Pokemon Chess
Pokemon is a free-roam game where the player goes around a big, vast land trying to find and enslave hundreds of different little creatures, and eventually making those creatures fight for the trainer in battles. All Pokemon are assigned a type, like grass or fire, and each one of those types has a weakness to a different type. In Pokemon, a big aspect of the game is RNG (random number generator). For example, when battling, your Pokemon has a chance to completely miss an attack, or it has a chance for a critical hit, which does extra damage.
Chess is a game where you are very limited on where you can go, with only nine different pieces available to your mercenary. All attacks to your opponent are the same, there are no different types of pieces, and there is absolutely no RNG involved whatsoever.
So one day a skilled Pokemon YouTuber named Little Z, decided it would be a good idea to mash up these two completely opposite games into one- bringing in the worst parts of Pokemon, and the best of chess. The result was another brand-new variant, that destroyed the whole idea of taking turns in chess.
How to Play
The base rules are pretty much the same as normal chess. It isn't one of those crazy variants where your opponent has a dozen kings, since this one is played on a standard 64-square board, with the same amount of pieces. The difference between Pokemon chess and normal chess is that there is no check or checkmate, you must capture your opponent's king, and every single piece on the board now has a type, just like how every Pokemon has a type.
There is a three-minute draft period before the game where you get to choose which piece gets what type. There can only be one of each type in your team.
These types change what happens when you capture a piece- for example, if a water-type bishop captured a fire-type pawn, it would be a super effective attack, and the bishop would get to move again. There is no limit to how many times one piece can move in a turn, as long as it keeps capturing pieces that are weak to the piece in question.
But if a grass-type pawn attacks a fire-type bishop, it will be a "not very effective" attack, and both pieces get removed, and your turn is over. This can be good if you are trading a pawn for a bishop, but if you unknowingly take a "free" grass-type pawn with your water-type queen, it can lead to a bad situation.
Lastly, if a piece does not affect another piece, like if a ground-type queen attacked a flying-type king, the attack does absolutely nothing and your turn is over. Any other attack that isn't super effective, not very effective, or has no effect, is just a regular capture.
These attacks that do nothing can also happen regardless of the piece's type. It is called a "miss," and it is a random 1/10 chance that happens whenever you capture a piece. But there is also a 1/16 chance to perform a "critical hit." If you perform a crit, your piece gets to move again. Critical hits even work if you capture a piece with a not-very-effective attack. This might be the first semi-popular chess variant where RNG is a big factor in who wins...
Puzzles
Now that you have all the information on how to play, you are now good enough to solve these master-level Pokemon puzzles... Right? Well anyway, they get progressively harder each time and while doing these assume that there are no misses/crits made in any of them. Also feel free to use this chart while solving, because I don't expect you to memorize who is good against what.
Easy
We will start things off with puzzles that you have definitely seen before but just rehashed with Pokemon in them... they shouldn't be too hard, as long as you can recognize basic checkmate patterns.
The first puzzle here is literally on the second move.... and black already has an undeniable advantage, since white just ignored the new strategies and started going for a normal opening.
Rookie mistake. Or should I say rookidee mistake... ha ha ha...
Answer (Triple click this text to see): 1.Qf6, (is there really anything else?) 1.Kd2, 2.Qxf2, Qf4+, 3.e3, Qxh2, Qxh1.
Medium
Alright, you (hopefully) solved the last puzzle, but that was just the beginning. Now these are about to get interesting.
In this next puzzle, white has a lot of options for seemingly game-winning moves, but no matter what you do, black has the option to take your h-pawn and invade your king. Can you find the winning sequence of moves here?
Answer (Triple click this text to see): 1.Qg8!!, Rxg8, 2.Nxc5, Nxd7, Nxe5, Nf7#
If this next puzzle was normal chess, black would have such a huge advantage that white might as well resign, since the queen on e4 is hanging.
But in Pokemon chess, if black tried to take the queen, it would have no effect and white would gain a tempo. However, there is another way to gain material here if you play the precise order of moves.
Answer (Tripple click this text to see): 1.Nf3, Qxf3, 2.Qxd3, Qxf3
Hard
Now, you have made it to the end the hardest puzzle of them all.
In this puzzle, it's white move, and your playing to win. Except everything is pinned, and black has some spooky threats with the open files. It is a really tricky puzzle, that I cant even solve. Good luck
Answer (Triple-click this text to see): Rb3, Rc7, dxc7, and now every move for black is losing. It's a stunning Zugzwang!
Conclusion
Well, if you solved all those puzzles easily, I am sorry I don't have harder ones for you, but at least you are the same strength as most of the active people in the Pokemon Chess Discord. And if you didn't solve the puzzles and had to check the answers, maybe you got to spend more time doing normal chess tactics.
Also, full credits to Little Z, the man who created this, and El Xando for programming the Pokemon Chess website, which is %100 ad-free and pay-free, unlike a certain chess website... And lastly, join my club. It is based around apes and apes are nature's perfect animal.
This is how you play Pokemon chess.
