kingside could turn out badly. In this crisis Black tries
...Qd7 but that only leads to 17 (B)B*e6 (Diagram 31)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PN{rdwdkdn4}b
{0p0qdw0p}
{wdw0B0wd}
{dwgN0Pdw}
{wdPdwdwd}
{dwdwdw!P}
{P)PGw)wd}
{$wdwdKdR}n
llvllllllllV
Diagram 31

The dropped bishop rips open the black position. The black queen
runs away, 17...Qa4 (if running to c6, the queen would be trapped by
(N)*b5; playing ...Qd8 instead would invite (N)N*f7, forking queen
and rook and forcing the queen to escape to the useless square b8; in
contrast, on a4 it at least threatens to grab the pawn on c4, delivering
check). But then comes 18 Nxc7+ Kf8
19 (N)N*d7+, and now Black judges he had better exchange his
queen for one of those menacing knights: 19...Qxd7
20 Bxd7. And next he feels he must also use up his airfield
bishop; he plays ...B*f7, guarding against 21 N e6+ Ke7 22 Qxg7+
B*f7 23 Qxf7+ Kxf7 24 (Q)Q*g7 mate. Has he earned himself time
to catch his breath? If so, he could still win. Since the knight in his
airfield is worth more through being there, not on the board, he may
be less than a rook’s-worth down in material; he is an alarmingly
strong player; and this is Hostage Chess, not orthodox western chess
where being even a pawn down can be fatal.
Thinking it best to attack while still able to, White makes a bold
sacrifice: 21 Qxg7+ (Diagram 32)

72
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
PN{rdwdwin4}n
{0pHBdb!p}
{wdw0w0wd}
{dwgw0Pdw}
{wdPdwdwd}
{dwdwdwdP}
{P)PGw)wd}p
w {$wdwdKdR}pq
llvllllllllV
Diagram 32

The players are moving quickly so White has not worked everything
out, but experience tells him his sacrificial queen will probably soon
parachute back into the game. There follows 21...Kxg7 22 (P)*h6+
Nxh6 23 Bxh6+ Kxh6 24 (N)N*g4+ Resigns. Black’s alter-
natives to resignation were moving the king forward, into (Q)Q*h6
mate, or instead returning it to g7 and therefore into 25 (Q)Q*h6+
Kg8 26 Nxf6 mate.
Game (vii): Here the loser of that last game shows how he normally
treats its winner. His swift victory ends with a furious attack: eight
checks in an unbroken row, with superb sacrifices. 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3
Nc6 3 Nc3 Bc5 4 Bb5 Nd4 5 Nxe5 Qe7 6 Nxf7. Although
Hostage Chess can reward the bold, White’s play is altogether too
impertinent when he faces an opponent as powerful as this one. Still,
he gets the satisfaction of seeing the black king strangely placed after
the next few moves: 6...Kxf7 7 Bc4+ Kf8 8 d3 g6 9 Bxg8
Rxg8. Now, though, he judges that his kingside is under threat. Also
that provoking an exchange of knights on the board could usefully
reduce the imbalance in dropping power that his impertinence has
produced (for at present exchanging hostages would give him only
one man to drop, whereas Black could drop a knight and a pawn).
This leads him to play 10 Ne2, rather a passive move: Nd5 or Bh6+
could be better. Instead of playing ...N xe2 as White hoped, Black

73
attacks with ...(N)N*f3+. Then, following 11 gxf3 Nxf3+ 12 Kfl
Qh4, the white king is clearly in danger. Yet 13 (P)*g3 prevents the
threatened mate on f2, and after ...Qh5 14 N*f4 White fancies he has
broken the attack and started to harry the black queen. (Diagram 33)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
B{rdbdwird}p
{0p0pdwdp}
{wdwdwdpd}
{dwgwdwdq}
{wdwdPHwd}
{dwdPdn)w}
{P)PdN)w)}
{$wGQdKdR}pn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 33

But now comes the first of the eight checks: 14...Nxh2+. Next
we get 15 Kgl (B)N*f3+ 16 Kg2 *h3+ 17 Nxh3, and then
the splendid sacrifice ...Qxh3+. After taking the queen, 18 Kxh3,
White’s king is seriously exposed, yet how can Black possibly exploit
this? Answer: by a discovered check, 18...d5+. How does that help?
Blocking the bishop’s line of fire with 19 (P)*f5 strikes White as
perfectly adequate. (Diagram 34)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdbdwird}p
{0p0wdwdp}
{wdwdwdpd}
{dwgpdPdw}
{wdwdPdwd}
{dwdPdn)K}
{P)PdN)wh}
B{$wGQdwdR}pq
llvllllllllV
Diagram 34

74
 Ah, but the bishop is now sacrificed (with yet another check) so that
it can later be ransomed and dropped! Black plays ...Bxf5+, and after
20 exf5 *g4+ 21 Kg2 the bishop returns with ...(N)B*h3 mate.
See what I meant by Black’s strength? White did have to hurry
in order to win game (vi) before this formidable adversary got his
breath back.

Game (viii): Conducted across the Atlantic, and by post rather

than e-mail. A long and intricate game in which one player got far
ahead in material but failed to develop well enough, his opponent then
mobilizing just enough force for an elegant win. 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3
Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Nc3 Nxe4: a standard sacrifice. White could
now play B xf7+, taking the knight only after this check — a sequence
probably stronger than in orthodox chess because in Hostage it leads
to richer chances of pestering the king. In fact, however, this is what
happens: 5 Nxe4 d5 6 Bxd5 Qxd5 7 Nc3 Qa5 8 O-O (P)*d4
(establishing a strong center, but giving White a useful airfielder)
9 Ne4 Bg4 10 h3 Bh5 (a blunder, as White will now demon-
strate) 11 g4 (the useful airfielder will trap the bishop if it retreats)
11...f5 (counterattacking, to make the best of a bad situation) 12 gxf5
O-O-O 13 *g4 Bf7 14 (N)B*e6+ (the developing move d3 would
have been better; one reason, in fact, for White’s eventual loss of
this game is that the d-pawn remains motionless to the bitter end)
14 ...Bxe6 15 fxe6 N*f4. Now White rather regrets not having
played d3. As well as attacking two pawns, the parachuted knight
threatens to support a drop of bishop or of pawn on e2. 16 (B)B*d7+
(keeping up the pressure) ...Rxd7 (reasoning that a bishop so close
to the king must be removed) 17 exd7+ Kxd7 18 (P)*e2 (“Drop
where your opponent wants to!”) ...B*g2 19 Re1 Bxf3 20 exf3
*e2 (so the black pawn gets to drop on this spot after all) 21 Rxe2
Nxe2+ 22 Qxe2 (N)N*f4. The knight has returned to the same
nice placement, but now White, instead of tamely saving his queen,

75
can fight back with 23 (R)R*f7+ Be7 24 Rxf4 (Diagram 35)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
B{wdwdwdw4}r
{0p0kgw0p}
{wdndwdwd}
{1wdw0wdw}
{wdw0N$Pd}
{dwdwdPdP}
{P)P)Q)wd}n
N{$wGwdwIw}pb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 35

Black might next take the rook, 24...exf4, but White could reply
25 (B)B*f5+. Blocking with ...B*e6 would then be bad for Black:
imagine 26 N c5+ Qxc5 27 Qxe6+ Ke8 28 Qd7+ Kf7 (since ...Kf8
loses the queen to N*e6+) 29 N*g5+ Kg8 (once again ...Kf8 loses
the queen, while ...Kf6 leads to (B)N*e4+ Ke5, and then Qe6 mate)
30 Qe6+, with mate next move. The black king would therefore need
to retreat. If the retreat were 25...Kd8 then 26 N*f7+ would fork king
and rook; yet why not 25...Ke8 instead? A continuation might be
26 Nf6+ gxf6 27 N*g7+ but it is hard to see any winning White attack
starting from there — particularly as any failure to keep checking
would give Black a chance of using the material advantage he’d have
been accumulating (the knight and rook in Black’s prison frowning
across at the mere knight and pawn in White’s, plus the rook and the
bishop in Black’s airfield, each worth more than if it had remained
on the board). Black’s next move, 24...d3, therefore seems an act of
uncalled-for desperation. One idea behind it is that cxd3 would be
answered by ...(B)N*c2, and if White now moved his threatened rook
then ...R*e1+ would win the queen.

To add to his difficulties, Black next blunders rather badly. He

answers 25 Qxd3+ with ...R*d5. What was needed was ...R*d4, as
76
becomes clear when 26 N*c5+ has been hurried to him by aircraft,
train and postal van. His opponent has cut the connection between
the queen and the rook — and with a check, too. The rook is pinned,
so Black plays 26...Kc8 and White duly takes the rook, 27 Qxd5.
Black replies ...Rd8, hoping to capture the f4 rook after the queen
moves away, or even for the queen-winning sequence 28 Qe6+ Kb8
29 Rf5 (B)B*d5. But White’s answer is 28 (B)B*d7+. The black
king takes flight, ...Kb8, and White saves his rook with 29 Rf7.
The defeat of the black forces appears virtually complete. White has
a rook, a knight and two pawns as prisoners, while Black has none.
Hostage Chess, however, offers remarkably many resources to players
who have fallen behind, and Black does have in his airfield the bishop
that White has just now placed there. He proceeds to make fine use
of it, playing 29...B*g8 (Diagram 36)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
{wi 4wdbd}
{0p0BgR0p}
{wdndwdwd}
{1wHQ0wdw}
{wdwdNdPd}
{dwdwdPdP}
{P)P)w)wd}np
{$wGwdwIw}pr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 36

At this point it becomes White’s turn to go wrong. Best for him

could be 30 b4. If Black replied ...Qxb4 we could next see 31 Na6+
bxa6 32 B xc6 (P)*b7 (because if ...Rxd5 instead, then this would be
answered by Rf8+ since capturing the rook would simply invite it
to return through a rook-for-rook hostage exchange) 33 (N)N*d7+,
after which White would seem able to crash through in one way or
another: perhaps we would get 33...Rxd7 34 Rf8+ B xf8 35 (R)R*c8+
Kxc8 36 Qxd7+ Kb8 37 (R)R*c8 mate. But instead White plays

77
30 Be6 with complicated ideas about a back rank mate, ideas not
worked out in enough detail. Black takes the queen as anticipated,
30...Rxd5,and White pushes on with his ideas, producing 31 Rf8+.
Yet now instead of kindly taking the rook, a move rather too clearly
asking for a checkmate in next week’s mail, Black plays 31...Nd8.
White then tries 32 Nd7+. Black replies ...Rxd7. White now takes
the rook, 33 Bxd7, but Black promptly makes an escape square for
his king with 33...a6, thereby preventing 34 Rxd8+ B xd8 35 (R)R*c8
mate. And here White can think of nothing better than the leisurely
34 Rxg8, adding another bishop to his prisoners. Sorry, but that
isn’t quite good enough, even though it leaves him with a marked
material advantage.

The trouble is that White’s a1 rook and c1 bishop are “undeveloped”.

Never having moved, they are doing hardly any work. Black now comes
up with 34...Qd5. Besides attacking the g8 rook and the c7 bishop,
this puts the exposed white king in grave danger. For one thing, the
black queen could soon rampage, sacrificing herself so as to return
through a queen-for-queen hostage exchange. White, though, seems
blind to his peril and the game continues like this: 35 Rxd8+ Bxd8
36 (R)R*c8+ Ka7 37 Rxd8. White’s activities have maintained
his material advantage, but Black is about to prove that this doesn’t
count for much: 37...(N)N*e2+ 38 Resigns. (Diagram 37)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
Q{wdw$wdwd}r
{ip0Bdw0p}
{pdwdwdwd}
{dwdq0wdw}
{wdwdNdPd}
{dwdwdPdP}bb
{P)P)n)wd}np
N{$wGwdwIw}pr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 37

78
 The longest alternative to resignation was 38 Kf1 R*g1+ 39 Kxe2
(Q)N*f4+ (possible since the d2 pawn never moved) 40 Ke3 Qd4
mate. Shorter was 38 Kg2 R*g1+ 39 Kh2 (Q-N)N*f1 mate. Or
again, there was 38 Kh2 (Q)N*f1+ 39 Kg2 (or Kh1) R*g1 mate.

Game (ix): A brevity showing what can be in store when you

exchange hostage queens and then launch an attack that fails. 1 d4
d5 2 Nc3 e5 3 dxe5 d4 4 Ne4 Qd5 5 f3 Qxe5 6 (P)*e3
(White feared that the simple pawn push e3 would lead to losing a
pawn through 6...dxe3 7 B xe3 Qxb2, but the move he chose instead
leaves him with a badly blocked position as well as giving Black an
airfielder) ...Bb4+ 7 Bd2 dxe3 8 Bxb4 Qxe4 (a clever sequence,
for fxe4 would be punished by ...*f2 mate) 9 Qd3 (vacating d1, so
that now dropping the black pawn on f2 would only win a knight)
...Qxd3. As will shortly become plain, capturing the dangerous
bishop would have been far better. Or else ...*d2+ which could lead to
10 B xd2 Qxd3 11 cxd3 exd2+ 12 Kxd2 (P)*e3+ 13 Kxe3 (B)B*c5+
14 *d4 B xd4+, and then if 15 Kxd4 we get ...N c6+ to attack the very
badly exposed king. 10 cxd3 (Q)Q*f2+ 11 Kd1 Qxf1+ 12 Kc2
Qxa1 (Diagram 38)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PN{rhbdkdn4}p
BR{0p0wdp0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{wGwdwdwd}
{dwdP0Pdw}
{P)KdPdP)}
Q{1wdwdwHR}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 38

Black has won a rook — but White has avoided using up his airfielder

79
in the sequence 12 Q*e1 Qxe1 13 Kxe1 or B xe1. The airfielder can
therefore now begin a mating attack in which the black king’s every
move is dictated: 13 Q*f8+ Kd7 14 (B)N*e5+ Ke6 15 Qxf7+
Kxe5 16 f4+ Kd4 17 (P)*c3 mate.
Game (x): Another demonstration of how swiftly storm clouds
can gather in Hostage Chess. 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 c4 dxe4
4 Nc3 Nf6 5 Bg5 Be7 6 f3 exf3 7 Nxf3 O-O 8 Bd3 Ng4
9 Bxe7 Qxe7 (better would have been ...(P)*f2+ before White
could prevent it) 10 (P)*f2 (to stop Black dropping pawn or bishop
here) ...*e3 11 (B)B*h4 exf2 (it’s only pseudo-check for there’s no
imprisoned black piece with which the pawn could in theory change
places if it moved forward — but remember, until the pseudo-check
is ended no black piece can legally be captured) 12 Ke2 (capturing
the pawn, B xf2, would have been safer) ...Qb4 13 Qc2 B*g6
14 h3 (fearing that B xg6 would lead to ...fxg6, bringing the rook
to bear on the weak white position, and next perhaps to ...(B)B*e1,
reinforcement for the irritating pawn) 14...Bxd3+ 15 Kxd3 e5
16 (B)B*c5: though this looks attractive, capturing the dangerous
knight, hxg4, is what was needed — for Black is about to disregard
the attack on his queen, reckoning that attacks on kings are what are
crucial. 16...Bf5+ 17 Ne4 Bxe4+ 18 Kxe4. The king is now
dangerously drawn forward. (Diagram 39)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rhwdw4kd}b
N {0p0wdp0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwGw0wdw}
{w1P)KdnG}
{dwdwdNdP}
{P)Qdw0Pd}
{$wdwdwdR}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 39

80
 18...f5+ 19 Kd5 (reasoning that Kd3 would mean losing the
queen through ...B*e4 20 Ke2 B xc2, after which taking the enemy
queen in return, B xb4, just yields ...(Q)Q*d3 mate) 19...B*c6+
20 Ke6 Bd7+ 21 Ke7 (N)B*d8 mate, the alternative being
21 Kd5 (N)B*c6 mate.

