Based on the layout of the board, the first move of player one is to move a pawn one space ahead to allow their bishop access to an hourglass on the next turn.
Player two does the same thing.
Player ones next move is to take the hourglass with their bishop.
Player two takes an hourglass with their bishop.
Player one then gets two actions. First action, they move the other pawn that is blocking the bishop from the other hourglass. Second action, they take the hourglass.
Player two does the same thing on their side of the board.
Player one now gets 3 actions. They move all 3 pawns in the middle up 2 spaces each. Player two does the same.
Player one then moves the very middle pawn up one space to take the hour glass, and will be in combat against player two on player twos turn.
The battle for the middle spot for the third hour glass will be taking up most of the time now.
Ok, aside from the pawn part, which is the most logical thing to do though, the opening for each game could be what I just describe, mainly because bishops are solely on light squares. All of them, not half on light half on dark like it should be. The other problem that happens when you have 2 bishops that occupy the same colour squares is that your opponent will never be threatened by them, as it is fairly easy to stay on the dark squares. In regular chess, you would end up stale mating if you had 2 bishops left and your king and your opponent only had his king. He would stay on the dark squares and would never get checked.
So duels only happen when you attempt to take a piece, so the elements side of the game is fine, it is the chess mechanics that are flawed. I have already pointed this out in the chat room before and the pieces really need to be reorganized. Or even have only 3 hourglasses all on row 5, one at each end and the one in the middle stays where its at.
Also, if you start off as white, and the board remains as it is, you will have a clear advantage. If you get 2 hourglasses first, you get 3 actions on your next turn. Now for any average chess player, seeing 2-3 moves ahead is hard enough, but now you have to contend with your opponent taking 3 actions in one turn. So this is another good reason to reduce the amount of hourglasses. But also relocating them so they aren't taken over in the 2nd and 3rd turns.
And at least if they are reduced and moved to only row 5, if the bishops remain only on light squares, and that should be changed, the ends of row 5 have the hourglasses which will still be taken in 2 turns, but at least theres a chance they won't.
Player one moves the pawn in front of the knight on the left side up one space on turn 1.
Player two does the same on the same side.
Player one move their bishop to get in line with the hourglass, and player two does the same.
Now at least player one might think about not taking over that hourglass because player two might attack.
Another thing, players should have to keep restarting their elements match, just the first game, until the person that is attacking goes first. They are attacking, and they should get some sort of advantage in the first game. And that I believe is the only thing they could do.
As of right now, you'd be better off doing an elements checkers event, because this is hardly chess at all. The elements portion is still elements, so the chess portion should still be chess, but it isn't. Adding the hourglasses is fine, but how about using a real chess setup instead or the diana chess setup which is this
games would be considerably faster with a smaller board too
