Comments by CBagleyJones

oh yeah, i like dullahan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dullahan

another idea could be Abaddon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaddon 

grim reaper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_reaper

ah ok, that is fine anyways i have interest in that list, i didn't realise
there was so many shogi pieces with no backward movement, 14 pieces there.
i want to update my game 'gods on pluto' with a few more pieces that do
not have backward movement, at least putting pieces inside the zrf.

Charles you have name for a piece that is mao + xiang don't you, i think i
seen before, can't remember. Can you tell me, and, can you link where you
where you have piece names for slider and slider compounds not higher than
2 squares? (oh maybe leaper compounds not higher than 2 squares also).

the link given for George Jelliss: Theory of Moves, Knight's Tour Notes 2001,
does not work, but you can find it here, an interesting article (14 pages) he prepared for a talk to the Hastings and St Leonards Chess Club on 21 August 2010.
http://www.mayhematics.com/v/v.htm .. just click on 'simple chess variants', a pdf. Great fun for variant fans to read, from page 9 ..

All possible leapers with coordinates up to 4 have acquired special names, as follows: Dummy {0,0}, Wazir {0,1}, Dabbaba {0,2}, Threeleaper {0,3}, Fourleaper {0,4}, Fers {1,1}, Knight {1,2}, Camel {1,3}, Gi-raffe {1,4}, Alfil {2,2}, Zebra {2,3}, Lancer {2,4}, Tripper {3,3}, Antelope {3,4} and Commuter {4,4}.
Names for all two-pattern leapers with coordinates up to 2 are: King {0,1}+{1,1}, Wazaba {0,1}+{0,2}, Emperor {0,1}+{1,2}, Caliph {0,1}+{2,2}, Duke {1,1}+{0,2}, Prince {1,1}+{1,2}, Ferfil {1,1}+{2,2}, Templar {0,2}+{1,2}, Alibaba {0,2}+{2,2} and Hospitaller {1,2}+{2,2}.
Any combination of a piece with a free piece is obviously free. It can however happen that a two-pattern leaper is free even though its components are not. I call such pieces amphibians. The simplest cases are Frog {1,1}+{0,3}, Toad {0,2}+{0,3} and Newt {2,2}+{0,3}.
Many other two-pattern leapers are possible. Of particular interest, especially to those who know the theorem of Pythagoras are the Fiveleaper {0,5}+{3,4} and the Rootfiftyleaper {5,5}+{1,7}, which are the only two-pattern fixed-distance leapers on the 8×8.
The simplest three-pattern leaper is the Centaur {0,1}+{1,1}+{1,2} a combination of king and knight.

Stone General : moves 1 square diagonally forward.

Iron General : moves 1 square in the 3 forward directions.

Evil Wolf: steps 1 square orthogonally sideways or directly forward, or
diagonally forward.

Ram's-head soldier: slides diagonally forward any number of squares.

Wood General: slides 1 or 2 squares diagonally forward.

Enchanted Badger: Steps 1 or 2 squares orthogonally forward or sideways.

Violent Bear: steps 1 square horizontally and one or two squares diagonally
forward.

Flying Cock: steps 1 square orthogonally sideways or diagonally forward.

Lance: moves any number of free squares directly forward (orthogonal).

Keima: leaps 2 squares directly forward like a knight only.

Side Mover: moves any number of free squares orthogonally sideways, or 1
square directly forward.('Heian dai shogi').

Side dragon: moves any number of free squares in a straight line
orthogonally forward or sideways.('Taikyoku shogi').

Running wolf: steps 1 square orthogonally forward or moves any number of
free squares orthogonally sideways or diagonally forward (Taikyoku shogi).

Angry boar: moves 1 square orthogonally forward or sideways or 1-2 squares
diagonally forward (Taikyoku shogi).

Shogi variants checked; wa, chu, heian dai, dai, tenjiku, dai dai, maka dai
dai, tai and taikyoku.

hi
is this your first chess variant, congrats on creating.
i think you should make a game page for it here on this site, instead of
just giving a link to your webpage in this forum.