Game (xi): Played quickly (maybe it took forty minutes) and with
victory going to the weaker player after an attack launched at the
right moment. 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Bc5 3 b4 Bxb4 4 c3 Bc5
5 Nf3 Nc6 6 O-O Nf6 7 d4 exd4 8 cxd4 Bb6 9 e5 Ne4
10 Re1 (P)*g4 11 Rxe4 gxf3 12 Bxf7+ Kxf7 13 (N)N*g5+
Kg8 14 Qxf3. White now has a very aggressive position thanks
to his sacrificial bishop, following up the pawn sacrifice he made on
his third move so as to gain an advantage in development. He actu-
ally threatens to mate next move. 14...N*h6 15 *c5 Bxc5 (Black
argues that having a bishop and two pawns to rescue and drop will
reduce White’s pressure on him) 16 dxc5 (P)*b2 (if the white bishop
captures this pawn, White’s knight will be taken) 17 Qb3+ (P)*e6
18 Qxb2. Black might seem to have pushed away the danger, but at
great cost. He has put two pawns into White’s airfield, and his former
advantage in material has been replaced by being a pawn down. 18...d6
19 exd6 cxd6 20 Nxe6 Bxe6 21 Bxh6 gxh6. Here, instead
of just capturing the bishop, White plays 22 (B)B*f6 (Diagram 40)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
NB{rdw1wdk4}b
P{0pdwdwdp}
{wdn0bGw0}
{dw)wdwdw}
{wdwdRdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{P!wdw)P)}np
PP{$NdwdwIw}pp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 40

81
 With king exposed and rook about to be taken, Black looks in a
terrible state. He finds a superb answer, however. Disregarding the
attack on his queen, he plays 22...B*e5. Besides cutting the con-
nection between the white queen and bishop, this attacks the queen,
making White wish he had played 22 *g7. Judging that it would be
poor to take the black queen, losing his own and then no doubt the
rook as well, White replies 23 Bxe5. Next comes ...dxe5 24 Nc3
(P)*b4 25 Rd1 (B)B*d4 (blocking the attack on the queen and
pinning the white knight) 26 R(d)xd4 Nxd4 27 B*d6 (attack-
ing the e5 pawn, blocking the black queen’s fire and entering Black’s
camp very aggressively) ...bxc3 28 Qxb7 (B)N*e2+ (Diagram 41)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
NN{rdw1wdk4}
R{0Qdwdwdp}
{wdwGbdw0}
{dw)w0wdw}
{wdwhRdwd}
{dw0wdwdw}
BP{Pdwdn)P)}bp
PP{dwdwdwIw}pp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 41

Black thinks of himself as lashing out wildly, but White, expert

enough to recognize trouble when he sees it, starts shaking his head and
groaning. The game continues with 29 Rxe2. (White feared ...Rb8 if
the king moved. Playing 30 B xb8 would then yield ...(R)R*g1 mate,
yet if he instead moved the queen out of danger ...Rb1+ looked very
threatening.) 29...Nxe2+ 30 Kf1 (N)N*d2+ (correctly keeping up
the checks instead of saving the knight) 31 Kxe2 Bc4+ 32 Ke1
(fearing that if *d3 instead, then Black would reply ...B xd3, sacrific-
ing the bishop to draw the king forward) 32...(N)N*d3+ 33 Kd1
Nxf2+ 34 Ke1 Nd3+ 35 Kd1 (P)*e2+ 36 Kc2 (the alternative

82
loses the queen) ...(R)B*d1+ (this, the ninth check in an unbroken
series, had better lead to victory soon, for the force in White’s airfield
has become gigantic) 37 Kxc3 Qa5+ (so now White might mate
with N*f6 if given an opportunity) 38 B*b4. This looks adequate,
but is refuted by a fine sequence in which the black queen dies when
capturing a bishop which is then used to ransom a crucially important
pawn:

38...Qxb4+ 39 Qxb4 (B)*d4+ 40 Kxd2 (R)*e3 mate. The

alternative was 38 R*b4 Qa3+ 39 Kxd2 Qc1 mate.
Game (xii): A contest between close relatives, with two thousand
miles of Canada dividing them. They are playing on the board at a
Hostage Chess website set up by Fergus Duniho:

http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/presets/hostage_chess.html

Filled with ingenious moves, the game has one king castled while
the other is stuck in the center. What’s more, that is the situation
after a heavily sacrificial capture of a queen. Everything is therefore
weirdly out of balance. 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 d6 4 d3
Bg4 5 h3 Bxf3 6 Qxf3 Nf6 7 (B)N*g5 Nd4 8 Qd1 d5
9 exd5 Bb4+. This seems to be asking to lose material, yet Black
has worked everything out. (Diagram 42)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rdw1kdw4}b
{0p0wdp0p}
{wdwdwhwd}
{dwdP0wHw}
{wgBhwdwd}
{dwdPdwdP}
{P)Pdw)Pd}
{$NGQIwdR}p
llvllllllllV
Diagram 42

83
 10 c3 Bxc3 11 Nxc3 (P)*c2 12 Qd2 B*f4 13 *e3 Bxg5
14 Nb5 (to get rid of that aggressively placed black knight) ...Ne4
(another startling move, but once again Black has worked out every-
thing) (Diagram 43)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdw1kdw4}
{0p0wdp0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dNdP0wgw}
{wdBhndwd}
{dwdP)wdP}
{P)p!w)Pd}
{$wGwIwdR}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 43

15 dxe4 (N)N*f3+ 16 gxf3 Nxf3+ 17 Ke2 Nxd2 18 Bxd2.

Although the queen-grab took place exactly as planned, it has cost
Black two knights in addition to moving an imprisoned knight into
White’s airfield. In compensation, the white position has been made
to stagger drunkenly; White’s king cannot castle; and Black can hope
for a “queen rampage” since capture of his queen could be followed at
once by a queen-for-queen hostage exchange. 18...O-O
19 Na3 a6 20 Bb3 b5 21 Bxc2 Qd6 22 R(a)g1 Qf6 (an
unfortunate move, as the dramatic sequel shows)

23 N*f3 Bh4, since moving to h6 would be answered by (P)*g5.

24 Nxh4 Qxh4 25 Rxg7+ (safe because ...Kxg7 would be answered
by N*f5, forking king and queen; this gave Black quite a surprise)
...Kh8 26 Rg4 (Diagram 44)

84
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
QN{rdwdw4 i}
P{dw0wdpdp}
{pdwdwdwd}
{dpdP0wdw}
{wdwdPdR1}
{Hwdw)wdP}pp
{P)BGK)wd}nn
{dwdwdwdR}bb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 44

Black is in trouble, for if he saves the queen then his king can be
attacked by (P)*g7+. If he next moves the king back to g8, he risks
getting mated by a knight dropped on h6 or on e7, or first on one
of those squares and next (after being captured and then ransomed)
on the other. The mate could be prevented by having the queen flee
to f6 or h6 so as to cover g7, but when the pawn dropped the queen
would have to capture it and die.

Still, Black thinks he sees a solution: 26...(P)*f3+. The idea is that

if White plays 27 Kxf3 the black queen can escape to f6 with check,
gaining the tempo needed for repairing the king’s weakened position.
Even better for Black would be if White tried 27 Kd3. This would
lead into ...(N)B*e2+ 28 Kc3 Qxg4, after which White couldn’t
afford 29 hxg4 because of ...(Q)Q*c5 30 *c4 (R)*b4 31 Kb3 B xc4
32 N xc4 Qxc4 mate.

In fact White plays 27 Kd1 instead. None the less Black continues
to see hope: 27...Qxg4 28 hxg4 (N)*e2+

29 Kc1 (not Ke1, mated at once by a parachuted knight)

...(Q)Q*f1+ (Diagram 45)

85
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
R{rdwdw4wi}
{dw0wdpdp}
{pdwdwdwd}
{dpdP0wdw}
{wdwdPdPd}
{Hwdw)pdw}
P{P)BGp)wd}nn
QN{dwIwdqdR}bb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 45

If the rook now sent the queen to prison, the pawn would take the
rook and promote by changing places with her.
Unfortunately White just blocks the check with 30 Be1. The
rook protects the bishop by an “X-ray” through the black queen.
Black’s response is ...Qxh1, allowing a short ending: 31 *g7+ Kxg7
32 N*f5+ Kf6 33 Q*g7 mate. There were several alternative
responses but none would have done more than delay the defeat.

86
 Chapter 5

A Chess Master in Trouble

Here a very good chess-player, a strong International Master,

lost to David Pritchard who took White.

The loser fully understood the Hostage Chess rules allowing

men to parachute back onto the board. However, having had too
little practice meant he wasn’t sufficiently alert to the effects of
hostage exchanges. He tried to play a normal Scotch Opening.
The game began as follows: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4
4 Nxd4 Bc5 5 Nxc6 Qf6 (Diagram 46)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rdbdkdn4}
{0p0pdp0p}
{wdNdw1wd}
{dwgwdwdw}
{wdwdPdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)P)}
{$NGQIBdR}pn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 46

That’s a standard move in this opening. It threatens mate by

Qxf2. The idea is that when White guards against the mate, Black
87
will capture the knight with the queen instead of with a pawn so
that he avoids “doubling” his pawns (putting one in front of the
other on the same file). Well, the move loses a piece in Hostage
Chess. White played 6 (P)*d4 and the dropped pawn, protected
by the knight, both guarded against the mate and attacked Black’s
bishop. Take the knight and lose the bishop? Save the bishop and
let the knight escape? Doubled pawns would have been far prefer-
able! The game continued: 6 ...Qxc6 7 dxc5 (adding a whole
bishop to the knight in White’s prison) ... Qxe4+ (picking up a
mere pawn, not nearly enough compensation) 8 Qe2 Qxe2+
9 Bxe2. Two hostage queens were now waiting to be exchanged,
so the players needed to be extremely careful.
Then came 9 ... Nf6 10 O-O Ne4 (hoping for an attack
before White became developed enough to make use of his advan-
tage in material) 11 Be3 O-O 12 Nd2 f5 13 Bc4+ Kh8
(Diagram 47)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
QP{rdbdw4wi}p
N{0p0pdw0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdpdw}
{wdBdndwd}
{dwdwGwdw}
{P)PHw)P)}q
{$wdwdRIw}nb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 47

Sadly, that was inadequate. Something had to be parachuted

so as to block the bishop’s line of fire. Black’s move got him
smothered immediately: 14 (Q)Q*g8+ Rxg8 15 (B)N*f7
mate. (Diagram 48)

88
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
QP{rdbdwdri}pq
{0p0pdN0p}b
{wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdpdw}
{wdBdndwd}
{dwdwGwdw}
{P)PHw)P)}
{$wdwdRIw}n
llvllllllllV
Diagram 48

What moral can we draw? That even chess champions will

find this field too difficult? Of course not. Mistakes like those
are made by everyone who is fairly new to Hostage Chess. After
building up a little experience you will make far fewer of them.
Your skill at normal western chess should then make itself felt very
strongly. At that stage it would be kind if you warned newcomers
of the perils of Hostage. Remember, after only fifteen moves a
master of the standard game had his king in the top right corner
of Diagram 48.

89
 Chapter 6

More Master Games

The chapter begins with FIDE Master Robert Hamilton fighting

first against Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett, then against International
Master Lawrence Day. Next there are games between Ray Kaufman,
another International Master, and his father, Grandmaster Larry
Kaufman.

Game (I.): White FM Robert Hamilton Black GM Kevin Spraggett

After warming up by playing several games at speed, the contestants

feel ready for something serious. 1 e4 b6 2 d4 Bb7 3 Bd3 e6
4 Nf3 d6 5 c3 Nd7
6 Qe2 Ne7. Spraggett seems to think it wise for Black not to
push forward quickly in Hostage Chess. Light-square weaknesses
have appeared in his queenside, however, and Hamilton at once
exploits them.
7 Ba6 Qc8 8 Bxb7 Qxb7 9 (B)B*a6 Qb8 10 e5 dxe5
(opening up the position in this way leads Black into difficulties, so
10...d5 might have been preferable) 11 Nxe5 Nxe5

12 Qxe5 (P)*b7 (White might have played (P)*b7 himself instead

90
of Qxe5; Black has now prevented it, using the principle of dropping
where your enemy wants to. Black could alternatively have forked
White’s king and a rook with 12...(N)N*c2+, which is Peter Coast’s
suggestion. Then, Peter writes, we might have seen 13 Kd1 N xa1
14 (P)*b7 *c2, or else perhaps 13 Kd2 N xa1 14 (P)*b7 B*f4+
15 Qxf4 (R)B*h6, pinning the white queen disastrously; any attempt
to save it with 16 N*g5 only leads to the return of the pin through
...B xg5 17 Qxg5 (N)B*h6.)

13 Bb5+ B*c6. (Rather a waste of a bishop drop? Might 13...Nc6

have been better? The resulting pins, of Black’s knight and of his e6
pawn, could have proved troublesome. Still, trying to exploit them
by playing 14 d5 would have been a mistake because—hard to spot
and beautiful—Black could have replied ...(N)N*d3+, attacking the
queen. If the bishop captured the parachuted knight to prevent it from
killing her, then the job could instead be done by the other knight,
now released from the pin.) 14 *h6 (a fine idea) ...Bxb5

15 Qxb5+ (N)N*c6. The simple pawn block, 15...c6, was quite

an attractive alternative, creating weaknesses but freeing the black
queen and putting no knight in White’s airfield; or again, there was
the possibility of 15...(B)B*c6, attacking the white queen.
16 N*h5 Nf5 17 d5 (B)B*a6 (trying to end the pin, now at
the cost of giving White an airfield bishop)

18 hxg7, threatening to become a queen on h8 if Black captures and

imprisons the white queen — for only then could the pawn promote to
queen, which it would do by changing places with the royal prisoner.
The rule, remember, is that a pawn can step forward to promote only
if able to change places with an imprisoned piece. If unable to do
this, it is powerless even to threaten squares on the opponent’s back
rank — so that, for example, any check which it seems to deliver is a
pseudo-check, not a real check. 18...Bxg7 (Diagram 49)

91
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{r1wdkdw4}
{0p0wdpgp}
{b0ndpdwd}
{dQdPdndN}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdwdw}
{P)wdw)P)}
B{$NGwIwdR}p
llvllllllllV
Diagram 49

19 Qxa6 exd5. Whew! White concluded that giving up his queen

for a bishop plus a knight would be worthwhile, granted that Black’s
queen was so decentralized. Black then thought it best not to take
the queen; he saved his knight instead! Correct reasoning by both
players? Examining dozens of variations, Roger Smook (Solutions
Editor for The Problemist Supplement and knowing all about detailed
chess analysis) judged that Black’s positional weaknesses probably
spelled defeat whether or not the queen was taken — but who can ever
be sure when evaluating long sequences in Hostage? An alternative
line was 19...bxa6, capturing the queen, followed by 20 dxc6 Qd8
21 B*d7+ Kf8. This would have left Black all broken up, but where
is any obvious way in which White could have exploited it?

