Comments by GaryK.Gifford

You ask, 'Am I right in understanding the mace this way: I move my mace next to enemy pieces. Then on same turn I can take them off the board?

Yes. One of the adjacent pieces, your choice as to which one. Then, on the next turn, you could for example, move your King, but the Mace still gets to remove an adjacent piece. The Mace need not move... its weapon is essentially striking adjacent enemy pieces (one per turn, if possible). Of course, you can move it or toss it with a Horse-apult... or use the Horse-apult to toss an enemy piece over to a Mace.

Also, is it compulsory to remove all pieces attacked by mace?

Yes. But only one gets removed per turn. (one per Mace, that is) And if mace removes piece/pawn that exposes king to check then does that not mean that the opponent can then capture your king?

No - because the Mace capture (assuming he does not move) is free... so, you could move your King out of the way before or after the exposing... or block the exposing. I can add some examples, perhaps tomorrow. I was wondering too what do you think of adding one mace and one Horse-apult to my customizable game : pick piece big chess. I think it will be a bit slower than yours but it might be quite interesting.

That is fine if you give reference to 'Maces and Horse-apults.' If you dont mind - I can add that into the presets for my game.

Yes, that is fine. Best regards, Gary

I do have some simple requests in regard to your interesting Maces and Horse-apults piece set:

a) Please call the Maces in your preset Alfil-Maces or Elephant-Maces. Because they have that added movement and the new name would make that more clear.

b) Please call the Horse-apults in your preset Dabbabah Horse-apults or War Machine Horse-apults. Because of their added movement. Also, in your rules you need to mention that Horse-apults capture 'adjacent pieces by displacement' (as does a King.)

In time I would hope to see new graphic pieces for the Alfil-Mace and the Dabbabah Horse-apult. The new graphics would be a Elephant/Mace combo image and a Dabbabah/Horse-apult combo image.

With the new images we could have games with standard Maces and Horse-apults; and Alfil-Maces and Dabbabah Horse-apults on the same board.

In closing, congratulations on creating the 'Pick the Piece Big Chess.' I look forward to watching some of these in action.

http://www.seirawanchess.com/

The new plastic pieces (Hawk and Elephant) look very nice. But, I would have preferred that these pieces kept their earlier names (as we see in Capablanca and Gothic Chess and many other variants) and that they kept logical designs which reflect their piece movement, as in Gothic Chess pieces. When I see an Elephant I think of the one from Shatranj, or even the modern Elephant... but certainly not a Bishop-Knight. Seeing an Elephant move like a Bishop or Knight seems terrible to me.

Gating - 1. v. A specialized version of a drop, where a piece or pawn [in reserve, i.e., a pocket piece] is dropped onto a vacant square as designated by the rules for that specific game. A gated piece, for example, could possibly enter a game by one or more of the following methods as designated by the rules: (a) the starting space of a piece or pawn that just moved; (b) a space which was just vacated by a pawn or piece (not necessarily the starting space), (c) a vacant space which is under the influence of a pawn or piece (a projected gated piece); (d) dropped onto a designated vacant space, or one space of a set of spaces (as with a Shogi drop). (e) use another method, such as the roll of dice to introduce a piece. Typically only one of these methods would be expected to exist in a given game which deploys gating. Note that gating is often a two-piece move, akin to castling in standard Fide chess.

When citing a game, please include author and date invented. Many thanks for helping with this project, sincerely Gary

Actually, by using the Trojan Horse you could drop the Chancellor or ArchBishop or Amazon (etc)on a square other than the horse's initial starting point. You could also stipulate ... 'must be droped not passed the 4th rank,' or something like that if you wanted to avoid drops within the opponent's camp. The Trojan Horse method was introduce in my Catapults of Troy several years ago... I do not know if there are any earlier examples...

Many thanks Antoine for listing your games pertaining to gating and drops. 
They have been noted.  Best regards, Gary

There are many possibilities... but the idea of having lots of physical pieces to set up CVs seems fantastic to me. I look forward to the day when we could acquire USCF size Ferz, Wazir, Elephants, War Towers (Dabbadahs (sp?)) etc.

An IAGO system 10x10 board and piece set is also something that I look forward to seeing.

The reason I think that is bad is that the person might have two very bad games. He can submit his least dreadful game first, if it gets vetoed he can then submit his more dreadful game. If he is the only one that likes those games; well, it hardly seems to be a good thing.

Another reason is that a person might have a game that everyone thinks is fantastic. Then 1 player vetoes it... thus disappointing 7 players. Better I think, would be a veto of 4. A game is submitted, but it would take 4 players to reject it, not 1. If half the players don't like a game, then that seems to be good reason to offer a replacement.

Also, did you realize European Chess's Ottoman Empire (The Turks) army starts with what is essentially gating?

I think Juan's idea is fine and does not seem overly ambitious to me. We would just need to see if enough designers were interested and enough first-time designers were interested. If not, then the garage is an option.

In regard to defending your games... do they really need defended? Just list your critic's points, then use logic to tear them down. It should be a simple task. In event you cannot tear down a point, then (in that case) you would likely need to say, 'I think you are right about this aspect.'

I think it is best for a critic to play a game before attacking it... but there is a lot of the 'Green Eggs and Ham Syndrome' and they will be quick to say they do not like it without trying it. Perhaps some required reading is in order for all would-be game critics?

P.S. Another idea is to take a critic's points and apply them to one of his (or her own games)... the results can be interesting.

Anyway seeing that computers have solved a game (essentially a problem with 500 billion billion possible positions (5 x 1020); then I cannot help but wonder how many possible positions our various CVs have. With some of the very large games it must truly be a phenomenal number. Also, having large numbers of piece types... well, take Chess with Different Armies for example, the computers can have fun there. And Chu Shogi... wow!

In closing, the number for checkers is much higher than I would have expected.

(c) a vacant cell which is under the influence of a pawn or piece (a projected gated piece)

The Valkyrie moves as does a Queen, but can essentially capture one of its own pieces and then relocate that piece to any space that the Valkyrie had just traveled through. Of course, the relocated piece was already on the board... so this would not be conventional gating.

For me, personally, the number of games already here at ChessVariants is enough to last me past my lifetime. I see no need for infinite boards and infinite pieces.

Would not the CV Tournaments be considered such events? After all, they had lots of players, lots of games, and I think each started in one year and finished in the next. The first two even had cash prizes.

PotLuck seems more like 'Bring games you like and lets have a round robin.' Nothing wrong with that of course. And I applaud the concept and implementation. It is a great idea and I'd loved to have participated but I am currently a bit exhausted from CV3, playing in an ongoing Chess Thematic Tournament, and playing in a final round of a Shogi Tournament.

At any rate, I wish all participants the best in this PotLuck event and I will be watching from the side... with great curiosity as to the outcome.