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H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jan 17, 2009 09:57 PM UTC:
OK, I have been testing a bit, and most things seem to work. The following
details should be mentioned:

* Great Shatranj should be played with legality testing in the WinBoard
client switched off (through the 'Options->General...' menu; untick
'test Legality').

* If you play Courier Chess through the command 'match shamax 5 1 u
courier' it will play in the initial setup that Fairy-Max uses (with a
closed rank of Pawns). To play from the historic initial position with
some Pawns on 4th/5th rank, you should play the subvariant '1', through
the command 'match shamax 5 1 u courier 1'.

* I also added category 'fairy' for some minor 8x8 variants including
unorthodox pieces, the sub-variant indicating which initial setup will be
used. So far only 'fairy archbishop' and 'fairy chancellor' work
(where Q is replaced by A or C, respectively).

* The category 'great' without mentioning a sub-variant will start with
an initial position with a 'Sliding General' (= Mastodon = Q2 = FADW) on
d1/d8. This in deviation to the 'official' rules of Great Shatranj, which
has a 'General' (= Commoner = FW) there. For the logic of the variant I
actually like that better. (As it replaces every slider move of Capablanca
Chess by a jump of range 2.) To play with the 'General' on d1/d8 you
should use a subvariant specification 'great shatranj' (i.e. start the
game with the command 'match shamax 5 1 u great shatranj'.)

* Note that in the great' category promotion can be to 'General' or any
captured piece, even when the initial setup contained a Sliding General in
stead of a General. To this end the captured pieces are displayed next to
the board. When you promote, you should click the piece of your choice
from the available pieces in the holdings, to finish the move. (The ShaMax
bot always promotes to General, even if more valuable pieces were
available; This is a limitation of Fairy-Max.)

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