20 Qe2+ (P)*e4 21 B*f6 Rg8 (Black’s king looks in grave

danger) 22 B(c)g5 Bf8 23 *g7 Bxg7
24 Bxg7 Rxg7. Then comes 25 Nf6+, to which Black replies
...Kf8 because not wanting to move into the bishop’s line of fire.
(Diagram 50)

92
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
PB{r1wdwiwd}
P{0p0wdp4p}
{w0ndwHwd}
{dwdpdnGw}
{wdwdpdwd}
{dw)wdwdw}
{P)wdQ)P)}
{$HdwIwdR}bb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 50

The knight can now fork queen and king, yet White instead chooses
to try for a mate: 26 (B)B*a3+ B*c5 27 Bxc5+ bxc5 (White’s
last two moves seem only to have helped Black)

28 (B)B*h6 Ne5 (at least temporarily ending the possibility of

the knight fork)

29 Bxg7+ Kxg7 30 Nxe4 dxe4 (we can see one reason White
had for sacrificing the knight; it has become available for rescuing
and dropping) 31 (B)B*f6+ Kf8

32 (P)*g7+ Nxg7 (Why did White sacrifice the pawn? Black is

about to find out.) 33 Qxe4 Qe8 (centralizing the queen at last,
but too late)

34 (P)*e7+ Kg8 35 (R)N*h6+ (possible since White’s pawn

sacrifice at move 32 deflected Black’s knight from guarding h6 )
...Kh8 36 Bxg7+ Kxg7

37 Qxe5+ (Why not (N)B*f6 mate? Look again at how the

promotion rule can restrict a pawn’s power to move forward or give
check!) ...Kg6 38 Qf6+ Kh5 39 g4 mate. (Diagram 51)

93
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
BP{rdwdqdwd}rb
{0p0w)pdp}bp
{wdwdwdwH}p
{dw0wdQGk}
{wdwdwdPd}
{dw)wdwdw}
{P)wdw)w)}
{$NdwIwdR}nn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 51

Black saw the end coming but played onwards to allow White to
complete the fine mating combination. A very interesting struggle,
with the players concentrating so much on attack and defense that
they seemed to pay scant attention to the value of material. Yet that
can sometimes be right in Hostage. Particularly in the orgy of para-
chuting that so often ends a game, queens, rooks, knights, bishops,
pawns, can seem all about equally strong. A check arriving by air is
a check, no matter which man delivers it.

Game (II.): White GM Kevin Spraggett Black FM Robert

Hamilton

1 c4 c6 2 Nc3 d5 3 cxd5 cxd5 4 d4 Nf6 5 (P)*e5 Ne4

6 Nxe4 dxe4 7 (N)N*c3 e3 8 Bxe3 N*g4 9 Qd2 Nc6
10 Nf3 Nxe3 11 fxe3 (if White captures with the queen instead,
Black plays ...(B)N*c2+, forking king and queen) 11...*f2+ 12 Kxf2
(through the maneuvers starting at his seventh move, Black has pre-
vented castling and drawn the white king forward, but at the cost of
two pawns) 12...g6 13 h3 Bh6 14 g4 Bxg4 15 hxg4 (P)*b4.
This pawn drop was what Black had in mind when making the bishop
sacrifice, which gave him a pawn as “cash” with which to pay for it.
94
White now risks losing his queen to the knight drop ...(B)N*e4+,
but he prevents this by moving his threatened knight to the square
the enemy knight would like to land on:

16 Ne4. He has a material advantage of a knight plus a pawn,

and also a pawn usefully in his airfield instead of on the board. Play
continues: 16...Bg7 17 *h6 Bf8 18 Rc1 (B)B*d5
19 Rxc6 bxc6. White’s exchange of rook for knight has broken
up Black’s position: the black king has come to look as dangerously
exposed as the white one. (Diagram 52)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
R{rdw1kgw4}
{0wdw0pdp}
{wdpdwdp)}
{dwdb)wdw}
{w0w)NdPd}
{dwdw)Ndw}
{P)w!PIwd}p
B{dwdwdBdR}nn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 52

20 B*b3 Qc8 (...B xe4 would just have walked into 21 B xf7+,
the reply...Kxf7 then being answered by 22 Ng5+ which forks king
and bishop)

21 Bxd5 cxd5 22 (B)B*a4+ B*c6 23 Nd6+ exd6

24 (N)N*f6+ As well as attacking with a check, White has kept
his grip on e4, preventing the loss of his queen through ...(R)N*e4+
24...Kd8

25 Bxc6 Qxc6 26 Ng5 dxe5

27 dxe5 (P)*c3 28 bxc3 bxc3 29 Nxf7+ Kc8 (Diagram 53)

95
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
RB{rdkdwgw4}n
P{0wdwdNdp}
{wdqdwHp)}
{dwdp)wdw}
{wdwdwdPd}
{dw0w)wdw}p
{Pdw!PIwd}pp
P{dwdwdBdR}nb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 53

Now 30 (B)B*d7+ would win the black queen, and if Black imme-
diately countered by taking the other queen then White would get
the first chance to exchange hostage queens and attack. But White
thinks he can do better than that, for the game goes as follows:
30 *d7+ Kb7 31 (P)*a6+ Kxa6 32 (P)*b5+ Kxb5 33 a4+
Ka5 34 (B)B*c7+ (trying to tempt Black into playing...Qxc7 so
that he can reply Qxd5+ ) 34...Kxa4 35 Qa2+ Ba3 (Black could
drop something on a3 instead, but he wants to save up his drops for
counterattacking) 36 (P)*b3+ Kb5 37 Nd6+ (Diagram 54)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
RP{rdwdwdw4}nb
{0wGPdwdp}pp
{wdqHwHp)}p
{dkdp)wdw}
{wdwdwdPd}
{gP0w)wdw}
{QdwdPIwd}
{dwdwdBdR}n
llvllllllllV
Diagram 54

96
 37...Qxd6. By offering his queen, Black hopes to gain the tempo
needed to start a powerful counterattack. White thinks it fairly safe
to accept the offer, so we get 38 exd6 and the black attack then gets
moving: 38...N*d1+ 39 Kf3 *e4+ 40 Kg2 Nxe3+ 41 Kf2
B*e1+ 42 Kg1 Bf2+ 43 Kxf2 (N)N*d1+ 44 Kg1 *h2+
45 Rxh2 Nc2 (an admission that White’s careful play has made
the attack fizzle) 46 Qxa3 (“rampaging”; if ...N xa3, then White
would play (Q)Q*a4+, and next either N*b7 mate or (P)*d4 mate)
46...(R)B*b6+ 47 Kh1 (Diagram 55)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdwdwdw4}p
{0wGPdwdp}
{wgw)wHp)}
{dkdpdwdw}
{wdwdpdPd}
{!P0wdwdw}
{wdndPdw$}p
RN{dwdndBdK}qb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 55

47...Resigns because ...N xa3 remains pointless and ...Nf2+ leads

nowhere.

Game (III.): White FM Robert Hamilton Black GM Kevin

Spraggett

This time a counterattack will produce a superb change of fortune.

1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5

3 Nc3 Qd8 4 Bc4 e6 5 d4 (P)*d5 6 Bd3 c5 7 Bf4

cxd4 8 Nb5 Bb4+ 9 Kf1 Na6 10 *d6 Qh4 11 Bg3 Qh6
12 Nf3 Nf6 13 N(b)xd4 O-O 14 (P)*g5 (Did the Grandmaster

97
see this pawn fork too late? When it was time to select his thirteenth
move, it had become urgent for him to castle before a pawn drop on
e7 caught his king in the center; hence he was forced to walk into
the fork.) 14...Qh5 15 gxf6 gxf6 16 Bxa6 bxa6 17 Nc6 Bc5
18 Ne7+ Kh8 19 Ne5 Qxd1+ 20 Rxd1 (Diagram 56)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
QB{rdbdw4wi}p
P{0wdwHpdp}
{pdw)p0wd}
{dwgpHwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdwdwGw}
{P)Pdw)P)}q
{dwdRdKdR}nn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 56

Now White threatens to force Black down a thorny path. He

dreams of 21 N xf7+ Kg7 (not ...Rxf7, which invites 22 (Q)Q*g8
mate) 22 (N)B*h6+ Kxf7 23 (Q)Q*g7+ Ke8 24 Qxf8+ Kd7
25 (P)*c6 mate. But instead of defending, Black tries for mate him-
self: 20...*e2+

21 Ke1 (not wanting to be drawn forward with Kxe2) ...Bb4+

(it might at first seem better to play ...exd1=Q+, but then the reply
Kxd1 puts the white king on a safer square)
22 Kxe2 (because now feeling compelled to play this; note, for a
start, that moving the pawn from c2 could be just asking for a black
knight to parachute there) 22...(Q)Q*e4+ 23 (P)*e3 Qxc2+

24 (N)B*d2 N*c1+ (are you wondering why White doesn’t

resign?) 25 Rxc1 Qxd2+

98
 26 Kf3 (B)N*g5+ 27 Kg4 Qe2+ 28 Kh4 (Diagram 57)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rdbdw4wi}p
{0wdwHpdp}
{pdw)p0wd}
{dwdpHwhw}
{wgwdwdwI}
{dwdw)wGw}
{P)wdq)P)}
QB{dw$wdwdR}n
llvllllllllV
Diagram 57

And now Black, seeing no further check he can usefully give, plays
28...*g7 to defend his king. White has survived and can counterattack,
relying on the airfield forces built up during Black’s failed onslaught.
29 Nxf7+ Nxf7 (since, just as before, ...Rxf7 means getting mated
by a parachuted queen) 30 (N)N*g6+ hxg6 31 Nxg6+ Kg8
32 B*h7+ Kxh7 33 Nxf8+ Kg8 34 (P)*h7+ (Diagram 58)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
BN{rdbdwHkd}np
{0wdwdn0P}
{pdw)p0wd}
{dwdpdwdw}
{wgwdwdwI}
{dwdw)wGw}
{P)wdq)P)}
Q{dw$wdwdR}rp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 58

99
 — at which point Black resigns, for if ...Kxf8 then 35 Q*e7
mate; or if Kh8 instead, then

35 Q*g8 mate. A fine confirmation that in Hostage you shouldn’t

give up quickly. Just look where White’s king ended up, and yet he won!

Game (IV.): White IM Lawrence Day Black FM Robert Hamilton

A game finishing with an interesting mate of a king that had been

pushed forward. 1 Nf3 d5

2 d3 Bf5 3 c3 c6 4 Bf4 e6 5 Bxb8 Qxb8. This was

probably a poor exchange for White. He can now buy and drop a
bishop only, while Black can buy and drop a knight which, remem-
ber, is usually better. Also Black’s queen seems fairly well placed for
attacking him. And there’s worse to come: 6 N(b)d2 Bd6 7 e4
Bg6 8 (N)B*g3 (so that now White has even used up his option
of dropping a bishop, while Black has the knight powerfully in his
airfield) 8...Bxg3 9 hxg3 dxe4 10 (B)B*f4 exd3 (Diagram 59)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{r1wdkdn4}nb
{0pdwdp0p}
{wdpdpdbd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{wdwdwGwd}
{dw)pdN)w}
{P)wHw)Pd}
{$wdQIBdR}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 59

Ingenious play by Black, as his next moves show:

11 Bxb8 N*c2+ 12 Qxc2 dxc2. With those captured queens

100
now longing to spring into action, both players must exercise caution.

13 (Q)Q*c8+ B*d8 14 Bb5 Rxb8 15 Qxb8 cxb5

16 Qxb7 (P)*e3: Not cautious enough! Black’s idea is that 17 fxe3

would lead to ...(B)N*d3+ and then...Q*f2 mate. Unfortunately,
though, his move has given White the tempo needed for an attack
by paratroops:

17 *d7+ Ke7 18 (N)B*c5+ Kf6 19 (R)B*g5+ Kf5 20 Qe4+

mate. (Diagram 60)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{wdwgwdn4}qr
{0wdPdp0p}n
{wdwdpdbd}
{dpGwdkGw}
{wdwdQdwd}
{dw)w0N)w}
{P)pHw)Pd}
{$wdwIwdR}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 60

Not at all bad, as Day’s first major game of Hostage Chess! But
he’d had plenty of highly relevant practice. He’d been influential
in giving popularity to “Bughouse” (otherwise known as “doubles”,
“tandem chess”, “Siamese”). That’s a game played by two teams. Men
you capture on one board become paratroops for your ally who is
fighting on another board.

101
 Game (V.): White FM Robert Hamilton Black IM Lawrence Day

A still more interesting mate of a pushed-forward king. This time

Lawrence is the victim. 1 d4 d5 2 Bg5 Qd6 3 Nc3 Bf5 4 e3
a6 5 Bd3 Bxd3 6 Qxd3 (B)B*g6 7 Qd2 Nc6 8 Nf3 e6
9 h4 f6 10 Bf4 Qd7 11 h5 Bf7

12 a3 N(g)e7 13 h6 gxh6 14 Bxh6 (P)*g7 (thanks to White’s

pawn-pushing on the h-file, his airfield now holds a bishop and a
pawn, which seems to put him ahead)

15 Bf4 Ng6 16 Bh2 h5 17 Na4 Rd8 18 *b6 e5

19 bxc7 Qxc7 20 dxe5 N(c)xe5 21 Nxe5 fxe5 22 (P)*f5
Nh4 23 (P)*e6, so that now two pawns are threateningly close to
Black’s king. (Diagram 61)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{wdw4kgw4}pp
{dp1wdb0w}
{pdwdPdwd}
{dwdp0Pdp}
{Ndwdwdwh}
{)wdw)wdw}
{w)P!w)PG}
B{$wdwIwdR}n
llvllllllllV
Diagram 61

23...Nxg2+

24 Kd1 (because not keen on moving the king to f1, afterwards

having to face checks arriving by air) 24...(N)N*e4
25 exf7 (a pseudo-check but not to be disregarded, and capturing
the white queen would actually be illegal because turning it into a
real check) 25...Kxf7

102
 26 B*e6+ Kf6. Then come

27 f4 *f3, moves so dramatic that we definitely need Diagram 62:

cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{wdw4wgw4}p
{dp1wdw0w}
{pdwdBiwd}
{dwdp0Pdp}
{Ndwdn)wd}
{)wdw)pdw}
{w)P!wdnG}
N{$wdKdwdR}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 62

Why on earth didn’t Black capture the queen? Well, both players
judged that capturing it would have involved him in disaster, starting
with exactly the same move as White now makes: 28 fxe5+. Black
replies ...Kg5 and the game then develops like this: 29 Qxg2+ fxg2
30 Bf4+ Kg4 31 (P)*f3+ Kxf3 32 N*h2+ Kf2 (Diagram 63)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PQ{wdw4wgw4}pp
P{dp1wdw0w}
{pdwdBdwd}
{dwdp)Pdp}
{NdwdnGwd}
{)wdw)wdw}
{w)PdwipH}
{$wdKdwdR}nb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 63

103
 Now comes 33 Ng4+, and Black has met with disaster anyway.
Black resigns. The choice was between, first, ...Kf3 34 (B)*e2+
Kxg4 35 (N)*f3 mate, and second, ...hxg4 34 (B)N*d3+ Kf3
35 (N)*e2 mate.

