Standard

The Standard variant is the closest variant to 2D chess. The starting position consists of one board, containing the layout of standard chess.



In this position, every pawn is protected, although the f-pawns (f2 and f7) are only protected by the  kings. White is the only player that can jump back to the initial board on which neither player has moved, so they can exploit this weakness using the f7 sacrifice, by sending a queen back to f7 on that board and forcing the king to capture it and become exposed. This results in a win for white unless black made preparation on the initial timeline.

The threat of the f7 sacrifice means that black usually blocks white's routes through time back to the first board, playing then  (which should be followed by  or similar to block the triagonal from  directly to the king on ). White also needs to make sure f2 is defended, but this is much easier than it is for black to defend f7 - for example, starting with means that f2 is defended on the first board black could jump to, although it's often better to apply enough pressure by threatening the f7 sacrifice that black is too busy defending to counterattack.



5DPGN
The 5DPGN board name for the Standard variant is "Standard" or "Standard - Default". Because this variant starts with only one timeline, the non-physical coordinates can be omitted until a time travel happens. For example: