Comments by GaryK.Gifford

After reading Jeremy's comment I stumbled across a great site with neat
Fischer pictures (one of him looking happy while on a horse).  At the end
of the site is a table of all 21 games from the great match of 1972. 
Click on a game number and you can click through all the moves.  Lots of
interesting text there too.

The site is:      http://www.chlodwig.com/Fischer/Fischer-Story.htm

The article reminds me of my college days... well done.  It also reminds me
of Taikyoku Shogi, which has many short range pieces... lots of piece
movement possibilities.  Joe and Christine are correct in pointing out
that evolution has been towards long range pieces... at least in Fide
Chess.  Xianqi still has the relatively short range elephants and palace
guards.  Shogi has the short range set of generals (gold, silver, emarald
(which we now call the King).

The following link to Wikipedia's Taikyoku Shogi page is likely a good
tie-in to '' The Short Range Project.''  Lots of pieces are discussed
there. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taikyoku_shogi#Step_movers

Here is an example of movement for one piece, uncommon today:

The Mountain stag

Step: The mountain stag can move one square orthogonally forward. 
Limited range: It can move one or two squares orthogonally sideways. 
Limited range: It can move one to three squares diagonally forward. 
Limited range: It can move one to four squares orthogonally backward. 

This and many other interesting movements can be found at the linked site.

Yes Peter, you are correct.  And thanks for pointing that out as many who
are new to chess variants may not be aware of non-royal kings.  

This non-Royal King is also the Joe Joyce General (from his Modern Shatranj), and the piece
undoubtably lives in many games by many names (as you point out).  Joe
Joyce recently told me, 'It [the Fighting King] is exactly the same piece
as the one in your recently-posted 6 Fortresses game, ...the one in 6 F has
a feather, and the new one doesn't...'  

Please do not think I was trying to invent a new piece in these games...
I was only trying to create a chess variant that had a very slight modification which would
greatly alter the play of the game.

In regard to Royal-Pawns; I was not familiar with them from other games... 
However, as I was writing this comment Joe Joyce told me of Jeremy Goods' 'Royal Pawns Chess.'  So I just
 looked that game up, and felt a bit awkward at what I saw because my variant, though created 
independently and later, is very similar to Jeremy's.  Had I been aware of Royal Pawn Chess 
I would not have posted 'Fighting Kings.'

As a later comment: I just now looked at Bruce Zimov's Knightmate - this game has 2 non-royal
kings and a royal knight.  Very Interesting.

Bruce Zimov created this interesting game back in 1972.  I only became
aware of it today through Peter's comment.  I believe Mr. Zimov's game
deserves a pre-set, so I just made one.  It is located at this link.  The
pre-set has a link to the rules.

http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DKnightmate%26settings%3DJPG-km

No... in chess you never regain lost pieces.
However, pawns promote to Rook, Knight, Bishop, or Queen upon reaching the
8th rank.

Fairly good rules for Feudal can be found here, at Wikepedia.org:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal_%28game%29

In the intro they state that the 4 pieces of the plastic peg-board can
be placed differently for each game setup.  My game of Feudal has the board
 pieces hinged together... they unfold in the same manner each for each game.
  But you can rotate the complete board and thus experience 4 possible
 terrain options for your army's setup.

Alison:  No.  The first capture ends the move.  Your question could also be asked of Queens, Bishops, and Rooks
 for non-diagonal (orthogonal) captures)... and even Kings.  In all cases, the single-capture ends the move.

I agree with Sam that it would be good to archive the rules to Feudal;
including the board layout. The 3M Company is still in business (though
not the gaming division)and perhaps 3M could grant permission for CV to
post them [to keep any copyright issues from surfacing].  In addition to
Feudal, 3M had a very original vector-changing / movement-based game
called PLOY.  It is a futuristic chess variant that can be played by 2
players or 4 players.  It would be good to see PLOY documented as well. 
I'd love to play PLOY on-line.

