If positioned on a knight- or a rook file a pawn can jump like a knight to an empty square, east-north-east or west-north-west. A condition is that the pawn is blocked by an enemy pawn. Compared with standard chess, this means that a flank pawn is sometimes endowed with an extra jump move, which increases its value only slightly. Hence the flanks cannot easily be blocked, something which greatly enhances attacking play.

There are three different variants of dynamic pawns. The pawn is endowed with the extra jump move to an empty square (1) if blocked anywhere on the file (2) if blocked on the 4th rank onwards (3) if blocked on the enemy side. Note that the opponent can prevent this jump move by occupying the square, so it is not always easy to achieve.

In Dynamic Chess (Chess4) black can decide the initial positions of the queens. (If black so chooses, the piece array remains unchanged.) The positions must mirror each other. Dynamic Chess is like standard chess except that the players can, before play begins, swap places of the queen and a light piece. When the queen is swapped, the relocatee ends up on the queen's square. One restriction is that the bishops mustn't end up on the same square colour. Note that black begins by swapping his queen. Alternatively he can choose to leave the position as it is. The white player then mirrors black's swap. After the queens thus have been swapped the turn is still with white. Now white starts the game by making the first move. You can play Dynamic Chess online and by e-mail here.