Enter Your Reply

I've continued experimenting with the Mastodont (Mammoth, Squire). I am fond of this piece because it is so natural (there exist many 'madcap' chess pieces that are fun but not quite natural). It is a natural extension of the regular pieces as it complements the knight's moves, while its added capability of the king's moves makes it capable, like the knight, of reaching all the squares of the board (unlike the other complement of the knight, namely the Alibaba. What's more, at least on the 10x10 board it seems like an exact counterpart of the rook in strength. This is very good as it allows for the positional stratagem of exchanging pieces (and not only to tactically conquer them.) Moreover, a Mastodon, together with a King, can give mate to a lonely King. It has the minimum strength for this quite important capability.

I found a piece setup on the 8x10 board that seems to function well with the Mastodon piece: Mastodon Chess (8x10) (zrf).

(By the way, I wonder how people evaluate the strenght of pieces. I see that they value them as '8.9', etc.)

Mats