Yes 'tai shogi' and 'dai dai shogi' have a 'lion dog', which moves 1-3 squares on the queen lines.
Both these games are thought to be from the 15th century, if not earlier.
You can call these games war games, but in essence, they really are chess variants i would say.

I am guessing you did not know about this piece?
I don't know why you would copyright a piece like this, are you meaning you have copyrighted the name 'dragon' for a piece moving as you give?
Or copyrighting the name 'dragon'?
The chances of someone making a game calling a piece 'dragon' and giving it the moves of a 'lion dog' are probably a million to one.

I will be releasing a zrf to showcase many shogi pieces from the ancient shogi variants, the 'lion dog' is included, hope i'm not breaking the law (lol).

Wow, thanks for that :))
I knew of 'guardian of the gods' being in 'maka dai dai shogi' and
'tai shogi', being a R3 slider with also a 1 square diagonally forward
move, now i see, yes, 'guardian of the gods' in 'taikyoku shogi' omits
the diagonally forward move. Nice!!

I knew about the two different 'wrestler' pieces, i'm pretty sure in
another chat you told me about that when i was searching for a shogi piece
moving 1-3 squares diagonally, hehe.

Thanks again for your help, i'm coding shogi pieces from all the ancient
classic shogi variants to release on a zrf to showcase them all, will be
released this year, it is not a game, just something to showcase the
pieces.
It will have a least more than 120 pieces. The graphics will be done to try
to indicate how the pieces move also just by looking at the piece.

i think now i have done 118 pieces, but i'm getting tired of it lol and
dont know how many more i can do, the shogi pieces seem endless haha. It is
mainly pieces from 'taikyoku' left to do also.

yes it moves 1-3 squares on the queen lines.
oops yeah and no jumps, slider.

piece is from dai dai shogi, 'lion dog'.

Hey, i've noticed something about this mahabharata verse, and i don't think we have been looking at it in the right context. I'll tell you why.

First of all, to understand exactly what Yudhishthira is saying in this verse, you have to know what is going on in his life at this time. He and his brothers have just spent 12 years in exile and have one more year to go, but if they are detected in this final year, they must spend another 13 years in exile. So they plan to spend the final year in disguise, living in the city of Virata. So now, each brother speaks, telling the others ....

1. how they are going to disguise themselves
2. how they will spend their time in this disguise and go undetected till the year ends.

With this in mind, let's look at what Yudhishthira says. Sentences 1 and 2 ...

(1). Yudhishthira replied, 'Ye sons of the Kuru race, ye bulls among men, hear what I shall do on appearing before king Virata.  (2). Presenting myself as a Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become a courtier of that high-souled king. 

ok, this is clear, Yudhishthira tells his brothers how he plans to disguise himself as a pro-gamer, so to speak. Now sentences 3 and 4.

(3). And moving upon boards beautiful pieces made of ivory, of blue and 
yellow and red and white hue, by throws of black and red dice. (4). I shall entertain the king with his courtiers and friends. 

Now the 3rd sentence here is the one we are always told Yudhisthira describes a game, however, this is not true, Yudhisthira is actually describing HIMSELF PLAYING A GAME. He is telling his brothers how he will be passing his days in the king's court playing games. It is one thing to describe a game, but it is another thing to describe yourself playing a game, they are two different things. And look at the 4th sentence, it follows on from the 3rd, it shows the outcome of his playing games, he shall entertain the king.

In the 5th and 6th sentences, Yudhisthira then says how he will be undetected.

(5) And while I shall continue to thus delight the king, nobody will succeed in discovering me. (6) And should the monarch ask me, I shall say, 'Formerly I was the bosom friend of Yudhishthira.' 

And look at the last sentence ....

(7) I tell you that it is thus that I shall pass my days (in the city of Virata).

He finishes telling them 'it is thus that i shall pass my days ..'.

When you understand he is describing himself playing a game, rather than the game itself, it isn't such a big deal he has used the word 'board' instead of a more specific term. How many of us today use the word 'board' instead of 'chessboard', and as far as not describing the piece movements, what is the point?  If we ask these questions, 'why not board specific word' and 'why not describe piece movements', i think we are clearly not understanding what Yudhisthira is telling his brothers.

