Bushka Tutor | About Rules Basic Tactics Games Problems Read Me |
I'd like to introduce two terms, tempo and pace. The concept of phalanx movement makes that Bushka has an unusual flexibility in both. Both concepts tend to loose much of their meaning, once kings come into play. Pace is calculated by giving one point to each man on the bottom rank, two points to each man on the second rank, and so on. It does not depend on mobility or the opponent's position (though the difference in pace of course does). Tempo is more difficult to calculate. Roughly speaking it is the number of moves a player has available. In the opening and middle game, it is usually the number of moves a player has available behind a frontline. Since tempo concerns a number of moves, it may (and usually will) be affected by the opponent's moves. In the diagram below, the player to move loses the game. Of course this position is both double-edged and artificial, but the point is that there are many positions where tempo is more crucial than pace. Place all men two ranks up and white, if he were to move, would still lose, despite 24 tempi advantage in terms of pace.
Games naturally start out closed. In this light some examples in this strategy section may not represent best play: I emphasized pace somewhat because this is a beginner's natural inclination. There's no large body of games to illustrate strategy. To get an insight anyway, I'll show some of the ins and outs of the most agressive center opening:
Most of the 1.f25 theory also applies to 1.f35, but 1.f45 is a different story altogether. Barring
symmetric ones (such as if5 instead of f25), there are thirteen different opening moves. Most
of these are largely uninvestigated.
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