No.644 (SD)

No.644 by Stephan Dietrich – Imitator in a long serial play with surprising final! (JV)

Definition:

Imitator(I): Every time a piece moves an Imitator (or a set of Imitators) moves simultaneously in an identical manner. An Imitator cannot move of itself. If an Imitator cannot imitate the move of a piece, the move is illegal. An Imitator may only pass through or enter an unoccupied square and cannot move off the board. (this version of the definition is proposed by Peter Harris after the one shown in the Forum’s post). Castling is imitated by decomposing into a King move followed by a Rook move. 

Alphabetical Chess: The squares are considered in the order a1, a2…a8, b1…b8, c1 and so on to h8. At each turn, only the unit standing on the square which comes earliest in this order may move. However check and mate are normal.