Comments by Ed

My favourites are:

1.  Shogi
2.  Tori shogi
3.  Yonin shogi
4.  4-handed chaturanga (without dice)
5.  Chosen (i.e., Korean) shogi

I absolutely love when contributions to CV discuss how best to play chess variants. I thought that anyone who appreciated this article might like additional studies on Makruk endgame.

I found a very interesting site presenting 224 Makruk checkmate problems at http://www.tv5.co.th/service/mod/heritage/nation/thaichess/thaichess.htm The page is in Thai, but that should be no limitation on usefulness to anyone. The positions and their solutions are all diagramatic.

The checkmate problems begin at the sixth link down on the left on the main page. The pages are generally thematic and stress how to deliver checkmate efficiently with minimal material.

So, if one moves the river, can this cause pawns to demote when they are
again situated on their own side of the river?

If there is no game courier version likely, has the author tried playing
this with a ZRF or over the board?

I assume that the relative orientation of the palace is constant, i.e., the
edge closest to the opponent always faces the same direction and that the
palace cannot be reoriented, say, rotated through 90° as well as or in lieu
of other movement.  I assume from the description of the river's movement
as one step towards oneself or towards the opponent at a time that the
river maintains its orientation and does not rotate through 90° either.

This looks like an interesting variant.

Recently I came across some shatar problem literature, a couple of
collections of what seem to be checkmate problems, but they differ in some
respects from international chess checkmate problems so that I wonder
either if we have a complete understanding of Mongolian checkmate rules or
of aesthetic conventions that may be dear to Mongolians in their chess
play.  In not a few of the examples in these collections the solutions
proposed are not the most efficient (sometimes the diagram has an immediate
checkmate by our conventions but that does not use all the material on the
board), involve the pieces gaining the checkmate from the initial position
moving only once, and seem all to end with checkmate being delivered by a
pawn.  I wonder if there is in addition to the prohibition of delivering
immediate checkmate by pawn a superior win condition because checkmate is
delivered finally by a pawn after a series of checks (maybe extra stakes if
a bet had been placed on the game?).  I wonder also if there is a
prohibition on repeated or multiple checks by the same piece.  I know of no
authentic shatar game scores on which to conjecture an opinion.

My inferences are based only on the diagrams and solutions to be read in
these Mongolian texts; I am completely sure that a chess master composing a
book of problems must not fail to see an immediate checkmate that someone
like me could recognize.  And yet, I cannot read Mongolian so as to
understand the description of the conventions and goals of such problem
literature as he may have seen fit to record.

I hope that a Mongolian shatar player could enlighten me.

As to identifying the historical source for chess among the Mongolians, I
wonder if this inference about pawn-delivered checkmate as a flourish of
good chess play would be another datum pointing to a Persian-Arab ancestor
rather than one directly from India.

Dear Editor,

I found an image of a Chinese chess variant
(http://www.hudong.com/versionview/idl,pAUWBxBWVKVEd2U,kVZZA) that I don't
recognize and wonder if you know what one it is.  I have searched on your
website but have found nothing similar.

From what I can see, the board has been lengthened by two ranks on each
side of the river, the extended range of the elephant inscribed on the
board, and the governor used for both sides as the royal piece in the
fortress; the generals (two per side) are positioned for a new function, it
seems, outside the fortress.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I found an image of a Chinese chess variant
(http://www.hudong.com/versionview/idl,pAUWBxBWVKVEd2U,kVZZA) that I don't
recognize and wonder if anyone knows what one it is.  I have searched on
the Chessvariants' website but have found nothing similar.

From what I can see, the board has been lengthened by two ranks on each
side of the river, the extended range of the elephant inscribed on the
board, and the governor used for both sides as the royal piece in the
fortress; the generals (two per side) are positioned for a new function,
it
seems, outside the fortress.

I see a new English-language work on Sittuyin has been made available on
the internet:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/79655591/How-to-Play-Myanmar-Traditional-Chess-EnG-BOOK-1

I thought that it was very helpful both for its diagrammatic presentation
of 37 opening arrays, its practical summaries of endgame positions and move
counting in endgame, and other helpful details for playing this worthy form
of chess.

Dear Mr. Gabor:

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think that this is a local feature of chess
play that once prevailed in a number of locales in central Europe
eastward.

I seem to recall Murray in his _History of Chess_ proposing such a feature
as evidence of an 'undercurrent' of Mongolization in western chess that
would date from the time of the Golden Horde.  He also posited the sway of
chess clubs, I think, as the most effective instrument for these local
customs disappearing, but clearly they endure in Hungary.

Mats,

Thank you for the alternate playing set for hiashatar in your ZRF, which
plays quite well.  The hia in this ZRF creates all manner of delicious
positional paradoxes that allow him to shepherd a passed pawn rather
effectively to promotion, I notice.  Your ZRF carries it off much more
convincingly than I have over the board.

I see that you used images that look like R. Pozzi's hiashatar set, a
truly appealing group that adds another level of aesthetic appeal to the
ZRF.  My own set, different from that one, presents the hia as an armed
warrior standing with hand to the ready on the hilt of his sword -- one
side, the aggressors, sneering at the opponents.  I rather prefer the
wizened features of the advisers of Pozzi's set, so thanks again.

@Mats: I added a favorable comment on the page linking to your excellent
hiashatar ZRF, which I will not repeat here.

I only wanted to give a link for anyone interested in the kind of diagram
to which I refer in native shatar literature:
http://shop.kongfz.com/show_pics.php?shopId=6625&bookId=34840797

The image shows some pieces in a diagram that decorate the book cover of a
problem collection.  I wish I had clearer page images to refer to, but the
point is somewhat moot, given the fine, aesthetically pleasing solution
that Mats offers in his ZRF.

@Mats Winther: For your Sittuyin ZRF, would you be willing to add
traditional piece graphics like the ones in this Sittuyin guide:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13125331/Myanmar%20Chess.zip ?  I wonder if you
could also add some of these standard setups as options to select, or the
other setups not in Maung Maung Lwin's book that are found in David
Pritchard's earlier Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (p. 32)?

@Yu Ren Dong: Thank you for this information.  I had seen this book
advertised and wondered about the content.  I wonder if it includes game
scores that illustrate the differences of rules, variations, etc.  I wonder
also if it describes in a more complete fashion the large versions of
shatar that I understand are played on 9x9, 10x10, 11x11, 12x12 boards.

You were very kind to supply these details.

I truly like this set of chu shogi.  Recently I came across what seems to
be a chu shogi variant and wonder if anyone knows the rules:
http://shogi.me/blog/2011/03/kyushu-chess-championship/

The variant is played on a 10x10 board with some of the chu shogi pieces as
one can see in the second photo.  In the first one can make out pieces
missing from the second photo but that belong to a chu shogi set.  The blog
author questions whether the variant is the invention of the man in the
photograph.  It clearly is intended as a simplification of chu shogi, since
the board geometry and number of piece types has been reduced.  I assume it
does not use drops, since the drunk elephant is on the board, but this is
all guesswork.

I would welcome information.  Thanks!

@Yu Ren Dong: I was reading an article of Ivor Montagu in British Chess of
1958.  He mentions that there is an ancient treatise on Mongolian chess in
the National Library of Ulaanbaatar.  I wonder if that source is cited in
the book on Mongolian chess that you quoted in earlier comments or if you
know whether that book has been transcribed or translated into other
languages.

@MatsWinther: I wonder if you have made a ZRF for Mongolian chess like your
very nice ZRF for hiashatar.  I have to say that scripting some of the
checkmate limitations has been a bit of a nightmare for us to attempt.

Best wishes!