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Sam Trenholme wrote on Sat, Sep 19, 2009 06:29 PM EDT:

Hey, it's really great you did this contest! I have taken the liberty of taking the file, renaming it to Schoolbook-2009-Muller, using a program to make the .zip file a little smaller (Advancecomp, based on the 7-zip code), and putting it at http://samiam.org/schoolbook.

I agree developing the Queen in the Schoolbook array is awkward. The quickest way to develop her (which Joker likes to do) is 1. c3 followed often by 2. Bc2. Unlike FIDE chess, in Schoolbook it's very different to develop the strong pieces quickly early in the game.

It's also a bit difficult to develop the Marshall (Rook + Knight piece). Indeed, because of the setup, often times people end up exchanging off the Marshall early. After 1. f4 f5 2. Bd4, black can now do 2. ... Mh6, which threatens Mxh2.

Now, excuse me while I let some inventor's pride through:

I observed similar problems when designing this variant. The thinking is this: By making the major pieces harder and more awkward to develop, we lower White's advantage. Since there's so much more power on the board than in FIDE Chess, it's important we don't let White quickly dominate things.

Just as, in FIDE Chess, the rooks are pieces that are usually not put in to play until the mid-game or endgame, Schoolbook's unusual setup makes it so all the really powerful pieces aren't as often put in to play until past the opening. This way, the minor pieces are still relevant, develop more easily (knight and bishop development is basically the same as in FIDE Chess, without the tension caused by the queen defending a center pawn), and allow Black to more easily equalize than in other Capablanca setups.

Of course, the disadvantage of this is that games can be longer than for other Capa setups, and some of the patterns are very different from FIDE's patterns.

Speaking of how the Capa opening setup affects the game, the following setups allow white to threaten mate on the first move: 

RQNBMKBNAR		1. Md3 mating threat
RQBNAKNBMR		1. Mh3 mating threat
RNBQAKMBNR      	Gargoyle substitute (1. Mh3 mating threat)
RNBAQKMBNR      	Capa 1 (1.Mh3 mating threat)
RNBAQKMBNR		Embassy substitute (1. Mh3 mating threat)
RBNQKMANBR		1. Mg3 mating threat
RABNQKNBMR		Capablanca substitute (1. Mh3 mating threat)

What is your experience with these setups where White can threaten mate on the first move? You used three of them as 'substitute' setups in your 10x8 contest, so I know you have played with some of these. Do they give White a strong advantage? Do these setups seem unbalanced to you?

We had a discussion about this in another thread a couple of years ago, but none of us had the tools to really test the setups, so we were unable to come to any real conclusions.

About SMIRF, it looks like 8x10.net is down, so I was unable to download the most recent version of SMIRF. I have older versions of SMIRF, and they play Schoolbook chess quite nicely, but I don't feel it is fair to enter an older outdated version of SMIRF in to the contest.


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