Game (VI.): White IM Lawrence Day Black FM Robert Hamilton

1 Nf3 d5 2 d3 c5 3 c3 Nc6 4 Bf4 f6 5 N(b)d2 e5 6 Bg3

Be6 7 e4 N(g)e7 8 exd5 Nxd5 9 d4 (P)*e3 10 dxe5 exf2.
The black pawn gives only a pseudo-check, because there is no impris-
oned black piece to which the pawn could in theory be promoted if
it stepped forward. Promotion is always by changing places with an
imprisoned piece — and the rule says that even this pawn attempting
to give check must be treated as “trying to promote”. Still, White is
very wise to capture the pawn: 11 Bxf2. We then get ...(P)*e3 once
more, which helps explain why Black hadn’t earlier played ...exd2,
capturing a knight, instead of capturing a pawn with ...exf2. 12 Bg3
exd2 (another pseudo-check, but these things can be almost as forc-
ing as real checks) 13 Qxd2 Nxe5 14 Bb5+ (P)*c6 15 Bxe5
(Diagram 64)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdw1kgw4}
{0pdwdw0p}
{wdpdb0wd}
{dB0nGwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wdNdw}
P{P)w!wdP)}
PP{$wdwIwdR}np
llvllllllllV
Diagram 64

104
 A tense situation. White has three pawns in his airfield rather
than on the board; well, does that compensate for being about to lose
a bishop? Or could this be one of those situations in which pawns
would actually be better on the board, where they can prevent acts of
parachuting, block lines of attack, and stand ready to capture things
immediately? Play proceeds 15...cxb5 16 *e4 fxe5 17 exd5
(B)N*c4 18 Qc2 (B)N*e3 19 Qe2 Qxd5 (possible because Black
put only bishops into White’s airfield on his previous two moves; if
he had put a knight into it, he’d now lose his queen to N*c7+) 20 b3
(P)*d2 (pseudo-check yet again) (Diagram 65)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdwdkgw4}
{0pdwdw0p}
{wdwdbdwd}
{dp0q0wdw}
{wdndwdwd}
B{dP)whNdw}
BP{Pdw0QdP)}
PP{$wdwIwdR}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 65

Looking at all those men in White’s airfield, Black has to feel a

bit worried even though he’s attacking.
21 Kf2 Ng4+ 22 Kg3 Nd6 23 Ng5 Nf5+

24 Kh3 O-O-O (rushing for safety since his king-chase has run
out of steam?)

25 B*e4, answered by ...Nf2+ (this vigorous reply to the attack

on his queen shows that Black still has some steam left!) 26 Qxf2
(N)N*f4+

27 Qxf4 exf4 28 Bxd5: needing to catch up, and begging Black

to blunder? (Diagram 66)

105
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
Q{wdk4wgw4}
{0pdwdw0p}
{wdwdbdwd}
{dp0BdnHw}
{wdwdw0wd}
N{dP)wdwdK}
BP{Pdw0wdP)}
PP{$wdwdwdR}qn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 66

Black didn’t, so we got ...(Q)N*f2 mate. The three pawns remained

inactive in the airfield, White never getting a good chance to use
them even for defense.

Game (VII.): Grandmaster Larry Kaufman and his son Ray, a

newly minted International Master, have much experience of kinds
that are helpful in Hostage. For a quarter of a century Larry has been
the world’s strongest non-Japanese player of Shogi, the great chess
game with parachuting from which Hostage took its inspiration. Ray
is experienced both at Shogi and at “Bughouse”, the chess variant
where the men you capture can be parachuted onto another board
by your team-mate.
Our two contestants have played several games at speed, and a
comparatively slow game which was marred by a blunder. (Loss of
a queen through forgetting how much damage a captured man can
do when it has been rescued.) Now, here is their second fairly slow
game. Each player gets forty-five minutes, plus thirty seconds for
every move played. Larry’s victory has a Capablanca-like elegance.

White GM Larry Kaufman Black IM Raymond Kaufman

1 e4 Nf6 2 e5 Nd5 3 Nc3 e6 4 Nf3 d6 5 Bc4 Nb6

106
6 Bb5+ Bd7 7 O-O Be7 8 d4 O-O (Larry thinks Black should
instead have traded bishops) 9 Bd3 Bc6 10 Re1 Bxf3 11 Qxf3
(Black has captured knight for bishop and that, as Larry points out, is
usually a poor idea because rescued knights tend to drop more pow-
erfully than rescued bishops) ...dxe5 12 dxe5 (N)B*c6. Can this
bishop drop have been wise? It has put a knight into White’s airfield
where it could form a long-lasting threat, and maybe it is pushing
the white queen to where she wants to go. However, the bishop is
frowning across at the castle in which White’s king has taken refuge.
13 Qh3 (P)*f5 14 *g4 (Black’s pawn-drop stopped an immediate
mate, but White is now winning in Larry’s judgment) (Diagram 67)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
{rhw1w4kd}
{0p0wgp0p}
{whbdpdwd}
{dwdw)pdw}
{wdwdwdPd}
{dwHBdwdQ}
{P)Pdw)P)}
N{$wGw$wIw}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 67

14...N(8)d7 15 gxf5 exf5 16 Bxf5 (P)*g6 (killing the attack?)

17 Bd3 Nc5 18 Bf1 (useful against that frowning black bishop)
...Qd7 19 Qxd7 N(b)xd7. Black’s decision to provoke an exchange
of queens looks like desperation. True, he could now buy and drop a
queen in his defense. But White, besides having a knight and a pawn
to drop without needing to buy them, could buy and drop a queen
during a renewal of the attack. 20 *h6 gxh6 21 Bxh6 (P)*g7
(“Drop where your opponent wants to drop an immediate mate!”)
22 Bxg7 (a fine sacrifice, keeping up a vicious onslaught) ...Kxg7
(to avoid another immediate mate by dropped queen) 23 *f6+ Bxf6

107
24 exf6+ Nxf6. Black had to decide whether the first of those two
pawn-captures would be made by the knight or the bishop. The result
of his choice is that a knight now stands on f6. A bishop standing there
instead could cover g7 and g5. Bear it in mind when you see what
happens next: 25 (P)*h6+ Kxh6 26 (P)*g5+ Kxg5 (Diagram 68)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
BQ{rdwdw4wd}pp
PP{0p0wdpdp}
{wdbdwhpd}
{dwhwdwiw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)P)}
N{$wdw$BIw}qb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 68

Why did the king move forward? Answer: retreat would have
meant being smashed by a bishop parachuting onto h6, then a queen
landing on g7.

27 (B)B*d2+ *f4

28 Bxf4+ Kxf4. Here Larry sees a clear win. He plays

29 (Q)Q*e5+ Kg4

30 N*e3+ Kh4
31 g3 mate instead of searching for anything faster.

Let’s now ask what would have happened if Ray had played so as
to get his bishop to f6, rather than his knight: 23...N xf6 24 exf6+
B xf6 (Diagram 69)

108
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
BQ{rdwdw4wd}
PP{0p0wdpip}
{wdbdwgpd}
{dwhwdwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)P)}pp
N{$wdw$BIw}qn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 69

Once again the white assault can start with 25 (P)*h6+. And despite
how the bishop is now there to guard g7 and g5, it turns out that Larry
can again get a fast victory. If Ray’s answer is ...Kg8, then there is
26 N*e7+ Kh8 27 (P)*g7+ B xg7 28 hxg7+ Kxg7 29 (B)B*f6+
(a Hostage trick worth remembering) ...Kxf6 30 (Q)Q*e5 mate. If
instead Ray chooses ...Kxh6, there is 26 N*g4+ Kg7 27 (Q)Q*h6+
Kh8 28 (N)B*g7+ B xg7 29 Qxg7+ Kxg7 (those last two white
moves, sacrificing first the bishop and then the queen, could deliver
quite a jolt) 30 (B)B*f6+ Kg8 31 Nh6 mate. However, it would
have been fairly easy to go wrong here. Ray might therefore have
won, using the force you so often build up while beating off an attack.

Game (VIII.): Larry and Ray, continued. With an elegant attack

which maybe shouldn’t have worked, Ray wins this exciting game.

White IM Raymond Kaufman Black GM Larry Kaufman

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Be7
6 Bxc6 dxc6 7 Nxe5 Nxe4 8 Qe2 Nd6 9 d4 O-O 10 Nd2
Be6 11 Re1 Re8 12 Nf1 Nf5 13 c3 c5 (Ray thinks

109
 13...(P)*f6 best) 14 Ne3 (14 (P)*e4 Nh4 15 d5 also looked
promising) 14...cxd4 (could look good, but this somewhat slow
move got Black into great difficulties: Ray suggests instead ...N xe3
15 B xe3 (P)*f6 ) 15 Nxf5 Bxf5 16 Nxf7, starting the elegant
attack. (Diagram 70)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
NB{rdw1rdkd}
PP{dp0wgN0p}
{pdwdwdwd}
{dwdwdbdw}
{wdw0wdwd}
{dw)wdwdw}
{P)wdQ)P)}pp
{$wGw$wIw}nn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 70

16...Qc8. (A sad move to have to make; but if 16...Kxf7 then Larry

saw himself running headlong into 17 (N)B*e6+ B xe6 18 Qxe6+
Kf8 19 (N)N*g6+ hxg6 20 (B)N*h7 mate.) 17 (P)*f6. (Here
17 (N)N*h6+ could have been better, Larry suggests. Play might
then have continued: 17...gxh6 18 N xh6+ Kf8 19 (P)*g7+ Kxg7
20 (N)N*h5+ Kf8 21 (P)*g7+. Isn’t that mate? No, for it can be
answered by 21 ..(B)*e3. This turns the pawn’s check into a pseudo-check:
when the bishop leaves the prison there’s no longer any white piece
to which the pawn could in theory be promoted. However, it makes
Black legally incapable of answering White’s next move, 22 Qxe3,
by capturing the queen, because a captured queen would be some-
thing for that pawn to promote to! What’s threatened, therefore, is
that White will continue with 23 Qxe7 mate, once again using the
fact that Black while in pseudo-check can’t capture the queen. And
parachuting again and again on the e-file can do no more than delay

110
the queen’s fatal advance.)

Black’s response cannot be 17...gxf6 because 18 Nh6+ would then

finish the game quickly: for instance, through 18...Kh8 19 (P)*g7+
Kxg7 20 (N)N*h5+ and then either 20...Kh8 21 (N)*g7 mate
(for here the check can’t be turned into a pseudo-check) or else 20...
Kg6 21 (N)B*f7 mate. And his actual next move, 17...Bxf6, seems
a mistake (Larry thinks 17...Bf8 would have been better, after which
Ray suggests 18 (P)*e7 as the strongest continuation). The point is
that White can now keep attacking with check: 18 Qxe8+ Qxe8
19 Rxe8+ Rxe8 20 (N)N*h6+ gxh6 21 Nxh6+ (which wouldn’t
work if 17...Bf8 had been played ) ...Kh8 22 (P)*g7+ (Diagram 71)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
QR{wdwdrdwi}np
BN{dp0wdw)p}p
P{pdwdwgwH}
{dwdwdbdw}
{wdw0wdwd}
{dw)wdwdw}
{P)wdw)P)}np
{$wGwdwIw}qr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 71

22...Resigns. Because if 22...B xg7 then 23 (N)N*f7 mate. And

if instead 22...Kxg7 then 23 (Q)Q*f7+ Kh8 24 Qxf6+ Q*g7 (or
something else landing on that square) 25 (N)*f7 mate. The prisons
had become filled with lots of stuff for buying, plus lots of cash for
buying it.

The game was certainly a fine win for White, but maybe Black
fled at a crucial stage from an imaginary danger. Look again at that
first diagram. Would 16...Kxf7 truly have meant disaster? After it
had been followed by 17 (N)B*e6+, what if the move Larry thought
necessary, 17...B xe6, had been replaced by 17...Kf8 ? This replacement

111
move would immediately have been punished by the loss of the black
queen: 18 (N)N*d7+ Qxd7

19 B xd7. Still, would losing the queen have been so very terrible?
Black could now play
19...B xd7. And then, while White would have imprisoned two
pawns plus a queen, Black’s prison would hold two pawns plus two
knights and a bishop: not at all bad, surely. When you consider the
other two knights, the two that had just entered Black’s airfield, each
worth maybe as much as a rook on the board, Black might well seem
to be winning.

Game (IX.) Ray wins what Larry rightly calls “a very beautiful
sacrificial game ... a real gem”.

White GM Larry Kaufman Black IM Raymond Kaufman

1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Nf6 3 Nf3 Nxd5 4 d4 Bf5 5 Bc4: Larry
comments, “in standard chess 5 Bd3 is thought best, but here it would
lose a piece”: Black could reply ...(P)*e4, forking knight and bishop.
5...e6 6 O-O Be7 7 Re1 (P)*e4 8 Ne5 Bd6 9 Bf1 Nd7

10 Nc4 (Ray judges that 10 *f4 would have been best, to guard
against what’s coming next) 10...Bxh2+ (Diagram 72)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rdw1kdw4}
{0p0ndp0p}
{wdwdpdwd}
{dwdndbdw}
{wdN)pdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)Pg}
P{$NGQ$BIw}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 72

112
 Naturally the Grandmaster had looked at the attack starting with
this violent bishop sacrifice, but his conclusion was that Black couldn’t
get enough material to make it work. However, it’s very hard to be
sure of this sort of thing. In Hostage an attacker tends to acquire new
material as quickly as the old is used up.

11 Kxh2 Qh4+ 12 Kg1 e3 (aggression, excellent) 13 *g3

exf2+ 14 Kxf2 (P)*e3+ (this pawn can count as “newly acquired
material” for it has only just now become available for rescuing and
dropping)
15 Bxe3 Nxe3 (you’re attacking my queen, but I’m attacking
yours as well) 16 Nxe3, correctly rejecting a queen exchange in
which Black’s queen-capture would have been made with check in a
tense situation (consider

16 gxh4 Nxd1+ 17 Rxd1 (B)N*a1+ 18 Kg1 (P)*f2+ 19 Kxh1

(Q)Q*g1 mate) 16...(B)N*e4+ (an attack “paid for” by a bishop that
was newly acquired material)

17 Ke2 Qxg3 18 Nxf5 (since otherwise the bishop might soon

have given a very nasty discovered check) ...Qf2+ 19 Kd3 exf5
20 *f3 Ne5+ (Diagram 73)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
NP{rdwdkdw4}
P{0p0wdp0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdwhpdw}
{wdw)ndwd}
{dwdKdPdw}
{P)Pdw1Pd}p
B{$NdQ$Bdw}bb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 73

113
 Although his opponent is ahead in the value of his prisoners and has
an airfield bishop, Black here disregards the attack on his e4 knight
and even sacrifices his other knight! He wants to keep up his hunt
of the seriously exposed white king. When the pawn captures on e5
an important diagonal will be cleared for the black queen. And with
any luck the sacrificed knight will later be ransomed, then dropping
in some powerful fashion. 21 dxe5 (P)*c4+ (giving away a pawn so
as to force the king forward) 22 Kxc4 Qc5+ (exploiting the cleared
diagonal) 23 Kb3 (P)*c4+ (another pawn given away, this time for
a particularly ingenious reason: the bishop that captures it will fill one
of the escape-squares of the hunted king) 24 Bxc4 (N)N*a5+ (a
powerful fashion of dropping the knight that was sacrificed) 25 Ka4
Qxc4+ 26 *b4 (Diagram 74)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
B{rdwdkdw4}
{0p0wdp0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{hwdw)pdw}
{K)qdndwd}
{dwdwdPdw}
P{P)PdwdPd}p
NB{$NdQ$wdw}bb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 74

26...Nc5+ 27 Ka3 Qc3+, magnificently offering the queen so

as to vacate a crucial square. 28 Resigns because nothing can stop
28...N c4 mate.

Let’s look again at that last Diagram. If White had instead dropped
a bishop on b4 so as to guard square c3, mightn’t Black’s attack
have failed, White then perhaps winning with the help of all the
power he had accumulated? The Paul Connors computer program,

114
HostageMaster, finds an astounding answer. With sufficiently accurate
play the Black victory would have come almost as rapidly: 26 B*b4
Qc6+ 27 (B)B*b5 Qxb5+ (sacrificing spectacularly to draw the
king into danger) 28 Kxb5 B*c6+ 29 Kxa5 (B)B*b6, using up
the last of the available material but delivering checkmate. ( 27 Ka3
loses faster: ...N c4+ 28 Kb3 (B)B*a4 mate.)

Game (X.) White gets an opening advantage and Black never

manages to catch up.

White IM Raymond Kaufman Black GM Larry Kaufman

1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 (...Nf6 as in the previous game seems
better) 3 Nc3 (as in standard chess, gives White the speedier develop-
ment by kicking the queen) 3...Qa5 (...Qd8 would have been safer)
4 d4 Nf6 5 Nf3 c6 (Larry: “combines poorly with the later ...e6
due to the weak square d6, but other moves have other problems”)

6 Be2 Bf5. An interesting alternative was attacking with

6...(P)*b4. Would the attacked knight have retreated to its starting
square, or would White just have continued developing swiftly? 7 Ne5
e6 8 O-O Be7 (Larry: “Already I’m losing, but we could not find
any move that is fully playable”; maybe Bb4 could have been tried?)

