The Lost Pawns The Lost Pawns setup, as shown in Figure 1, might look like a standard game of chess. However, the first thing to note is that white's pieces start on the 7th and 8th ranks. The setup may be similar but the direction of the pawns on the board remains the same. The result leaves all pawns just one square away from promotion. The Lost Pawns Setup Figure 1 Rules All standard chess rules apply to this variant, including pawn's 2-square advance, castling and promotion. En-passant is obviously not available as all pawns effectively start on their 7th ranks. Opening Example The opening shown in Figure 2 is standard to The Lost Pawns variant whereby a player is limited to moving one of their knights as a first move. This is because all pawns on the board start off blocked by the pieces on the 1st and 8th ranks. The PGN notation for the game in Figure 2 shown below is as follows: 1. Nc6 Nf3 2. b8=Q * The Lost Pawns Setup Figure 2