Sam - thanks for the Ploy information.  I checked the link in your last
comment and ended up at, 'Tournoy [Download instructions] ... Tournoy is
a Zillions-of-Games file. It is categorized as: Two dimensional, Large
board, In a category all its own. By Jean-Louis Cazaux.'  

Tournoy does appear to be very similar to Ploy.

The Rules for Korean Chess, Draft by Roleigh Martin (c)1994,1995 is the
most thorough of Korean Chess Rules I have seen.  I quote from them
regarding 'Passing.'

Rule 7c
   Unlike Chinese Chess, if you have no other move to make,
   except to put your King in check or checkmate, you can
   'pass.'  In other words, your King can stand still, if it
   stays in safety and there are no other pieces it can move
   at all (regardless if those other pieces would be
   captured or not) and if it would otherwise (if a move had
   to be made) cause the king to move into check or
   checkmate.  Gollon states that one declares his pass by
   turning his King over, upside down, on the same spot.

Link:    http://www.xmission.com/~gastown/afi/koreanch.htm

In regard to programs that play by correct rules, it is not always the case.
I played a Chinese Battle Chess that incorrectly allowed kings to face each other.

James Spratt wrote [in the last DragonChess comment] that you can make
heat-free rubber molds ...out of simple clear silicon window-caulking (see
his complete comment for details).  Another method is to use Sculpy which
is a registered trademark name for an elastic polymer (like clay) which
you can add great detail to exacting shapes.  Sculpy comes in various
colors and can be bought in stone textures (great if you want pieces to
look like stone).  After you make a piece (one of each type you need) bake
them iin a standard kitchen oven per instructions.  Once cooled, the
hardened pieces can be pressed into sculpy to make molds.  The 2 mold
halves must be baked for hardening.  Once you have all your molds it is
easy to make uniform sets of pieces.  You can read a lot about Sculpy on
the internet.  I have made quite a few things from it myself... some of
which people didn't even belive that I made (they appear to be of store
quality).  Note: you can also paint Sculpy, but I prefer to use the
exisiting colors so I can avoid painting.

Thanks to both Christine and the mystery writer for your comments.  For
Christine, I did not notice the comment until today - yes, I belive the
MSchmahl-cvgameroom-2004-77-566 Fri, Aug 27, 2004 game is very good for
anyone interested in seeing a real game of this played out.  Glad you
enjoyed that game.

In regard to the mystery writer's question: it reads like a real
mind-twister (brain teaser).  So I will try to disect it and take it
slow... my comments preceded by ****a nd followed by -gkg.  Mystery
writer's comments followed by -mw

1) white has 2 kings -mw  **** So we know a King went back in time
2) either side travelled backward in time again to when white only has one
king. - mw **** Possible for black to do.  But, as soon as white does this
White will have 2 Kings, the original King plus the King that went back
from the 2-King future.  This gives us an alternate past with 2-Kings
instead of one and will result in a new future - gkg
3)Now, white's 2nd king didn't really land in the new time variant.-mw
**** He did, but in an alternate time line which was superceded by the new
time line.  Think of it as parallel worlds.  Better yet, think of it has
each time travel going to a different chess board... thus we see alternate
past positions and future positions that existed... but, then due to time
travel no longer exist.-gkg
4)Then, white wants to travel backward once (if the 2nd time travel was
did by him) or twice (if that was did by black). Is that legal?-mw
**** Good question. Each King time travel counts as a travel towards his
limit.  King travels are never erased 'so to speak' by other time travel
events.  As long as your King has a Time Travel or two remaining, he can
travel (assuming the move is legal).  I hope this helps.  Best regards,
Gary

Frank, thanks for the follow up comment. You write, 'My 'stalemate'
means any other move is worse than null move. Can you prove that's
impossible?'

Answer: Moves can be worse than null moves - such as moving your last
remaining King into a line of attack (legal in this game) and then losing
your last King and the thus game.  So, that a move can be worse than a
null move is a fact. But, null-moves are illegal in this game, and that
(and the fact that Kings are captured) is why we can't see a stalemate in
Odin's Rune Chess.