Comments by JianyingJi

To avoid rehashing stuff, read following, especially the article list at
the end.

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4553

The question is how to incentive players to play for win in all
circumstances? After all, a draw in pursuit of a win is no shame, but to
not try at all is a letdown for all.

For variant creators the question is what kind of rules encourages players
to play for win?

Theoretical considerations are not nonsense but must tempered by empirical experimentation. Below is my theoretical analysis of C vs A situation.

First let's take the following values:

R: 4.5
B: 3
N: 3

Now the bishop is a slider so should have greater value then knight, but it is color bound so it gets a penalty by decreasing its value by a third, which reduce it to that of the knight. 

When Bishop is combined with Knight, the piece is no longer color bound so the bishop component gets back to its full strength (4.5), which is rookish. As a result Archbishop and Chancellor become similar in value.

Intellectual games does better in Germany, the low countries, and Asian
countries such as Korea, Japan, China. They do terrible in the US. The
only new abstract game to make headway here is Blockus. Look at the uptake
of GIPF games and the Korean game 'cafes'. Some German bars are stocked
with various abstract games. 

The key seems to be whether a game become a social past time. If games has
this social aspect then they will be played much more widely. Go and
Xiangqi in china was like that, and still is to a degree.

Good case studies in comparisons are Makruk, Shatar, and SitTuYin. Studying these variants closely one realizes they all probably started as 'fixes' to ur-chess, such as Chaturanga. For example Makruk and SitTuYin moved pawn up. Which is the most direct way to get to the middle game faster. SitTuYin is more radical of the two, with pawn moving up to practically the middle and deployment of pieces behind pawn line before game. In this way SitTuYin is like Fisher Random but far more radical. Makruk is more moderate, only moving the pawns forward one. Both Makruk and Shatar modifies winning conditions, which alters mating balance of pieces. SitTuYin outlaws stalemate, decreasing draws. 

Perhaps comparing draws in these games and chess, at highest levels of course, would be instructive in seeing whether their prescriptions work. This of course goes to an important point: without a diverse ecosystem of variants with sufficient number of high class players there is no way to determine empirically whether various proposals for such things as eliminating draws and instilling 'fighting spirit' really work.

Rich I think is more correct, this is an attempt to use catastrophe theory to chess. I'm not sure it succeed in anyway. Essentially the author is arguing  that if a move is bad if it crosses a fold in the 'evaluation surface', that  is the surface created by giving every square a value depending on its importance. The surface is then warped to show moves that would cause irreversible changes in evaluation. 

Missoum applies this to one move in one game which allows for the nice graphics he drew. However as a general theory I do not see how one would begin to create one. 

Personally some kind of quantum set theory or more classically combinatoric game theory is far more apt.

At $2 to $3 I would buy about 16 pieces, that would be about a limit of
$50. I would probably be looking for half knight valued pieces, such as
ferz, wazir, alil, Dabbabah, Crab, Barc. Also a lion would not be bad, for
whatever kind of lion it would be.

Good luck Jeremy, we await your return next year, and hope all things is
smoothed out this year.

I agree, maybe someone with the skill and money can buy an initial run of
popular variant pieces and run a reverse auction to recoup the cost. the
details of course needs to be refined.

Re:Larry,

   There are two solutions:
    
   1. Capture by stranding, where after every move, any opponent pieces that are stranded are considered captured.

   2. Stranded disapear, after every move, any friendly stranded pieced are removed.


Larry, your idea most align with the second choice. I think both are viable, the first being simpler to understand, but the second give the player a 'second chance' of a sort.

Clinton,

Prior art:

Tryslmaistan Chess, Chess for three, Klin Zha.

Triangle chess is nothing new, All three of these variants probably could
constitute prior art.

It is the lack of rules not their addition that increases the variety of
opening positions. A quick look at sit-tu-yin would suffice. Other than
pawns, the other pieces has no fixed starting points and can be placed
anywhere. I generally like chess variants that has free placements at the
start. Anything that obliterate openings while at the same time decrease
number of rules is alright by me.

This page seems to address something different entirely, that of number of
variants given a set of mutators, a term explicated and promoted by João
Pedro Neto. Each of the 'rules' is actually a mutator. It is no surprise
the number of variants one can create by stacking mutators together.

What is missing here is an over-riding theme. By theme I mean a organizing
principal, not the story that the variant tell. Without a theme to guide
the relationship of the mutators, we just have the mutators themselves,
which though interesting seem haphazardly grouped together.

Jeremy:

http://www.chessvariants.org/piececlopedia.dir/mimics.html

Is the page you are looking for. It covers all types of pieces that move
as other pieces, in various ways and circumstances. Though I do think you 
should keep your page up, because it offer a good jumping off point to your 
presets. A line of credit about mimics should suffice. Also your variants 
provides extensions to mimicing pieces not on original page. For example 
mixing mimes and mimickers.