9 Bf4 N a6 (Larry: “desperation”) 10 (P)*d6 (ingenious;

10...B xd6 would lead to 11 N c4 followed by loss of the bishop)
10...Bf8 (bottling up one of White’s rooks; yet 10...Bd8, bottling
up the other instead, would have been much worse since 11 N c4
then traps the queen) 11 a3 *b5 (“it’s a shame to waste my pawn in
this way, but other moves lose faster”) 12 b4 Qb6 13 a4 Nxb4

14 axb5 Nxc2. 14...B xc2 might have been better through forc-
ing Ray to delay his attack. He now just leaves his rook to its fate and
plays 15 d7. Although this puts the king merely into pseudo-check,
the reaction 15...Nxd7 can seem wise. 16 Nxd7 Kxd7 17 (P)*c5

115
Qd8 18 bxc6+ bxc6 19 (N)N*e5+ (Diagram 75)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdw1wgw4}np
P{0wdkdp0p}
{wdpdpdwd}
{dw)wHbdw}
{wdw)wGwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{wdndB)P)}
{$wdQdRIw}p
llvllllllllV
Diagram 75

19...Ke8 20 (P)*d7 Qxd7, since ...Ke7 would simply have been

answered by 21 Nxc6. But now White can grab the queen, 21 Nxd7.

If the black king had moved elsewhere at move 19, the queen would
have been lost all the same: either by 19...Kc7 20 N xf7 discovered
check, or else by 19...Kc8 20 N xc6 Qd7 21 (P)*b7 Qxd7 (not
...Kxb7 which produces 22 Ba6+ Kxc6 23 (P)*b5 mate ) 22 Ba6,
skewering. ..However, what if at move 20 Black had taken advan-
tage of being in pseudo-check only? (Never forget: a pawn one step
away from promoting cannot even give check if there’s no “promotion
piece”— queen, rook, bishop or knight — in the enemy prison: see
Rule (4) at the start of Chapter Two.) Well, being pseudo-checked
can be just about as forcing as being checked genuinely. Losing the
queen to remove that dreadful pawn appears as good as anything.
Had the pseudo-check remained in force then White could next have
played Rxa7, exploiting the fact that the troops of a pseudo-checked
king cannot legally capture a queen, rook, bishop or knight: it would
make the check genuine.

21...Kxd7. Ray continues to have work to do if he is to win this

game. The queen is his sole prisoner. His airfield is empty. Larry, on

116
the other hand, has a knight plus three pawns as prisoners, and the
knight plus two pawns in his airfield could be quite a bit stronger than
if they were on the board. Still, the white king is so exposed that a
rapid end seems likely. 22 d5 exd5 23 Nxd5 *d4 24 Nb6+. As
Larry notes, “rampaging queen” could have been neater: 24 Qxc2
B xc2 25 (N)N*e5+, and mate next move when the queen parachutes
back. Yet the mate was merely delayed momentarily: 24...axb6
25 Rxa8 Bxc5 26 Rxh8 N*c3 27 Bg4 Nxd1 28 (Q)Q*e8
mate. (Diagram 76)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
NN{wdwdQdwR}qp
PP{dwdkdp0p}
PP{w0pdwdwd}
P{dwgwdbdw}
{wdw0wGBd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{wdndw)P)}p
{dwdndRIw}rr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 76

117
 Chapter 7

A Grandmaster Victory

While neither of them with much knowledge of Hostage Chess, our

players were so strong at the orthodox game (although a Grandmaster,
the winner nearly lost) that they created something very interesting.
Up to and including White’s seventeenth move, play proceeded as in
a game of the 1999 Chess World Championship between Kasparov
and Kramnik, by which time the forces available for ransoming and
dropping had become alarmingly large. Black’s failure to attack then
led to his defeat through Hostage Chess maneuvers. Understanding the
situation becomes extremely complicated, but when David Pritchard
sent the game record he added helpful annotations.

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O b5

6 Bb3 Bc5 7 a4 Bb7 8 d3 O-O

9 Nc3 Na5 (Black activates his position at the cost of leaving

the e5 pawn without protection) 10 axb5 Nxb3 11 cxb3 axb5
12 Rxa8 Bxa8 13 Nxe5 d5

14 Bg5 dxe4 15 dxe4 Qxd1 16 Rxd1. In orthodox chess an

exchange of queens often takes the tension out of a game. In Hostage
it increases the tension dramatically. Now that each hostage queen
can be ransomed, parachuting back onto the board, a swift and vio-
lent ending is quite to be expected. 16...b4 17 Bxf6 (Diagram 77)
118
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{bdwdw4kd}
RQ{dw0wdp0p}
B{wdwdwGwd}
{dwgwHwdw}
{w0wdPdwd}
{dPHwdwdw}qr
{w)wdw)P)}nn
{dwdRdwIw}ppp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 77

A very critical stage. Those hostages are dynamite! White, with a

bishop threatening to take Black’s g7 pawn, could ransom and drop
the entire contents of his opponent’s prison, and if the bishop were
captured he could ransom and drop it as well. Note that white pawns
dropped on e7 and then d7 could give Black severe problems. Black
could at present ransom and drop only five men in total, yet the five
could do great damage. Look not just at the imprisoned black queen
and rook but also at the imprisoned black knights (White’s rook
might well be used to buy one of them, because the arrival of two
knights by air can be even worse news than the arrival of a knight
and a rook). With such powerful forces available to them, both sides
can hope for a mating attack involving successive checks. If Black
played 17...bxc3, which is what happened in the orthochess World
Championship game, then—this being Hostage—he would lose at
once since White would reply 18 (N)N*h6+. After that, 18...gxh6
could be answered by (Q)Q*h8 mate or (Q)R*h8 mate or (R)R*h8
mate. And 18...Kh8 would be equally disastrous, for White could
once more ransom either the queen or the rook, dropping it on g8
with check and then getting a smothered mate by playing N xf7 with
one or other of the knights; or again, he could play N(e)xf7+ and then
mate with a queen drop or a rook drop on g8. In short, the white
knight on c3 mustn’t be captured since it strikes far too powerful a
blow when rescued and parachuted to attack Black’s king.

119
 However, as will become clear in due course, taking the white
bishop is no better. What Black instead needs is a pre-emptive strike,
17...Bxf2+. Replying 18 Kxf2 would be dangerous for White because
Black would have 18...(P)*e3+. Then capturing the dropped pawn,
Kxe3, would mean that the king was drawn far into the open, yet the
sole alternative would be to allow Black’s queen to drop with check,
...(Q)Q*f2+, capturing the bishop next move, ...Qxf6. So presumably
we’d instead get 18 Kh1, perhaps leading to ...(B)N*g3+ 19 hxg3
(R)R*h6+ 20 Bh4. It would at that point be unclear who had the
better position — a very typical situation in Hostage Chess. All we
could say for sure would be that capturing the white knight would
remain disastrous: 20...bxc3 21 (N)N*e7+ Kh8 22 N xf7+ Rxf7
23 R*g8 mate.

Black, though, failed to see the importance of striking pre-emptively.

(With a little more experience of Hostage, attacking in a situation of
this type would have been instinctive.) Instead he took the bishop,
17...gxf6. It was a fatal slip, for White’s reply was 18 (P)*g7 which
threatened (Q)Q*h8 mate. 18...(B)N*g6 to stop the mate would
have been answered by 19 N xg6, leading into variations which all
end in Black’s defeat. We might have seen 19...fxg6 20 (Q)Q*h8+
Kf7 21 (N)N*h6+ Ke6 22 B*d7+ Ke5 23 (N)B*g3+ and next (after
Black had made his only legal move, parachuting something onto
f4) a neat ending, 24 Ng4 mate. The alternative, 19...Kxg7, allows
20 (P)*h6+, which gives Black two possibilities, neither of any use
to him. The first is ...Kxh6, which leads to 21 (R)R*h5+ (right up
against the king so that Black cannot delay the mate by dropping
material in between) ...Kxh5 22 (Q)Qh4+ Kxg6 23 B*f5+ Kg7
24 Qxh7 mate. The second is ...Kxg6, leading to 21 (Q)Q*g7+ Kh5
22 B*g4+ Kh4 23 g3 mate.

What was Black to do, then? Well, how about 18...Kxg7, remov-
ing the intruder right away? The trouble is that he’d then have been
faced with 19 (P)*h6+. This forces ...Kxh6, capturing the sacrificial
pawn, for if the king instead retreats the result is (Q)Q*g7 mate.

120
Next would have come 20 Ng4+ and now Black would just have
had a choice of how to lose. Suppose he replied ...Kg5. This leads to
21 (Q)Q*h6+ Kxg4 22 h3 mate. But his alternative, ...Kg7, is equally
poor since it, too, leads to 21 (Q)Q*h6+ which is now followed either
by ...Kh8 22 (P)*g7+ Kg8 23 N xf6 mate or else by ...Kg8 22 N xf6+
Kh8 23 (P)*g7 mate.
What Black actually played was 18...(B)N*h8, using the principle
of dropping where your opponent wants to. Yet even this was of no
help, for White’s reply was 19 gxh8=R+ (remember, the promoting
pawn changes places with the imprisoned rook). Now ...Kg7 would
have led to 20 (P)*h6+ followed, after the king captured the sacrifi-
cial pawn, by Ng4+ and the choice of how to lose that we saw just a
moment ago (the first line starting with ...Kg5, and the second with
...Kg7). Yet the move which Black selected instead, 19...Kxh8, simply
resulted in 20 (P)*g7+ Resigns.(Diagram 78
uuuuuuuuCuu
PB{bdwdw4wi}pp
RQ{dw0wdp)p}
{wdwdw0wd}
{dwgwHwdw}
{w0wdPdwd}
{dPHwdwdw}q
{w)wdw)P)}nn
B{dwdRdwIw}pr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 78

The alternative to resignation was 20...Kxg7, but White could then

have played 21 B*h6+. When his sacrificial bishop had been captured
by the king, he’d have continued the attack with Ng4+, presenting
Black with the very same choice of how to lose.

The pre-emptive strike with the bishop would have been so strong

121
that Black could even have forced a win by making it on his sixteenth
move instead of pushing his pawn to b4. At that stage a black knight
still stood on f6 — and this knight, we shall see, could have played a
crucial part in an attack. 16...B xf2+ would have yielded the following
position: (Diagram 79)

uuuuuuuuCuu
PP{bdwdw4kd}
PB{dw0wdp0p}
QR{wdwdwhwd}
{dpdwHwGw}
{wdwdPdwd}
{dPHwdwdw}qr
{w)wdwgP)}pn
{dwdRdwIw}pp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 79

A glance at this diagram suggests that White’s earlier line of play

was far too risky, for the captures following 14 Bg5 made very large
forces available for rescuing and dropping, with Black to move. Sup-
pose the black bishop had then delivered the check that the diagram
shows. White couldn’t safely have captured it because 17 Kxf2 leads
to ...(B)N*g4+ (dropping a knight onto a square protected by a fellow
knight which will take its place when it is captured) 18 Nxg4 Nxg4+.
Next 19 Kg3 (or Kf3) is followed by ...(Q)Q*f2+, with Black’s victory
coming from 20 Kxg4 h5+ 21 Kxh5 g6+ 22 Kg4 (P)*h5+ 23 Kh3
(P)*g4 mate, or else from 20 Kh3 (R)R*h4+ 21 B xh4 (N)N*f4+
22 Kxg4 f5+ 23 exf5 h5+ 24 Kg5 (P)*f6 mate. (Alternatives to 19 Kg3
lose still faster. 19 Kg1 gives rise to ...(Q)Q*f2+ 20 Kh1 (N)N*g3+
21 hxg3 (R)R*h2 mate; or if 19 Ke2 instead, then ...(Q)Q*f2+ 20 Kd3
Ne5 mate.) However, playing 17 Kf1 in place of capturing the bishop
wouldn’t have been good enough either, because of the sequence
...(Q)Q*g1+ 18 Ke2 (B)N*d4+. After that, a possible continuation

122
is 19 Kd3 B xe4+ 20 N xe4 Qxd1+, and next either 21 Kc3 Qxb3+
22 Kd2 (R)R*d1 mate, or else 21 (R)R*d2 (R)B*e2+ 22 Kc3 N d5
mate; alternatively there is 19 Kd2 (R)R*c2+ 20 Kd3 B xe4+ 21 Nxe4
Qxd1+ 22 R*d2 (R)B*e2 mate; or again, there is (just look at this!)
19 Rxd4 Qe1+ 20 Kd3 (P)*c4+ 21 Rxc4 (to avoid ...(R)N*b4 mate)
...bxc4+ 22 Kxc4 (R)R*c5+ 23 Kb4 N d5+, with 24 Qa1+ coming
next, and then mate by two last paratroopers.

White’s sole remaining possibility would have been fl ight into the
corner, 17 Kh1, yet Black has a fine answer, ...(Q)Q*h5. This sets up
two threats, the first being 18...(B)N*g3 mate; the other is 18...Qxd1+
followed by 19...(R)R*g1 mate. White could counter both threats with
18 g4, but Black could next play 18...Qh3, this time threatening mate
with ...(B)N*g3 or else with ...(P)*g2. The reply 19 (R)R*g2 leads
to ...(B)N*g3+ 20 Rxg3 B xg3, and now White needs to defend his
second rank. 21 Q*d2 can do the job temporarily, yet then we get
...(P)*g2+ 22 Qxg2 Qxg2+ 23 Kxg2 (Q)Q*f2+ 24 Kh3 Qxh2 mate.

123
 Chapter 8

Games by the Computer

Created by Paul Connors, the Hostage Chess computer program is

a delight. Very aggressive, capable of superb tactics, “HostageMaster”
can give just about anyone an entertaining game. Expertise at orthodox
chess does carry over strongly into Hostage, however. After a little
practice chess-players rated 2000 might expect to beat HostageMaster
nearly half the time, while if rated 2100 you could well win a majority
of your games. (With a FIDE rating of 2000 you’re an Expert. At
2200 the Masters begin.)

How about weaker players, though? Well, you can always set the
computer to one of its lower strengths, giving it less time for its think-
ing. And anyway, you can expect to win at least occasionally even if
your skill is far below the computer’s. In Hostage Chess it’s usually
impossible to see far ahead, so good players take risks. Taking plenty
of them, HostageMaster quite often gets into difficulties. When it
does, show it no mercy!

Then again, you can win more games if you let yourself take back
moves. Left-arrow once, twice or several times, and play something
else instead. Even when you haven’t blundered, you could do this
to investigate alternatives. You might force the computer to try a
new opening line, for instance. Just left-arrow backwards through
any sequence that’s not in the line you want played, then move the
124
computer’s men for it.

You could sometimes even be generous, giving back moves when

HostageMaster has blundered. Make sure, though, that it really has
blundered instead of producing brilliant sacrificial play! Let it play on
a little before left-arrowing and replacing what looks like a blunder
by something else.

You can also let the computer program play against itself. If you’re
new to Hostage this will teach you a lot about the game. And even
experienced players will find plenty to keep them interested. Watch-
ing HostageMaster-White struggle against HostageMaster-Black, at
ten seconds a move, can be wonderfully relaxing. If you think some
move a mistake, stop the game and replace it by something that looks
better. Then see whether your “better” move gets slaughtered by the
computer’s reply.