If you read the Mahabharata after Yudhisthira finishes, all his other brothers speak, telling how they will disguise themselves and how they pass their days in this disguise. Also, looking at the 3rd sentence of Yudhisthira, note his words 'And moving upon boards' and 'by throws of black and red dice'. He is painting a picture of himself playing the game. You will note in this sentence, he describes what the pieces are made of, the colors of the pieces, even the color of the dice, all the visuals.

Also i think it is interesting he says 'beautiful pieces', though you can conclude nothing from it. It is more easily imaginable this describes chess-like pieces rather than Pachisi pieces, though as i said, this proves nothing. Oh, one more thing, i think there is also no doubt Yudhisthira's brothers knew very well the game he was talking about playing.

So i think i have to go back to what i originally thought, this game could be a pachisi type game or it could be chaturaji.

AndR, i have no idea how zillions comes up with these numbers, it gives a pawn in this game the rating of 2,752.
It is free to become a member of this site, and your comments will be posted straight away instead of the wait, you should consider this :)

Well i know pawns really hold a game together, without the pawns things are
pretty chaotic and all over the place. Play some short range piece game
where pieces cannot attack each other from the start, without pawns, and
you will get an idea what pawns do.

The Gazelle is a pretty standard name for the knight/zebra compound.
There are many pieces not mentioned in Piececlopedia.
If you have Zillions of Games, download my game 'Piece Promotion Games 2', it has the Gnu, Bison and Gazelle in it's variants. Zillions rates these pieces as follows ..
Gnu 16,338
Gazelle 15,245
Bison 14,316.
Also you can see the Buffalo (knight/camel/zebra) and Squirrel (knight/dabbaba/alfil) in this game.
Another place to look at different fairy pieces is
http://www.mayhematics.com/v/gm.htm

hey joe
thanks for adding the game to the list of game courier games.
there seems to be some problem though, with the logging of games.
on the preset page, if you click on ..

'You may also review past games of 4-Handed Chaturanga.'

it does not bring up the game we finished last week, or if you try to see
'active games' it does not bring up our current game we are playing.

i do not know if the problem is caused by the error of spelling the name
'chaturanga', like, if you look at our current game it is under the title
of '4-Handed Chatarunga'. As you can see, the word 'chaturanga' is
spelt wrong.

(check your email, i asked you something about your warlord game).

welcome back, nice to hear your ok :)

So Charles, you are going with the 10x10 board as shown on the page, what about the the 10x8 you showed in the comments? Two variants? If so you should add to the page.
i like the look of the 10x10 myself.
Yeah i misunderstood those pieces you made, thinking them more powerful than you made. I really love the way they are, fantastic.

lol.
yeah that's ok, you wanna restart both games? .. i'll send you an email.

hey everyone. 
if your interested to see this game in action joe and i are playing a couple of games on game courier at the moment.
thanks.

ok i've done a couple of screens showing promoted and promoting pieces. It is at the very bottom of the page.
 
I have noticed also the ingame help for 'Rushing Bird' does not give info on what it promotes to, i'll update this game with that info and it should go up on zillions site next weekend.

Yeah i like the pieces too. I'll be releasing something to showcase over 200 fairy pieces (not a game), i'll add these 2 pieces.
I don't mind the 10x10 board, and as far as it making most pieces too slow, i think that really is a matter for personal taste. I do think though the piece density might be a bit heavy.

hi, i just need all the experts to help me with some piece info :)
can anyone tell me if they know a game where these types of pieces are
used.
1. Camel/wazir (3-1 leaper and moves one square orthogonally).
2. moves 1 to 3 squares orthogonally, cannot leap (like limited rook).
i guess i'm trying to find the earliest possible game these pieces have
appeared, but any game where they play is ok.
thanks

ah ha, thanks for info on 'Wrestler' in Taikyoku Shogi!!
i had seen this piece in this game but i just assumed it moved like it does
in Tai Shogi and Maka Dai Dai Shogi. That's excellent, thanks again.

Mats, i do not think this game should suffer from any type of exhaustion.
If two people sit down to play the game over the board, they do not have to play the game to the finish, it can played over a few sittings. I do think playing by email though would be best.

