Coverage

Coverage: Something else to do with your chess set.

This chess variant was created by Michael Phillips in response to David McDonough's May 6th Game Design Challenge [1]
The goal of this game is to control as many of the squares on the board as possible at the end of play. This is similar to the game Cathedral, though with distinctly different piece shapes.

Required pieces:
1 8X8 chess board.
16 pawns
2 Kings
2 queens
4 bishops
4 rooks
4 knights

Setup
Split the pieces into color coded groups. Assign each player a color, choose a player to go first (possibly have one player hide a pawn in one of their hands and the other player guess which hand it is in. If they guess, they are first if they fail they are second.)
Lay out the chess board. Orientation is not essential.

Play sequence:
The players take turns putting a piece on the board. The player who controls the most squares at the end of the game wins.
A piece controls every square that it could legally move through in a regular game of chess.

a. Bishops may be played on either color square.
b. A pawn in it's player's second row controls both squares it would be able to move to in a regular game of chess.
c. If your opponent has a pawn in his 4th row, you may play a pawn adjacent to it in the same row. That pawn controls both the square behind his pawn and the square directly in front of itself (the en passant rule)

No piece may be played in any square controlled by a piece of the opposing color.
A player may play his or her own pieces in squares he already controls. Doing so interrupts the line of control for that piece. Even for knights.

Ending the game:
The game ends when either both players have no more pieces to play or when one player has no legal moves to make that do not block his own lines of control.

Scoring
Count the number of squares each player controls. The player who controls the most squares wins.

If two or more opposed pieces would control the same square, then that square is no longer available for scoring.

(alternately, control goes to the player with the most pieces capable of controlling that square. In the case of a tie, compare the values of all pieces. The player with the highest total control value for that square gains control of that square. In the case of a tie, that square is no longer available for scoring.
King 6 points, Pawn 5 points, Bishop 4 points, Rook 3 points, knight 2 points, Queen 1 point.
This rule makes scoring much more complicated in a game that should be a quick play. Thus it is optional.)

If the points are tied, the player with the fewest remaining unplaced pieces wins. If that is also a tie, the the game ends in a draw.

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