HostageMaster’s main strength is in tactics, not strategy. And,

while its short-term tactical abilities are often little short of genius,
its look-ahead horizon isn’t far distant. Particularly when the prisons
and airfields have begun to fill with men for parachuting back into the
battle, the computer can be in trouble. The field it would like to explore
can be altogether too huge. At each step further into the future, the
number of possibilities can grow much, much faster in Hostage than
in standard western chess. If several men are available for parachut-
ing almost anywhere, HostageMaster may become swamped. Even
taking five minutes over a move often lets it see scarcely any further
into the future than if it had taken just ten seconds — which, by the
way, can seem a good enough reason for not asking it to think for
five minutes when playing against you, unless you’re an unusually
patient opponent.
To defeat the computer, therefore, you should try to reach a situa-
tion which features numerous possible acts of parachuting, and then
make sure you attack before it does. The difficult thing, though, is
getting that far without losing too much material to HostageMaster’s
125
cunning tactics. An electronic Bobby Fischer, it tends to grab all it
can, hoping to smash through any problems that result. Well, you
need to survive without too much damage until you get a complicated
position: plenty of airfielders, and/or many hostages waiting to be
exchanged, and/or lots of men that could soon become hostages if
you started a fight. So long as you’re not trailing by too much at that
stage, you’ve good chances of victory if you attack first. HostageMas-
ter can sometimes be blind to the need to seize the initiative when
large forces have become available, or individual very heavy guns. It
may even provoke an exchange of queens when it shouldn’t, giving
you the first opportunity to make a decisive queen drop. If the sad
results of dropping second are hidden over its horizon, it can happily
wander into them.

Once again because its horizon is a fairly close one, HostageMaster

sometimes won’t take defensive measures until too late. It may open
up the squares around its king too riskily, or push the king forward
into a mating net.
In contrast, it’s a wizard at turning a check into a pseudo-check by
exchanging off the only prisoner available for a pawn promotion. A
human may find it hard to bear in mind that a seventh-rank pawn has
lost its right to move forward or to give check when there’s no longer
a piece of its color in the enemy prison. The human may know this
as a fact, but that’s not the same as “seeing it at once” when relevant
situations arise. If you’re the human in question then you’ll sometimes
expect the computer to announce victory, thinking HostageMaster
has broken down when it keeps silent. The truth, however, will be
that you’re not checkmated. By exchanging hostages and therefore
leaving nothing to which any enemy pawn could be promoted, you’d
get to mere pseudo-check from what seemed like Game Over. Hos-
tageMaster never overlooks this sort of thing. It sometimes wriggles
out of several apparent checkmates in the course of a single game.

You’ll soon discover that HostageMaster can wriggle out of just

126
about anything. Far ahead in material, you suddenly find yourself
mated. Or with the computer’s king badly exposed, maybe actually
fleeing from square to square in your half of the board, you still can’t
quite deliver a decisive blow. Your king chase continues until you’ve
stumbled into a disaster.

Correspondence Play: If you are playing by post or by e-mail then

HostageMaster can be of great help. Using its “Save” or its “Save as”,
you can record what the position looked like after your latest move.
Of the games given in this chapter, some feature HostageMaster
playing against itself (the computer is programmed in such a way that
the two sides can never know each other’s plans). I’m the machine’s
opponent in other instances. Brad Arnold, Hal Bond, Cy Prezel,
Richard Yam and FIDE Master Robert Hamilton are the remaining
contestants.

Game (i): An early version of HostageMaster, at that stage called

“SWAT”, controls both armies here, taking just a second to think about
each move. The computer’s struggle against itself is very instructive
and amusing. Black-SWAT seems to be winning easily, and then all
of a sudden White-SWAT has won. 1 d4 d5 2 Bf4 e6 3 Nc3
Nc6 4 Nb5 Bb4+ 5 c3 Ba5 6 Nf3 Bd7
7 g4 a6 8 Na3 N(g)e7 9 Bg2 O-O
10 O-O N g6 11 Bd2 Bb6 12 e3 e5 13 dxe5 Bxg4.
Probably White should now play (P)*d4 to defend the e5 pawn, even
though that would put a pawn on Black’s airfield where it would be
worth about as much as two on the board. Instead, however, what’s
played is this:

14 h3 Bxf3 15 Qxf3 (P)*e4 16 Qh5 N(g)xe5

17 R(a)d1 (N)B*f3 18 Bxf3 Nxf3+ 19 Kh1 (Diagram 80)

127
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
BP{rdw1w4kd}
{dp0wdp0p}
{pgndwdwd}
{dwdpdwdQ}
{wdwdpdwd}
{Hw)w)ndP}
{P)wGw)wd}
NP{dwdRdRdK}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 80

Next we get the fine move 19...Nxd2. It wins a piece; for if White
now played Rxd2 to avenge the capture of the bishop, Black would
reply ...(B)B*f3+, a fork killing the white queen.

20 *e7 Nxe7. (White-SWAT had decided that Black-SWAT’s

position would be worsened no matter which piece captured the white
pawn. If the queen did the capturing, it would be exposed to attack.
If the knight did it, the queen would be obstructed.)

21 N*h6+ gxh6 22 Rg1+ Ng6

23 (B)*e2, defending at last against losing the queen to that bishop

fork, and also closing the Black knight’s only real escape route. Then
comes 23...Qf6 (meaning that the knight could now get genuine
safety at c4)

24 Rxd2 Qxf2 25 (N)N*e7+ Kh8 26 Nxd5 B*g2+

27 Rxg2 Qe1+

28 (B)B*g1 Qxd2 29 Nc4 Qc1 30 N(c)xb6 cxb6

31 (P)*g7+ (Diagram 81)

128
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
RB{rdwdw4wi}bn
NP{dpdwdp)p}p
{p0wdwdn0}
{dwdNdwdQ}
{wdwdpdwd}
{dw)w)wdP}
{P)wdPdRd}
{dw1wdwGK}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 81

White’s last move was very powerful, for ...Kxg7 would lead to
32 (B)B*f6+ Kg8 and then 33 N e7 which is mate since the black
knight is pinned. 31...Kg8 32 Qxh6 (with the threat of Nf6 mate)
...N*f2+ 33 Rxf2 (N)N*g3+ (Black had sacrificed the knight so
as to be able to ransom it and drop it here) 34 Kh2 Nf1+ 35 Kh1
Ng3+ 36 Kh2 Nf1+ 37 Kh1 (Diagram 82)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RB{rdwdw4kd}bp
P{dpdwdp)p}
{p0wdwdn!}
{dwdNdwdw}
{wdwdpdwd}
{dw)w)wdP}
{P)wdP$wd}
N{dw1wdnGK}bp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 82

At this point Black-SWAT could settle for a draw by threefold

repetition. However, it instead comes up with ...B*f3+ (Why this

129
sacrifice of a bishop? We’ll find out soon enough.) 38 exf3 Ng3+
39 Kh2 Nf1+ 40 Rxf1 Qxb2+ (this check was made possible
by the bishop sacrifice, which took White’s pawn out of the way and
also provided something for the black pawn to capture in due course)
41 Rf2 (B)B*e5+. Black’s last move has prevented mate by Nf6,
but it’s fortunate that it was also a check for White still threatens to
play N*f6+, parachuting a knight onto a square protected by a fellow knight
with the idea of crashing in with N xf6 mate when the parachuted
knight is taken. 42 Kh1 (R)N*g3+ 43 Kg2 exf3+ 44 Kxf3
*e4+ 45 Kg4 f5+ 46 Rxf5 (P)*h5+ 47 Qxh5 (since Rxh5
would invite a disaster starting with ...Qe2+) ...Nxh5 48 gxf8=Q+
(the promoting pawn changes places with the imprisoned queen)
...Rxf8 49 N*e7+ Kg7 50 R*f7+ Kh8 (for if ...Rxf7 instead,
then 51 (R)R*g8+ Kh6 52 (P)*g5 mate) 51 Rxf8+ Kg7 52 R(5)f7+
Kh6 53 Ng8 mate.(Diagram 83)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
QP{wdwdw$Nd}
PP{dpdwdRdp}
{p0wdwdni}
{dwdNgwdn}
{wdwdpdKd}
{dw)w)wdP}pp
{P1wdwdwd}bp
BP{dwdwdwGw}rr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 83

A remarkable recovery from what seemed a thoroughly lost position!

Game (ii): HostageMaster takes Black against FIDE Master Robert

Hamilton. Robert tries to play a very “positional” game. (“Club play-
ers play for material, Masters play to control squares.”) However, this
often works poorly in Hostage because positional weaknesses can be
repaired by parachuting. Again, underlying Robert’s strategy is the
reasoning that, generally speaking, losing a rook for a knight or a
130
bishop wouldn’t be getting the worst of it. After all, rooks cannot
develop their full power until the board becomes fairly empty, which
in Hostage is hardly ever! Well, that’s very true — yet it’s also true
that a hostage rook can “buy” a hostage knight or bishop, but not vice
versa; hence most Hostage players classify “knight at the cost of a
rook” and “bishop at the cost of a rook” as bad bargains. At any rate
our Master has to struggle on for a full sixty moves, and near the end
the computer is even in a position to launch a mating attack. Why
doesn’t it launch it? Only because there are too many possible drops
for it to consider. Still, it’s the rare newcomer to Hostage who can
beat the computer — and that’s what Robert manages to do in this,
his very first game. 1 d4 d5 2 Nc3 Nf6 3 Bg5 Bf5 4 Bxf6
exf6 5 e3 Bb4 6 Bd3 Bxd3 7 Qxd3 O-O 8 Ne2 (B)B*c4
9 Qd1 (B)N*a4 10 O-O Nxb2 11 Qc1 Na4 12 Nxa4 Bxe2
13 c3 Bxf1 14 Qxf1 Be7. HostageMaster has just gained a rook
in exchange for a bishop, but Robert is unworried by it — wrongly,
I’d say. 15 Rb1 (N)N*d2 16 Qd1 Nxb1 17 Qxb1 Qc8 18 *f5
Nd7 19 N*c5 Bxc5 20 Nxc5 (N)N*e2+ 21 Kh1 Nxc3
22 Qc2 (Diagram 84)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RR{rdqdw4kd}
PP{0p0ndp0p}
{wdwdw0wd}
{dwHpdBdw}
{wdw)wdwd}
{dwhw)wdw}
{PdQdw)P)}
BN{dwdwdwdK}bb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 84

22...(R)B*b1. Faced with the threatening alignment of the queen

and the bishop, the computer has found an elegant reply. But with a
rook, a bishop and a knight now in his airfield, Robert seems to be

131
doing well. 23 Bxh7+ Kh8 24 Qxc3 Bxh7 25 R*c1 (B)N*e2
26 Qd2 Nxc1 27 Qxc1 Re8

28 B*h3 f5 (blocking with (P)*e6 could have been still better)

29 N*g5 Bg6 30 (P)*h5 Bxh5 31 Bxf5 *e6 32 Bb1 Nxc5
33 dxc5 f6, creating a serious weakness that White at once exploits:
34 (B)N*f7+ (parachuting a knight onto a square protected by a
fellow knight) ...Bxf7 35 Nxf7+ (the second knight steps into the
shoes of its captured companion) ...Kg8 36 (P)*g6 (Diagram 85)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
RR{rdqdrdkd}bp
NP{0p0wdN0w}
{wdwdp0Pd}
{dw)pdwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdw)wdw}
{Pdwdw)P)}b
B{dB!wdwdK}nn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 85

36...Kf8. White has a powerful attack in progress, though the

computer’s last move has stopped him from playing the nasty (B)*h7+,
followed by promoting to rook.

37 c6 bxc6 38 B*c5+ *d6 39 Nxd6 cxd6

40 Bxd6+ Re7 (not ...(P)*e7, because that leads to 41 (P)*f7 with

the threat of (N)N*h7 mate)

41 (N)N*h7+ Ke8 42 Bxe7 Kxe7 43 (R)R*f7+ Kd8

44 (P)*c7+ (Diagram 86)

132
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
RB{rdqiwdwd}rb
NP{0w)wdR0N}np
{wdpdp0Pd}
{dwdpdwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdw)wdw}
{Pdwdw)P)}p
{dB!wdwdK}bn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 86

...Qxc7 (because ...Ke8 would have been answered by (B)N*d6

mate) 45 Rxc7 Kxc7 46 (P)*d6+ Kxd6 47 (B)B*c5+ Kc7
48 Bd3 *c4 49 Bxc4 dxc4 50 (P)*d6+ Kb7 51 (Q)R*c7+
Ka6 52 Rxc6+. White has just missed a forced mate starting with
52 Qa3+, after which Black’s lengthiest resistance runs ...(N)N*a5
53 Rxc6+ Kb7 54 Rc7+ Ka6 55 (P)*b5+ Kxb5 56 Qa4+ Kxa4, White
then mating with 57 N*c3. 52...(B)N*b6 (very clever — instead of
just dropping a pawn from the airfield to block the check, Hostage-
Master pulls the knight from its prison, leaving White without “cash”
for buying anything) 53 B*f1 (Diagram 87)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RN{rdwdwdwd}qr
P{0wdwdw0N}bb
{khR)p0Pd}np
{dwGwdwdw}p
{wdpdwdwd}
{dwdw)wdw}
{Pdwdw)P)}
{dw!wdBdK}p
llvllllllllV
Diagram 87

133
 53...*d5. Here, through not being able to see the right combina-
tion when hugely many possibilities were available, HostageMaster
has missed a decisive attack. If it had gone on the offensive with
53...R*g1+ 54 Kxg1 N*h3+, it could have forced a win: 55 gxh3 (to
avoid immediate mate by dropped queen) ...(N)N*f3+ 56 Kg2 B*h1+
and next either 57 Kxh1 Q*g1 mate or else 57 Kg3 Q*h4 mate.
Moral: The troops in Black’s airfield were much too powerful for a
“slow” play like 53 B*f1 to be made safely. However, the move that
the computer has actually played soon leads to its defeat:
54 Qa3+ R*a5 55 (P)*b5+ Kxb5 56 Rxb6+ axb6 57 Qb4+
Kc6 58 Qxb6+ Kd7 59 Qc7+ Ke8 60 Qe7 mate. (Diagram
88)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RR{rdwdkdwd}qn
NP{dwdw!w0N}bb
{wdw)p0Pd}pp
{4wGpdwdw}
{wdpdwdwd}
{dwdw)wdw}
{Pdwdw)P)}
{dwdwdBdK}np
llvllllllllV
Diagram 88

After the machine had missed its big opportunity, the Master
crushed it very expertly.

Game (iii): Moving quite quickly with the white pieces, a pro-
fessional chess-player loses to HostageMaster just when his victory
seemed inevitable. 1 Nf3 d5 2 d4 Bf5 3 Nc3 e6 4 a3 Bd6
5 Bg5 Nf6 6 e3 O-O 7 Bd3 Bxd3 8 cxd3 h6 9 Bh4 g5
10 Bg3 g4 11 Ne5 h5 12 h3 gxh3 13 Rxh3 c5 14 Rxh5
Nxh5 15 Qxh5 (Diagram 89)

134
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
BR{rhw1w4kd}
P{0pdwdpdw}
{wdwgpdwd}
{dw0pHwdQ}
{wdw)wdwd}
{)wHP)wGw}
{w)wdw)Pd}pp
{$wdwIwdw}nb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 89

The computer’s king looks far too exposed, yet through its tactical
skill HostageMaster quite often survives such positional diseases.
15...(B)N*c2+ 16 Kf1 (P)*e2+ 17 Kxe2 Nxa1 18 *h7+ Kg7
19 B*h6+ Kh8 20 Bxf8. Now White threatens 21 (R)R*g8 mate
— and if HostageMaster were to try 20...Qxf8 in this emergency then
it would face just the same move, 21 (R)R*g8+, with the end only
slightly delayed (21...Qxg8 22 hxg8=R+ Kxg8 23 (Q)R*h8+ Kg7
24 Qh6 mate). It instead does just the right thing: it attacks. It plays
20...(R)R*c2+. Then comes 21 R*d2 Rxd2+ 22 Kxd2 Nb3+
23 Kd1 (R)R*c1+ 24 Ke2 Rc2+ (Diagram 90)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
R{rhw1wGwi}
{0pdwdpdP}
{wdwgpdwd}
{dw0pHwdQ}
{wdw)wdwd}
{)nHP)wGw}
{w)rdK)Pd}p
R{dwdwdwdw}bp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 90

135
 White ducks onto his back rank but is soon defeated: 25 Ke1
Rc1+ 26 Nd1 Rxd1+ 27 Kxd1 (R)R*c1+ 28 Ke2 (N)B*d1+
29 Kf1 Bxh5+ 30 R*e1 Rxe1+ 31 Kxe1 (Q)R*d1 mate,
though the black king had been staring death in the face for the
previous eleven moves.