As far as mental exhaustion goes, due to the large amounts of different moves available that will arise during the game, this is not fide chess, it is a game on a very large board. One would have to use their intuition and feel for the game, you would have to disregard many moves that on appearance there would seem nothing wrong the move. There would be too many moves to analize, so you would have to do your best.
Would this add a greater element of luck in the game, i would say definitely yes, would this make the game unplayable, i would say definitely not.
I'm not sure what game people play on game courier that would be the closest to Leaping Bat, would it be Cataclysm?

Cataclysm plays on a 16x12 board with 16 pawns like Leaping Bat, but Cata has 24 pieces to LB's 32, so that is a fair difference, and the piece strength also in Cata is greater than LB, so this is probably not a great example, but still it must give us some indication i think.
Amazingly i have noticed that a couple of Cata games have been completed in under 80 moves, another seems to have gone to around 350, if memory serves me correct. Obviously, it appears that Cata is indeed playable.
In the interest of the study of big board games, if anyone knows another large board variant, at least 16x12 board, played on game courier, could you please post to say.

Leaping Bat seems to play with a fairly standard set of fairy pieces. Is there anything in particular about this game that makes you estimate the amount of moves it could take to play as you have?

Or are you saying, that any game played on a 16x12 board, with a similar set-up to Leaping Bat, (full row of pawns and two full rows of pieces playing at either ends of the board with at least the same amount of one square movers and similar piece strength/variety) would take this long?

Heya
Under the heading 'pieces' u describe the moves of the 'dragon', but u dont describe fully, the rest of the description u have in 'notes'. And it is an important part of the movement of the dragon. I really think u should put the full description of the 'dragon' where u describe it's movement.

Also, u say 'The Dragon on its own cannot kill another Dragon'

If the rule is simply 'a dragon cannot take another dragon', i think u should say like that, saying 'on it's own' seems to imply it might be able to take another dragon 'with help'.

Also i wonder why u say 'Hence the Dragon is more of a Defensive unit but can be used offensively but in a limited capacity.'
The dragon can take other pieces, right, except another dragon, and can't give check, but it does have range, it can back up pieces and can take other pieces, from range, yes? 

I havn't played much chinese chess really so i don't fully know much about defending in this game, i just wonder how a 4 step mover can be a defender, seems if it moves it does move a fair distance away from defence, maybe? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, game looks nice, would be interesting to see how it plays, would be nice to see a small diagram of the whole board with pieces on it too.
Thanks :)

edit - oh i'm guessing it plays defence by blocking?

Great game Mats, congrats. 
The pyrrhus, what a piece, i found it really painful at first, lol, i thought it's power of paralyzing pieces was too much, the knight being the only piece that could attack the pyrrhus! I wondered if the pyrrhus's range should be 'cut down', like say paralyzing 4 or 5 squares range on the queen lines. However, once i got used to the piece, it seems to me the game is very smooth and heaps of fun and very nice. I think the way the pyrrhus is is the best.

The knight in this game is actually a pretty powerful piece, much more powerful than the bishops and probably more powerful than the rooks too, because it can attack the pyrrhus. If both pyrrhus's are paralyzed, you wouldn't want to have two bishops against two knights, lol, that's for sure.
I'm rating excellent.

Oh i notice you have a 10x10 game with two pyrrhus's a side, how does that play compared to the 8x8 do you think, i'll have to check it out.

sorry for writing 'u' meaning 'you', but u just might have to get used to it when i post on the forums.

let's just remember i said u can call your pieces whatever u want, i couldn't care at all really.

You say about 'all the king's men' site .. 'seems to be considered the authoritative page on problematist usage'

This is a problematist page? Right at the top of the page is says ...
'A Guide to Variant Chess: All the King's Men'

It starts off with this ..
'This part of the Guide to Variant Chess is devoted to chess pieces.'

anyway, even if it is problematist page, i didn't know the chess variant community had a 'war' going on with them, but that page to me does not seem to be a 'problemastist' page, please correct me if i'm wrong.

oops sorry, i meant shatranj, i think u knew :)

Claudio, i'm from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. We recently got flooded bad here but the house i live in was fine, all good.
Now, what alfaeirie graphic's don't we have for what, hehe?
Sorry :)

oh, piece naming, it's a pain, i like to use the 'orginal' name mostly for pieces but some pieces get so well known by certain names in your 'community' that it is hard to resist, some names u don't like, etc etc.
i got no time at the moment, got to go out but i'll revisit the sticky subject of piece naming, bye for now, and, 'where's my beer' :)

ok, i worked out what the problem was with 'ballista_north' and 'ballista _south' files.

there is a 'space' after the last letter, before the '.bmp'

i.e. 

