Comments by DavidPaulowich
Dave McCooey - Fairy endgames with 3 pieces (8x8 board)Amazon(R+B+N), Queen(R+B), Chancellor(R+N),
Unicorn(B+NN): a Bishop-Nightrider combination.
||||| Longest Wins for the Strong Side (WHITE) |||||
||||| (strong side has 2 pieces, weak side has 1 piece) |||||
Three-------------Number---Type-----------------------------------Side Piece-----Half------Of------Of-------------------------------------To
Endgame---Moves--Positions-Win------Example Position--------------Move
KRRvKQ-----30-------14 f-captr WK(c8) WR(h2) WR(g8) BK(a1) BQ(d1) WHITE
KRRvKU----202--------4 capture WK(b8) WR(d5) WR(h8) BK(d7) BU(e1) BLACK
KRRvKC-----87--------9 capture WK(d6) WR(a6) WR(a7) BK(g6) BC(d3) WHITE
Queens and Chancellors have good chances of drawing by
perpetual check. If they fail, then the game ends fairly quickly.
The Unicorn has little chance of drawing, but it can drag
the loss out to an incredible 101 moves.
Peter: Murray Lions make interesting 'short-range Queens'. And four of them make sense, as each Murray Lion visits only 16 squares on the board (until it captures on an adjacent square).
Mark: I would guess that 16 games between two evenly matched grandmasters usually results in 9 points for White and 7 points for Black. That would represent a 50 point rating advantage, under the former Canadian system. In the New York 1924 Tournament the players with the White pieces scored 28-27 in the first half and 33-22 in the second half. White's total score for this 11 player double round robin was 61 out of 110, or 55.45 percent.
The statistics button in Chessbase 8.0 informs me that White scored +123, =137, -71 in the 331 games played in 17 world chess championship matches from 1886 to 1937. That is 57.85 percent for White. I count 536 games played from the 1948 tournament to Kramnik - Leko (2004), leaving out all the FIDE events after Short and Kasparov left. White scored +140, =325, -71 or 56.44 percent. Draws are getting more common at the highest level - but that is another topic.
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Dr. Peter Nicolaus writes in BURMESE TRADITIONAL CHESS:
'The Myin moves as the modern knight. The Sin moves one square at a time either diagonally or forward. It seems that Myin and Sin are of equal value. Nevertheless Burmese players appear somewhat reluctant to exchange a Myin against a Sin.'
Roger Hare writes on his Chu Shogi page: 'The old texts say that a kinsho and osho against a bare osho wins.' I assume this means that a King and Silver General can force a 'stalemate position' and then capture the enemy King after it moves. In White Elephant Chess it would seem that a lone Black King on the first rank can achieve a stalemate draw against these two pieces. [EDIT] Kinsho = Gold General in Shogi. I suspect that it is not possible to force stalemate with King and Ginsho = Silver General against a lone King.
Using Zillions, I played out this sample game, which ends with the 4 remaining Black Pawns blockaded by 4 White pieces, while a Black King, Chariot, Knight, Counselor, and Elephant are locked in behind the Pawns. Even if this was a variant allowing Kings to move into check and be captured, Black would still have no legal moves in the final position:
alf-chaturanga.zrf VariantName=Shatranj 1. Pawn h2 - h3 1. Pawn a7 - a6 2. Pawn h3 - h4 2. Knight b8 - c6 3. Chariot h1 - h3 3. Elephant c8 - e6 4. Chariot h3 - f3 4. King d8 - c8 5. Chariot f3 x f7 5. King c8 - b8 6. Chariot f7 x g7 6. Elephant e6 - c8 7. Chariot g7 x h7 7. Chariot a8 - a7 8. Chariot h7 x h8 8. King b8 - a8 9. Pawn a2 - a3 9. Pawn b7 - b6 10. Pawn a3 - a4 10. Knight c6 - b8 11. Pawn a4 - a5 11. Pawn b6 x a5 12. Chariot a1 x a5 12. Counselor e8 - f7 13. Elephant c1 - e3 13. Counselor f7 - e6 14. Elephant e3 - c5 14. Counselor e6 - d5 15. Chariot h8 x g8 15. Counselor d5 - c6 16. Chariot g8 - g5 16. Pawn e7 - e6 17. Chariot g5 - e5 17. Counselor c6 - b7 18. Knight b1 - c3 18. Pawn c7 - c6 19. Knight c3 - e4 19. Elephant f8 - d6 20. Knight e4 x d6
[EDIT 10/22/2024] H. G. Muller posted an applet in the Comments (May 3, 2021). You can click "Play it!" and copypaste the following (eighteen move) game. Clicking "Move" at the end makes the applet appropriately respond with *** I resign! ***
1. a3 a6 2. a4 b6 3. a5 b5 4. Ra3 Ra7 5. Rh3 Be6 6. Rxh7 Kc8 7. Rxg7 Kb7 8. Rxf7 Ka8 9. Rxf8 Bc8 10. Rxg8 Rh5 11. Nc3 Qf7 12. Rg5 Qe6 13. Rxh5 Qd5 14. Nxb5 Qc6 15. Nd6 Qb7 16. Be3 c6 17. Bc5 e6 18. Re5
'I am not sure if this will clarify or confuse the issue, but here is a summary from an old post of George Fernandez:'
*** *** *** *** *** ***
The last version of 'The rules of shogi' I have was written in 1993 by Mr. K. Horiguchi 6 Dan[supplement to the January 1993 issue of Shogi Sekai]. The 96 page booklet, written in japanese, is the official rule book accepted by the Japanese Shogi Association.
The following definitions were given which apply here:
Checkmate:
A checkmate is a position in which a King is in check and there are no legal moves to leave the check.
Illegal moves:
(1)A move is illegal to make a double pawn.
(2)A move is illegal to make a deadlocked piece.
(3)A move is illegal for a player if his King's square is attacked by an opponent piece after the move.[to remain in check, to move into check or to expose the king to check]
(4)A move is illegal to make a repetition check move [Mr. Horiguchi wrote in an addendum the following clarification: '... In the event of perpetual check, if one player player does it FOUR TIMES(three times is permitted), he will lose his game'.
(5)A move is illegal to make a dropping check move by a pawn which leads to a position in checkmate at once(dropped-pawn mate).
Legal moves:
A legal move for a player is a move to leave the check by moving pieces on the board or by dropping if his king is in check. Otherwise, a legal move by a piece on the board which can go[move] or a drop move, which is not illegal.
Remark (condition of ending game):
1. The game is finished if the position is in a checkmate; The player to move loses the game.
2. The game is finished if one player makes an illegal move; This player loses the game.
3. The game is finished if one player has no legal moves; This player loses the game[contrary to chess rules, where a stalemate is considered a draw].
4. The game is finished if one player resigns; This player loses the game.
In an effort to put this issue behind us, and move on, I'm sharing with you a bizzare diagram from the 1993 rules book[page 93, digram #92].
***ENDQUOTE*** I [David Paulowich] am unable to format the diagram for this text message. It shows a stalemate loss for the lone White King. But Black to move also has no legal moves, even though he has a huge army and a Pawn in hand (dropping that Pawn would be mate).
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To paraphrase Betza, the Queen's ability to do 'two things at once' makes it worth a Pawn more than a Rook and a Bishop. My last game of Marseillais Chess leads me to the opinion that Q=R+B exactly in this variant, as the two separate pieces can both move in the same turn. The subject of Marseillais Chess piece values deserves further study.