White then left-arrowed back through the game, move by move, to

the position in the last diagram. He now played 25 Kf3 instead, the
new continuation being ...Nd2+ 26 Kf4 Qf6+ 27 Kg4 (R)*f5+
28 Kh3 Qg7 29 Bxg7+ Kxg7 30 Qxf7+ Kh8 31 Ng6 mate.
Strange that having his king chased forward made him victorious!

Game (iv): HostageMaster plays Black against an opponent who

tends to beat it. Pouncing at the right moment, it wins this particu-
lar game — and with nineteen successive checks. 1 e4 Nf6 2 e5
Nd5 3 c4 Nf4 4 d4 g5 5 g3 Ng6 6 Bg2 e6 7 Qh5 Be7
8 Nh3 h6 9 Be4 Nf8 10 Nc3 Nc6 11 Be3 Na5 12 b3 Bb4
13 Kd2 Be7 14 d5 d6 15 f4 exd5 16 Bxd5 Rh7 (White’s
threats were Qxf7+, which leads to mate, and (P)*g7 to fork knight
and rook) 17 exd6 Qxd6 18 (P)*e5 Qg6 19 Qxg6 Nxg6
20 Nf2 gxf4 21 gxf4 Bd7 22 (P)*g5 (Q)Q*b2+ (Diagram 91)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rdwdkdwd}pp
{0p0bgpdr}
{wdwdwdn0}
{hwdB)w)w}
{wdPdw)wd}
{dPHwGwdw}
{P1wIwHw)}
Q{$wdwdwdR}p
llvllllllllV
Diagram 91

HostageMaster has gradually recovered from what looked like weak

136
opening moves that gave it too cramped a position. Now it attacks, and
it seems as if White could be in trouble through being too uncramped,
his king too exposed. Maybe the attack is premature, though? Admit-
tedly Black’s queen drop could be followed by up to three pawn drops,
two from the airfield and one after an exchange of hostage pawns — but
is that enough? If it isn’t, mayn’t Black be the one in trouble, through
having put a queen into White’s airfield? 23 Kd3 Bf5+ 24 (P)*e4
*d4: aggressive as always, the computer has answered one attack with
another. 25 Bxd4 Nxf4+ 26 Ke3 Nxd5+ 27 Nxd5 (B)N*c2+
28 Kd3 Qxd4+ 29 Kxc2 (B)N*a3+. That’s the fifth check in a
row and, with the force in the white airfield now grown dangerously
large, Black may have to keep checking from here onwards in order
to survive. 30 Kc1 Qxa1+ 31 Kd2 Qxa2+ 32 Ke3 Qxb3+
33 (P)*d3 N(3)xc4+ 34 Kf4 hxg5+

35 Kg3 (rather than Kxf5, answered by ...(R)B*e6 mate) ...*h4+

36 Kg2 h3+ (the twelfth check in a row) 37 Kg3 *h4+ 38 Kf3
Nxe5+ 39 Ke3 Bc5+ 40 Ke2 Bg4+ 41 Kd2 Nf3+ (seven-
teenth check!) 42 Ke2 Qc2+ 43 Kf1 Qxf2 mate. (Diagram 92)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RN{rdwdkdwd}p
PP{0p0wdpdr}
PP{wdwdwdwd}
P{hwgNdw0w}
{wdwdPdb0}
{dwdPdndp}
B{wdwdw1w)}
BQ{dwdwdKdR}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 92

Game (v): As Black, HostageMaster challenges an extremely

competent eleven-year-old. Setting a trap, it gets its opponent’s queen
for a bishop plus a knight. Then, however, it fails to take defensive
measures quickly enough, so that it has to scramble for a perpetual

137
check. 1 e4 Nf6 2 Nc3 e5 3 Nf3 Bd6 4 Bc4 O-O 5 O-O
Nc6 6 d4 exd4 7 Nxd4 Nxd4 8 Qxd4 Bxh2+ 9 Kxh2
(walking into the trap) ...(N)B*e5+ (Diagram 93)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdb1w4kd}
{0p0pdp0p}
{wdwdwhwd}
{dwdwgwdw}
{wdB!Pdwd}
{dwHwdwdw}
{P)Pdw)PI}
N{$wGwdRdw}np
llvllllllllV
Diagram 93

The computer has now managed to force the capture of the white
queen: 10 Qxe5 Ng4+ 11 Kg1 Nxe5. Next, though, the elec-
tronic marvel lets greed triumph over caution:
12 Bb3 d6 13 Bf4 Bd7 14 N d5 N g6 15 Bg3 Re8
16 (P)*f5 Nf8 17 (N)*e7 N*e2+ 18 Kh1 Nxg3+ 19 fxg3
Rxe7
20 Nxe7+ Qxe7 21 (N)B*h4 Qe5 22 N*g5 Be8 23 Nxf7
Bxf7 24 (B)N*e7+ Kh8 25 Bxf7 Qxb2 26 (P)*g6 Qxc2
27 gxh7 *e2

28 Rg1 *d2 (preparing to promote one pawn or the other) 29 Bg6

(now White’s attack gets going, and it looks as if HostageMaster will
lose) ...B*c4 (defending against (B)N*f7 mate)

30 (P)*d5 (cutting the defense) ...N*f2+ (Diagram 94)

138
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
NQ{rdwdwhwi}p
P{0p0wHw0P}
{wdw0wdBd}
{dwdPdPdw}
{wdbdPdwG}
{dwdwdw)w}
{Pdq0phPd}
{$wdwdw$K}rb
llvllllllllV
Diagram 94

31 Kh2 N g4+ 32 Kh3 (rather than Kh1 (Q)R*h2 mate)

...Nf2+ 33 Kh2 Ng4+ draw, by repetition.

Game (vi): HostageMaster is Black in a battle in which its opponent

plays rather too rapidly, a weak move then giving him what could look
like a lost position. It’s astonishing, though, how little difference speed
of play makes, just so long as utterly disastrous blunders are avoided.
In Hostage detailed calculation doesn’t get you very far: not, at any
rate, unless you take ages over each move. Rather, what you need is
the right gut feelings, above all ones which tell you when it’s time for
a major offensive. In this instance the computer gets all ready to inflict
a resounding defeat — but then White wins by attacking forcefully.
1 e4 Nf6 2 e5 Ne4 3 Nc3 Nxc3 4 bxc3 d6 5 exd6 cxd6
6 d4 Bd7 7 Be2 Nc6 8 Nf3 Qa5 9 Bd2 (N)N*e4 10 c4
Nxd2 11 Qxd2 Qxd2+ 12 Nxd2 (P)*b2
13 Rb1 (Q)Q*c1+ (if the queen is captured, Black’s b2 pawn will
promote to queen) 14 Q*d1 Qxd1+ 15 Bxd1 (Q)Q*b6 (defends
the b2 pawn and guards against a fork on c7 by a dropped knight,
but whether all this is worth the price is doubtful: the queen now
139
sitting in White’s airfield looks so very much stronger than Black’s
queen on the board!)

16 c5 dxc5 17 dxc5 Qc7 (taking the pawn would have meant

suffering the abovementioned fork by dropped knight) 18 O-O
(not good enough, as the computer quickly demonstrates) ...Qa5
19 Nf3 Qxa2 (this looks so bad for White that maybe he should
have played 19 Rxb2 instead of saving his knight) 20 N*c3 Qa3
21 Nd5 (B)N*c3
22 Nxc3 (P)*a2 (even better than capturing the knight) 23 Nxa2
Qxa2 24 Be2 (N)N*c3 (Diagram 95)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rdwdkgw4}
{0pdb0p0p}
{wdndwdwd}
{dw)wdwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
P{dwhwdNdw}
PB{q0PdB)P)}
NQ{dRdwdRIw}p
llvllllllllV
Diagram 95

25 N*c7+ (abandoning the fight in the corner so as to start an

attack on the black king — for White’s gut feelings say that his
airfielders are strong enough to give him good hopes of victory)
25...Kd8 26 Nxa8 Nxb1 27 *c7+ Ke8 28 (R)R*b8+ R*c8
29 Rxc8+ Bxc8
30 *d5 Nc3 (saving the knight on c6 would mean getting mated
by Q*d8)

31 dxc6 Nxe2+ 32 Kh1 (B)N*e6 33 (P)*d7+ (R)R*d8

(turning the check into a pseudo-check because now the d7 pawn, left
with nothing to which it could in theory promote, cannot legally move

140
forward; what’s more, the c7 pawn is similarly paralyzed, so Black’s
rook is safe for the moment) 34 R*g8 (Diagram 96)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
{Ndb4kgR4}p
{0p)P0p0p}
{wdPdndwd}
{dw)wdwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdwdNdw}
B{q0Pdn)P)}
BQ{dwdwdRdK}
llvllllllllV
Diagram 96

...Bxd7 (since capturing the parachuted rook was illegal; it would

have made the pseudo-check into a real check through giving the d7
pawn the theoretical possibility of promoting to rook) 35 cxd7 (once
again only a pseudo-check, yet very threatening all the same) ...Kxd7
36 Ne5+ Ke8 37 Rxf8+ Kxf8 38 cxd8=R+ (remember, the
promoting pawn changes places with the rook in Black’s prison)
38...Nxd8 39 Nd7+ Ke8 40 Nc7+ Kxd7

41 (B)N*e5+ K xc7 42 Q*d7+ Kb8 43 B*c7+ Ka8

44 (R)R*b8 mate. (Diagram 97)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
NP{k$whwdw4}rb
PP{0pGQ0p0p}p
{wdwdwdwd}
{dw)wHwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{1wdwdwdw}
{w0Pdn)P)}
B{dwdwdRdK}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 97

141
 Black’s defeat was fairly predictable once White’s attack had begun.
It’s so hard to defend against a parachuting queen!

Game (vii): Playing as White against strong opposition, Hostage-

Master loses a queen but triumphs by counterattacking magnificently.
1 Nf3 Nc6 2 e3 e5 3 Nc3 d5 4 Bb5 Bg4

5 Bxc6+ bxc6 6 (N)B*b7, a standard maneuver to win a pawn

and break up your opponent’s position, though at the cost of putting
a piece in the enemy airfield. Most people just move the rook out of
danger. Black’s actual reaction is a fierce pawn push, 6...e4. It leads
to 7 Bxc6+ Ke7 8 Bxa8 Qxa8 9 h3 exf3 10 hxg4 fxg2
11 Rg1 (P)*h2

12 (R)N*f5+ (by using the rook to buy the knight, HostageMaster

removes the rook from the prison, making Black unable to promote the
h2 pawn to rook) ...Ke6 13 Nd4+ Ke7 14 *g5 (not Rxg2, which
would be answered by R*g1+) ...R*f1+

15 Rxf1 gxf1=R+ 16 Kxf1 (R)R*g1+ 17 Ke2 Rxd1 (with

its queen captured, the computer looks certain to lose) 18 (B)B*f3
(Diagram 98)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
Q{qdwdwgn4}bn
{0w0wip0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdpdw)w}
{wdwHwdPd}
{dwHw)Bdw}
{P)P)K)w0}
R{$wGrdwdw}p
llvllllllllV
Diagram 98

142
 Why didn’t the black rook get captured? Well, the parachuted bishop
guards against a promotion on h1 (imagine 18 Kxd1 h1=R+) and in
addition White threatens to play N xd5+ followed by a “discovered
attack” by that same bishop on the queen when the knight moves
off the diagonal. 18...Kd7 (not saving the rook, because fearing the
discovered attack)

19 Kxd1 Bc5 20 Nxd5 B*b7 (to prevent loss of the queen

through Nb6+ or Nf6+) 21 c4 Ne7 22 Nb3 N*d3 23 Nxc5+
Nxc5 24 (R)N*e5+ Kd8 25 Nxf7+ Kd7 26 Ne5+ Kd8
27 Nf7+ Kd7

28 Ne5+ (Diagram 99)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
Q{qdwdwdw4}r
{0b0khw0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwhNHw)w}
{wdPdwdPd}
{dwdw)Bdw}
{P)w)w)w0}pb
R{$wGKdwdw}pp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 99

28...Kd6 (although thinking it will lead to his defeat, Black sport-

ingly decides to avoid a draw by repetition)
29 Nf7+ Ke6 30 Nxh8. Playing a knight fork and then taking
the queen would have risked ruin since Black would have got the
first chance to exchange hostage queens: 30 N xc7+ Kxf7 31 N xa8
B xf3+ 32 (B)B*e2 B xe2+ 33 Kxe2 B*d3+ 34 Kf3 (B)B*e4+, and
next either 35 Kf4 Ng6+ 36 Kg3 (Q)Q*g2 mate or else 35 Kg3
(Q)Q*g2+ 36 Kh4 R*h3 mate.

143
 30...R*g1+

31 Kc2 h1=R 32 R*e4+ (a fine sacrifice to displace the black

knight from protecting square d3, so that grabbing Black’s queen
wouldn’t be punished by (Q)Q*d3 mate) ...Nxe4

33 Nxc7+ Kd7 34 Nxa8. With its capture of the black queen,

less risky now that the position has changed, has HostageMaster
shot into the lead? Well, Black answers the computer with his own
fine sacrifice, the start of what seems likely to be a very strong attack:
34...(R)B*d3+ (Diagram 100)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
Q{NdwdwdwH}
{0bdkhw0p}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdwdw)w}
{wdPdndPd}
{dwdb)Bdw}pp
{P)K)w)wd}pp
R{$wGwdw4r}qp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 100

An exchange of hostage queens is coming shortly, after which

HostageMaster must play its king flight very carefully. It does, and
is rewarded by victory when the pressure fades. 35 Kxd3 Nc5+
36 Kd4 (Q)Q*d3+ 37 Kxc5 Qd6+ 38 Kb5 Ba6+ 39 Ka5
Qc5+ 40 Kxa6 Qd6+ 41 Kxa7 N c8+ 42 Kb7 Qb4+
43 R*b6 Nxb6 44 Bc6+ Ke6 45 Nc7+ Ke7 46 Q*e6+
Kf8 47 Qf7 mate. (Diagram 101) An intriguing struggle!