'wballista_north .bmp' etc etc.

Hey this game looks great, love the big board and not too many pieces added, really like the 'duke' too. I will have to check out the game courier logs, i like this type of game because one can learn more about gameplay with fairly short range type pieces on a very large board. Great stuff.

Heya Fergus, after our talk last week about pawns i thought i'd check out your game here. And i must say, it's been a lot of fun!!
Now, if u don't know, i am a big fan of the more 'chaturanga, shatranj' etc etc styled pieces, and have only played games with these 
kind of pieces for years now. So, this game, looked very daunting to me, to say the least, as i pondered my first move, hehe.

After the first couple of games, i was all over the place, the game seemed hard the manage, very dynamic and nearly chaotic. But 
then, after a few more games, i started to get a feel for it, and i had some wonderful games. I'm rating 'excellent'.

Nearly right from the start, the game seems dynamic to me, and it stays that way throughtout the game, but there seems to be a 
steadiness of play, the 'chaotic' i felt at first, was 'controlled', still there, but it's balanced and 'held' in the game. 
The Cavlier's i think put a uniqueness to the game. They do act as 'pawn's' but they are more flexible than a pawn, and 
when they get to the 8th rank they are in striking distance of promoting.

Nice piece placement for the opening, and great seeing the 'nightrider' playing too. Sometimes, in a somewhat wild position, it 
was interesting playing a cavlier non-threateningly up the board and feeling it was safe and the best move.
I really feel the cavlier makes this game unique and exciting. Great work.

ah that's ok Joe, all is fine now i hope, i kind of didn't even realise things got out of hand a bit here. Let's all forgive and be friends, i know the nameing of pieces can sometimes cause 'friction' among people, but let's try to remember, it's not really that much of a big deal hehe.

I don't want to get off the topic here, but, i am going to update this game (hehe) to fix the 'early check' problem arising from the 'trippers' on h1 and h10. At first i was going to simply remove them and not even replace them with anything but i now i'm thinking i could replace them with the 'threeleaper'. I know Jeremy Good has played a few games of 'Sky' on game courier here and wanted to know his opinion of this. Anyone who has thoughts on this i would be interested to hear too. Thanks all.

Thank you very much for the link there Mr. Knappen (i can't read your first name, webpage doesn't show 2nd letter, is it 'Jorg').
That page looks fantastic, lots of info, but it's in german right, lol, dang i can't read it lol.
I can make out some stuff though, and yes the 5-1 leaper there is called 'Ibis', and, come to think of it, i don't know if i have ever seen the 5-1 even mentioned. Also that page show's the 'flamingo', and besides this site, that is another leaper that is not mentioned on other pages too, i don't think George Jelliss has it on his page.
Also, that page gives two names for the 4-2 leaper, 'Lancer' and 'Hase'. Mr. Jelliss also calls 4-2 leaper 'Lancer', so, this page is not connected with him, right?

Oh, Charles, who is 'Torsten Linss', u give a link to some problems he composed about the 'flamingo'.

i think what Carlos meant to say was ...
'Fergus: What do you think about (this chess variant site) running a
tourney like this?'

I find it interesting about talking about pawns, and i would like the throw
some ideas around. Pawns no doubt are the soul of chess, they keep the game
structured. If the game of chess was just played with pieces alone, the
game would quickly become chaotic. They put a boundary between both armies,
and this is very desireable.

However, within the realm of chess variants, because of the nature and
concept of the games created, sometimes pawns would destroy the chess
variant.

Take for instance, 'The Travelers' by Roberto Lavieri. This is a
brilliant game, but there are no pawns, and there is no place for pawns in
this game, it would destroy the 'nature and concept' of this game
entirely. Also my game 'Sky', pawns would destroy the freedom of movement
of the 
unusually long jumping leapers, and pawns also here would destroy the flow
of the game. These games i think one can easily see how pawns are not
desired.

Lets have a look at Joe Joyce's game (hey Joe) in relation to pawns. Well,
first off, it is played on a very big playing field (16x12). How do pawns
go holding structure on a huge board like this? It must be harder to do
than on a 8x8. Now what is the 'nature and concept' of this game. Joe can
best answer this i'm sure. Just off the top of my head, it is centered on
piece play, and because the board is very big, we wont find the 'chaotic'
nature that would arise on an 8x8 board if this was played just with
pieces. Also, there is a rule in this game that greatly hammpers the
chaotic nature of a game that plays just with pieces ....

'No piece may ever move unless it is activated by a chieftain which has to
be within 3 squares of it at the start of its move'.

Probably also, on this size board, Joe has not put too many pieces in the
game, and lastly, the pieces are short range, and not powerful pieces.

I think a lot of chess variants are 'thinking out of the square' and the
rules that hold to chess or games very 'chess like' cannot be applied to
all chess variants.
 
Anyway, discuss, lol :)

By the way, hi to everyone here at this great site, i've been away for
awhile, busy and stuff. As regards the tournament u are all talking about,
i don't think i can play, but maybe in the future i can get it together
and find time to play in one.

heya, no, i looked at the piece movements and 'steps' cant be just for a single square move, for instance ...

Free Demon:
steps 5 forward orthogonal or backward orthogonal, slides left orthogonal or right orthogonal or diagonal.

Yes this is brilliant game, but u know u can play this game under a few variant rules, besides actually capturing the king, u can also play this game using the standard checkmate style.

Steve Nichols has a site where u can download a nice program that plays these variants, http://www.chaturanga.com/

Playing the 'double mate' variant, red and yellow play of course against black and green. Now how this works is, if for instance, red army mates black, then, black now cannot move as the different armies make their moves around the board (order is red, black, yellow, green).

So red would move, then yellow, then green, and so forth. Because each army has only 3 major pieces, this can often tie up the pieces and make them unable to move, if they want to 'hold' the mate on the board. Yellow would be able to attack the non-moving mated black army, and capture pieces, but this of course could lead the release of mate on black, but if enough pieces are taken then this of course can be ok. Green is not going to stand around and do nothing, and would try to attack red to try to release the mate on the black army, or even try to mate yellow!! If green can release black from mate, then black would again be able to start to make moves!

Exciting gameplay indeed. I did play a game with a friend, and early in the game, his red army did mate my black side, but, on his very next move as red, his ONLY legal move was to move his ship, which released my black army from mate, and, by the way, haha, i went on to win the game.

I play this game with a few friends and all agree this 'double mate' variant is the best way to play.

ok, giving this game an excellent rating because of your effort to make this a zrf in the style of playing it with no dice, and, because this is my fav game too hehe, well done :)

hello :))
after white plays h1-e4 black has five diff moves to get out of mate and i believe this is more than enough. After black moves a tripper in front of the king, if white decides the play the same piece again and check black king then black can move their king forward. Now i know in normal chess, moving the king to the 2nd rank on your second move is not good, lol, in this game, it is fine, the king can nicely move up the board because of the nature of the pieces in the game, and the king is a 'strong fighting piece' in this kind of game. Also, it is interesting i thought that there is a mate on the 2nd move hehe.

i tested the game a lot, and didnt find white had any winning advantage.
the idea of this game is to give pieces which are generally seen only in fairy chess problems a field of play. Having pawns in the game makes these pieces very awkward to play, so with no pawns these pieces can freely play without problems associated with pawns, and play they do, surprising well and flowing very happily. the very set up of the pieces actually makes them not come in contact with each other easily in the opening play.

the idea of having a queen in the game i would consider extremely bad because it is too powerful and would destroy the mood of the game, and also a piece that moves like alfil/dababa too strong and would also destroy flow and mood of game.