144
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
R{wdwdwiwH}
{dKHwdQ0p}
{whBdwdwd}
{dwdwdw)w}
{w1Pd dPd}
{dwdw)wdw}ppp
{P) )w)wd}ppp
{$wGwdw4r}bbn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 101

Game (viii): A cliff hanger. Once again playing as White, Hos-

tageMaster is defeated this time. It does seem to be winning, but then
continues to attack when it should be taking precautions. 1 b3 e5
2 Bb2 Nc6 3 e3 Bc5 4 Nf3 d6 5 d4 Bb6 6 dxe5 dxe5
7 Qxd8+ Nxd8 8 Nxe5 (Q)Q*a5+ 9 Nd2 (P)*c3 10 Q*b5+
Qxb5 11 Bxb5+ c6 12 Bxc6+ (selling its life for a pawn, with
check, so that White can play B xc3 later) ...bxc6 13 Bxc3 Ne7
14 O-O f6 15 Nc4 O-O

16 (Q)Q*a3. As well as attacking the knight on e7, the computer

is threatening to play N xb6 (since answering this with ...axb6 would
mean losing a rook) 16 ...Nd5 17 *e7 c5

18 exf8=B Nxc3 19 Nxb6 axb6. Here ...(B)B*b4 would

have been better through chasing away the queen. Notice, though,
that clever play by White would delay the queen’s retreat until after
20 (P)*e7 (threatening to promote to queen if the queen is captured)
...Q*e8 (it’s infuriating to have to use a queen drop like this). 20 Qxa8
Bh3 (Diagram 102)

145
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
BN{QdwhwGkd}q
P{dwdwdw0p}
{w0wdw0wd}
{dw0wdwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dPhw)wdb}pp
{PdPHw)P)}bp
{$wdwdRIw}rr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 102

With a black bishop attacking its castle, and a queen and another bishop
and two pawns able to arrive by air to join the attack (for remember, one
of the imprisoned white pieces could pay for the second pawn), and with
the threat, too, of being checked by the black knight, the computer’s king
is severely endangered. Capturing the bishop wouldn’t solve the problem,
for if 21 gxh3 then ...Ne2+, after which 22 Kg2 or Kh1 can be answered
by ...(B)B*c6+, a queen-killer. HostageMaster, though, seems unaware of
the danger and pushes on with its attack: 21 Qxd8. Black’s reply is crush-
ing, ...Ne2+. Next comes 22 Kh1 Bxg2+ 23 Kxg2, and now Black
has a choice of mating lines. One of them is 23 ...Q*g4+ 24 (P)*g3 *h3+
25 Kh1 (B)B*g2 mate. Actually played was 23...(B)N*h4+24 Kh3
(N)B*g2+ 25 Kg4 Q*g5 mate. (Diagram 103)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{wdw!wGkd}
{dwdwdw0p}
{w0wdw0wd}
{dw0wdw1w}
{wdwdwdKh}
{dPdw)wdw}pp
{PdPHn)b)}bp
NB{$wdwdRdw}rr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 103

146
 Game (ix): HostageMaster plays as both White and Black in a game
filled with ingenious moves. 1 b4 e5 2 Bb2 Bxb4 3 Bxe5 Nf6
4 (P)*g5. Up to this point the computer’s moves were all chosen for it,
for experimental purposes. It’s a way of exploring this vast new world
of Hostage Chess. 4...Nh5 5 a3 (if g4 instead, to attack the knight,
then ...Qxg5 can solve Black’s problem) ...Bc5 6 d4 Bb6 7 h4 d6
8 Bh2 Bg4 9 a4 Ba5+ 10 Nd2 O-O 11 Rb1 Qc8 12 g3
Nc6 13 Bg2 Bf5 14 Bf3 Bxd2+ 15 Qxd2 (Diagram 104)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
N{rdqdw4kd}p
{0p0wdp0p}
{wdn0wdwd}
{dwdwdb)n}
{Pdw)wdw)}
{dwdwdB)w}
{wdP!P)wG}
{dRdwIwHR}b
llvllllllllV
Diagram 104

15...Kh8, because 16 B xh5 could be answered by ...*g4, trapping

the bishop, and because of the risk of White pushing a pawn to kick
the knight off c6, next forking king and queen with (B)N*e7+. An
alternative chosen by HostageMaster when it was shown the position a
second time (for its play included a random element) was 15...(N)B*a5.
We might next see 16 N*b4 B xb4 17 Rxb4 a5 18 Rb1 (N)B*b4
19 Rxb4 axb4, a sequence winning rook for bishop. After this White
should do something to prevent queen and king being skewered by
...(R)B*c3. If White instead tried to be clever with 20 Qxb4 N xb4
21 N*e7+ Kh8 22 N xc8, happily looking forward to 22...Rxc8

147
23 (B)N*e7, then Black would have the happiness-smashing sequence
22...(Q)Q*c1+ 23 Q*d1 *e1+ 24 Kf1 Qxd1+ 25 Kg2 (R)B*f1 mate.
16 e4 Re8 17 Qd3 Bxe4 18 Bxe4 (N)B*g2 19 (B)*e5 Bxh1
20 Bxh1 dxe5 21 Bxc6 bxc6 22 dxe5 Rxe5+ 23 Ne2 Qh3
24 Bg1 Rxg5 (Diagram 105)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RB{rdwdwdwi}bp
PP{0w0wdp0p}
P{wdpdwdwd}
{dwdwd 4n}
{Pdwdwdw)}
{dwdQdw)q}
{wdPdN)wd}p
N{dRdwIwGw}bn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 105

Capturing the impudent rook, 25 hxg5, might invite the reply

...(R)R*f1+, leading into 26 Kd2 Rxb1, and then Black could feel
pleased at having won a pawn and placed a rook aggressively on
White’s back rank. (Admittedly the rook it had just put into White’s
airfield could start an attack, 27 R*d8+ Rxd8 28 Qxd8+ (R)R*g8,
after which 29 R*e8 might look powerful. But Black could counter-
attack forcefully with ...B*e1+, and now White would have to play
30 Ke3 or else lose the queen after ...Rd1+. Yet next would come
30...(B)N*f5+ and then White, unable to reply Kf3 without getting
mated by ...(R)B*g2, would need to play 31 Ke4. When ...(R)B*d5+
answered it, the white queen would need to capture the bishop and
die, for otherwise there is only 32 Ke5 f6 mate or else 32 Kd3 *c4
mate.) 25 (B)B*e6 (sacrificing ingeniously to free up square f7)
...fxe6 (not ...Qxe6, which permits the white pawn to capture the rook
without causing problems) 26 N*f7+ Kg8 27 Nxg5 (B)N*g2+
28 Kd2 B*a5+ 29 (P)*c3 *e4 (Diagram 106)

148
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
R{rdwdwdkd}bp
PP{0w0wdw0p}
{wdpdpdwd}
{gwdwdwHn}
{Pdwdpdw)}
{dw)Qdw)q}
{wdPIN)nd}
B{dRdwdwGw}r
llvllllllllV
Diagram 106

30 Nxh3 exd3 31 (R)R*b8+ Rxb8 32 Rxb8+ B*f8

33 Rxf8+ Kxf8 34 (R)R*d8+ R*e8 35 (Q)Q*h8+ (R)B*g8
36 Rxe8+ Kxe8 37 Qxg8+ R*f8 38 Qxe6+ Q*e7 39 R*c8+
(R)R*d8 40 B*d7 mate. (Diagram 107) An attractive conclusion
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{wdR4k4wd}p
{0w0B1w0p}
{wdpdQdwd}
{gwdwdwdn}
{Pdwdwdw)}
{dw)pdw)N}
{wdPIN)nd}
R{dwdwdwGw}bp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 107

to a wild fight.

Game (x): As White, the computer replays the opponent who beat
it in Game (viii). This time it wins swiftly, but very interestingly.
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 f6 4 O-O a6 5 Be2 Bc5 6 c3
d5 7 d4 dxe4 8 dxc5 Qxd1 9 Rxd1 exf3 10 Bxf3 N(g)e7
11 (P)*d6 Nf5 ( ...*c2 could be better) 12 dxc7 *d4 (to block the

149
file, but castling was an alternative) 13 Bxc6+ bxc6 14 (N)N*d8
(threatening (Q)Q*f7 mate) ...N*f7 (“drop where your opponent
wants to”, yet (B)B*d5 was another possibility) 15 Nxf7 Kxf7

16 (N)N*d8+ Rxd8 (making a king move instead would have

meant getting mated by (Q)Q*f7) 17 cxd8=N+ Ke7 18 (Q)Q*f7+
Kxd8 19 (B)B*c7 mate. (Diagram 108)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
NP{rdbiwdwd}qn
{dwGwdQ0p}b
{pdpdw0 d}
{dw)w0ndw}
{wdw0wdwd}
{dw)wdwdw}
{P)wdw)P)}
{$NGRdwIw}rp
llvllllllllV
Diagram 108

Game (xi): HostageMaster once more plays against itself, and once
again the game is filled with ingenuity. 1 e4 Nf6 2 e5 Nd5 3 d4
d6 4 c4 Nb6 5 Nf3 Nc6 6 Be2 dxe5 7 d5 Nd4 8 Nxe5
Nxe2 9 Qxe2 e6 10 (N)B*b5+ (Diagram 109)

cuuuuuuuuCuu
P{rdb1kgw4}n
{0p0wdp0p}
{whwdpdwd}
{dBdPHwdw}
{wdPdwdwd}
{dwdwdwdw}
{P)wdQ)P)}
{$NGwIwdR}p
llvllllllllV
Diagram 109

150
 ...Ke7 ( Why didn’t Black block with ...Bd7 ? Well, it leads
into 11 B xd7+ N xd7 12 N xd7 Qxd7 13 (B)B*b5 (for the second
time) ...c6 14 dxc6 bxc6 15 B xc6, and now the black queen cannot
capture the bishop without dying through yet another white play of
(B)B*b5. ) 11 dxe6 Bxe6
12 O-O f6 13 Nf3 c6 14 (P)*f5 *e5 15 fxe6 cxb5 16 Rd1
Qc8 17 (B)B*d8+ Kxe6 (not 17...Ke8 which invites 18 (P)*f7:
admittedly this would be only a pseudo-check, not a mate, since the
pawn is paralyzed—there’s nothing to which it could in theory be
promoted; yet it would clearly be very threatening) 18 Bxb6 axb6
(Diagram 110)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{rdqdwgw4}nb
B{dpdwdw0p}
{w0wdk0wd}
{dpdw0wdw}
{wdPdwdwd}
{dwdwdNdw}
{P)wdQ)P)}
{$NGRdwIw}np
llvllllllllV
Diagram 110

19 (N)B*d7+ Qxd7 20 Rxd7 Kxd7. The black queen has

died expensively, for its price included adding a lot of power to Black’s
airfield. Still, taking your opponent’s queen while keeping your own
does often give you the great advantage of being able to plan a “queen
rampage” — which, remember, means threatening to sacrifice your
queen so that it will return to the board through a queen-for-queen
hostage exchange. This, on top of how Black’s king is exposed in the
center while White’s is safely castled, seems to put White ahead.
21 Qd1+ N*d6 22 cxb5 B*a4 23 b3 Bxb5 24 (P)*c4

151
Ba6 25 (P)*b5 (trapping the bishop, which can now do no better
than sell itself for a pawn, but White had to put two pawns into the
enemy airfield in order to do the trapping) 25...e4 26 Nd4 *c5
27 Nf5 *c2 (a sacrifice to deflect the queen)

28 Qxc2 (P)*d3 29 Qd1 Nxf5 (reward for the queen deflec-

tion) 30 bxa6 N*e2+ 31 Kh1 bxa6 32 Bb2 Kc7
33 *c2 Ne3 (if captured, the knight will at once be ransomed
and will return to the board at f2 with check, which wins the queen)
34 (B)N*d5+, an ingenious move. (Diagram 111)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
BP{rdwdwgw4}b
R{dwiwdw0p}
{p0wdw0wd}
{dw0Ndwdw}
{wdPdpdwd}
{dPdph dw}
{PGPdn)P)}
{$NdQdwdK}q
llvllllllllV
Diagram 111

...Nxd5 35 cxd5 (B)N*e3. Now the black knight is back to

where it used to be, and once again the pawn cannot safely capture
it — so did White’s “ingenious move” really help? Well, its result
was that a white pawn now sits nearer to Black’s king. As we’ll see
shortly, that’s important!

36 Qd2 Nxc2 37 Nc3 Nxc3

38 B*g3+ (since White’s last move deflected the knight from

covering the square) ...B*d6 39 Qxc2 (here comes a queen ram-
page!) (Diagram 112)

152
 cuuuuuuuuCuu
NN{rdwdwgw4}
PP{dwiwdw0p}
R{p0wgw0wd}
{dw0Pdwdw}
{wdwdpdwd}
{dPhpd Gw}
{PGQdw)P)}
{$wdwdwdK}qn
llvllllllllV
Diagram 112

...dxc2 40 (Q)Q*c6+ (the queen is protected by the important

pawn) ...Kd8 41 Qxa8+ Ke7 42 Bxd6+ Kxd6 43 (N)N*f7+
Ke7 44 (R)R*d7+ Kxd7 45 Qd8 mate.

Game (xii): Playing as Black once again, the strong opponent

beaten in Game (vii) manages to do better here, but the war against
the computer lasts a long time. 1 Nf3 Nf6 2 e3 b6 3 Bc4 e6
4 O-O Bb7 5 d4 c5 6 Nc3 d5 7 Bb5+ Bc6 8 Bxc6+ Nxc6
9 (B)B*b7 Na5 10 Bxa8 Qxa8

11 Ne4 (safe, since capturing it would lose the queen to (R)N*c7+)

...Qb8 12 Nxf6+ gxf6 13 dxc5 bxc5 14 (N)B*b5+ (the bishop
is safe for exactly the same reason) ...Kd8

15 Be2 Rg8 16 c4 (again safe; if the knight captures it then

(R)N*c6+ kills the queen) ...Bd6 17 cxd5 (too slow; what seems
needed instead is strengthening of White’s castle by something like
(P)*f4 or (P)*g3, or maybe (P)*h3 on the principle of dropping where
your opponent wants to) ...(P)*h3

18 g3 Ke7, so that the queen could rush to g8 if this became

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useful. 19 Bd2 (again too slow) ...Bxg3 20 hxg3 Rxg3+ (Dia-
gram 113)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
PP{w1wdwdwd}nb
N{0wdwipdp}
{wdwdp0wd}
{hw0Pdwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdw)N4p}
{P)wGB)wd}p
P{$wdQdRIw}br
llvllllllllV
Diagram 113

Black has played the last two moves very nicely, for if 21 fxg3 then
the queen takes the pawn with check, mating next move. 21 *g2
Rxg2+ 22 Kh1 Rxf2 (vacating g2 so that a pawn can drop there)
23 d6+ , a horrid surprise for Black! The pawn now blocking the
black queen’s line of fire seems safe. The queen cannot take it unless
willing to die through (B)N*c8+. If instead the king took it, then
(B)N*e4+ could be pleasant for White. Playing Rxf2 without first
blocking the line would have given White problems such as 23...(P)*g3
24 Rf1 g2+ 25 Kg1 B*h2+ 26 Kf2 Qg3 mate. 23...Kd7

24 Rxf2 (P)*g2+ 25 Kg1 B*g3 (with the threat of ...(N)B*h2

mate)

26 Rxg2 (P)*f2+ (Black feared that taking the rook would be

answered by (R)R*c7+, which struck him as too powerful)
27 Rxf2 Bxf2+. If 28 Kxf2 next, then Black plays ...(R)R*g2+,
the continuation being 29 Ke1 (N)B*f2+ 30 Kf1 N*g3 mate or

154
else 29 Kf1 N*g3+ 30 Ke1 (N)B*f2 mate. Therefore we instead get
28 Kf1 (Diagram 114)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
RN{w1wdwdwd}n
PP{0wdkdpdp}
{wdw)p0wd}
{hw0wdwdw}
{wdwdwdwd}
{dwdw)Ndp}
{P)wGBgwd}bp
PP{$wdQdKdw}rr
llvllllllllV
Diagram 114

28...(R)R*h1+ . Given the chance to play the black pieces, Hos-

tageMaster later showed that Black had here missed a quick win.
What Black ought to have played is ...(P)*g2+, which forces 29 Kxf2,
and then ...N*e4+. The continuation is 30 Ke1 (N)B*f2 mate, or else
30 Kg1 (R)R*h1 mate. 29 (R)N*g1 Bxg1 30 Nxg1 N*h2+
31 Ke1 Rxg1+ 32 (B)N*f1 R*h1 33 Bxa5 Rxf1+ 34 Bxf1
Rxf1+ 35 Kd2 (B)N*c4+ 36 Kd3 Nxb2+ 37 Kc2 (P)*d3+
38 Qxd3 Nxd3 39 Rxf1 Qb2+ 40 Kxd3 B*e2+ 41 Ke4
Qe5 mate. (Diagram 115)
cuuuuuuuuCuu
NN{wdwdwdwd}
PP{0wdkdpdp}
Q{wdw)p0wd}
{Gw0w1wdw}
{wdwdKdwd}
P{dwdw)wdp}p
PP{Pdwdbdwh}nb
BR{dwdwdRdw}rr W
llvllllllllV
Diagram 115

155