well i hope this site is going well, i take a look every now and then and of course new games keep getting invented, nice :)

i have been playing 'World of Warcraft' these last few years, what an amazing game :)

kk all the best, bye for now :)

sorry yep there will be seperate pages done for each game, but you can see
descriptions of each game here (starting half way down the page)
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MPtheshortrangep
(ohhh not having zillions, how can a chess variant lover do without it!)
Joe will be doing pages for each game soon, i don't know why he is taking
so long :)

i know i'm late with this, but happy new year everyone, thanks to David
and Fergus and all editors and contributors, readers and players etc etc,
hope all is fine and well, thanks for making this site the best chess
variant site in world (yes the world) !!!!
So many great variants created last year, hope this year brings many more,
which i'm sure it will!

Claudio, i like it! (sorry for late reply).
thanks for taking an interest in 'the shortrange project', i think it
should be added to 'project 2', i am sure Joe would agree.
If we can't put a zrf together, we can at least add info/link for this
game.

yes it is a tough call, i am not sure about what colors are normally used,
but they all look good to me, i think you should buy 2 sets :)
black and white look good, but the red looks pretty good too hehe :)

well i don't understand something here, if the 'guard' can move 1 or 2
squares in any direction, it must be easily more powerful than the knight
or bishop, but you say it is not as strong as these pieces ... even a
piece that can move like a 'king' is more powerful than a knight or
bishop.
Joe and i recently put out 'the shortrange project', and in these
variants we have a 'sliding general' (moves 1 or 2 squares any
direction) or a 'queen-2-slider' (moves like a queen, but only 1 or 2
squares), and both of these are easily more powerful than the humble yet
beautiful bishop and knight.
so either i don't understand how your guard moves, or you don't realise
how powerful it is :)

you are on the wrong page, you should read here
http://www.chessvariants.org/d.chess/chess.html

Yes UGLi, well noted. The extreme outer part could be a place for the missing '4th' position, but this still doesn't work, each quarter of this board has 3 spaces within it, the Byzantine board has 4, so this cannot be a Byzantine board.

* 3 spaces on one file or row or whatever call it. It has 9 spaces in total within a quarter, while Byzantine has 16.

The centre also is different, being more a 'point' than a 'circle'.

Joe says ..

I will note that while it's easy to tell our writing apart, people will find it much harder to tell our designs apart, as we fall into the category of designers exemplified by Fighting Kings and Royal Pawn Chess. And since we discuss games and look at each other's work, it's sometimes hard for us to tell just who did what. [Now if we could only understand each other...]

Wow, very nicely put. Looking at the games now, it seems like one person put them together. i know i was doing stuff thinking 'you are going to like this' and visa versa, but how does this explain the 50 million emails that went down all with the theme of 'what are you talking about?!' lol.

he is the hometown boy, why can't he play if they want, he doesn't mess
up the tournament or anything, in 2004 linares i think it was, he drew
both games with kramnik, and both games with topa!
linares wouldn't be linares with vallejo!

even if kram wins, when the 2007 wc comes around, he won't go in it, say
he is 'classical' world champ, and we will get 2 world champs again.

Charles, you’re a funny guy :) I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can’t
help myself, I must protest this great injustice to Pluto.
You know, there is just something about Pluto, I love that little guy!
And, I don’t care what the scientists say Pluto is, it will always be a
planet to me. Besides, there are scientists that still call Pluto a
planet, so it is ok.
Yes, what an embarrassment for the scientists this year lol, when it
became known to the general mass of people, that they didn’t really have a
clear idea what a planet was!! Interestingly, that didn’t stop them from
naming planet after planet, till we were told we had 8 other planets
around us. 
I am not sure, but I think in 2009, they will meet again, our brilliant
minds, and then, most likely, we will have a new definition of a planet,
and maybe, just maybe, Pluto will be a planet again ha ha. Actually, there
is practically no doubt they will produce a new definition.
Anyway, on the up side, there is a spaceship on it’s way to the outer
reaches, to visit Pluto and beyond, called ‘New Horizons’. 
Home Page –   http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php
Mission page - http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.html
This could be the fastest spacecraft ever, it reaches Jupiter in early 2007, 
it left Earth Jan 19, 2006!
see here http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/N/New_Horizons.html