Welcome back everyone! This thread I'm creating for both site
administrators to explain the situation and to brainstorm solution. 
Course we all thank the people who keep this site up. And if we have ways to
solve this bandwidth issue, let us all pitch in whatever we can to help.

My first suggestion is that some sort mirror system could be setup so that
when the main site goes down, traffic get redirected to a different site.

Is fW roughly 2/3 of a pawn? Rough calculation shows it should be about a
pawn. On the other hand pawn is mobile, so fW's value should be
discounted somewhat. Any suggestions?

While we are at it, here's another prob: When commenting on a game, you
are given the option of rating 'below average' or 'average' in
addition to the four that there used to be. When you edit the remark later
however, you are not given the 'below average' and 'average' ratings.

There is a patent in the US too. it is US Patent No. 6,799,763, granted in
2001. A close reading of the patent gives one the impression that in the
path to trying to patenting the game in the broadest language possible, it
made the board more central to the patent, then the pieces. I am not a
patent attorney so I don't know how much weight each section gets.

One more thing about the patent: chessvariants.com is in the prior art
(reference) section of the patent. So PTO is aware of this page's
existence and is viewed as an archive for prior art info. So as these
pages grow, we will actually help improve the quality of patents going
forward.

Jeff, I'm interested, it would nice if you can post it. maybe even as a
page in it self. I look forward to its details.

A great game with a very fresh idea!

I have a small point:

Having the second player mirror the first player's piece layout while
allowing both to layout thie terrain (the black squares) separately give
the first player a unequal advantage. Since the first player can always
layout the pieces to make it difficult for the opponent. The opponent
would be forced to start off at a disadvantage. 

The simple solution is to allow the players to lay out pieces, the way
terrain is laid out, separately. No need to enforce symmetry.

There's two other ways to eliminate the a-file dead zone without adding a
file:

I. switching one of the angels with one of the pawns that stands on one of
the white squares. and mirror the switch on the other side. This will result in doubled
 pawn in one column, but that could lead to some interesting tactics, or you can change
 the back pawn into a man/minion that moves as a non-royal king.

-or-

II. alter the angel/devil moves by adding noncapturing forward ferz (mfF
in Betza notation) to both pieces. which adds interesting tactical color
to the game, as the players try to block the opponent's angel/devil from
changing quarters. Also the forward ferz will suggest the wings, which is
thematic.

new web site for circular chess society:
http://circularchess.runtingz.co.uk/Homepagex.htm

Why don't we make a wiki instead of a pure comment system (somewhat tongue
in cheek, since I know wikis are not trivial things)

The advantage of wikis are that flame wars tend to burn itself out, with
both sides actively deleting comments, until none is left. And the only
things that are left are non-flame based comments.

I agree largely with fergus and george that discussions limited to the
variants themselves are much better than flame wars over ultimately
unimportant points.

has anyone  gotten word from ralph? it seems it has been ages since any
post from him!
Any iinfo would be appreciated!

Sorry I misposted my last message to the wrong thread.

Double wide xiangqi, ummm, interesting

Thanks for everything hans. Best wishes on hans' other projects in life
and hope to see hans dropping by in comment section once in a while.

Cool!

one thing I find a bit aethetically off is that linking is not compulsary
in that player could ignoire linking completely and play normal chess. So
to satisfy my twisted aesthetics I would recommend following changes as a
sub-variant:

0. Twinkie Danger Chess rule apply unless contradicted below.
1. White start on board 0 and black start on board 1
2. King remain on the board they started

In this sub-variant no progress can be made without linking, so linking
becomes crucial way to mobilize your forces.

Draw margin is dependent on the skill level of the play. In high level
FIDE chess, as the recent competitions have shown the draw margin can
be as high as 66% of all the games. It is so bad that some competition
actively try to discourage draws. So draws can be a problem. And I think
any chess variant that allows exchange to draw that is sacrificing
material to force opponent into draw, is liable to have larger and larger
draw margins as skill level increase. But ultimately it is an aethetic 
decision on whether this is a bad thing.

Thanks for the response. I have thought further, and thinks that the
dropping handicaps that I proposed suffers from similar flaws. Perhaps
the most chesslike handicap is to give the weaker side the chance to
augment the army temporarily. Say a set of tokens which for the price 
of one gives the pieces to take a step to an adjacent non-occupied 
square. One such token will probably be enough to even the odds between
the players when given to the second player. It would convert some draws
to wins and losses to draws. Though I could be wrong, for I am not too
good at judging these things.

Since pieces never disapear from the game, in shogi the values are all 
positional. That is pieces in hand can be considered as just another 
position for the pieces to be. and that value is assessed for a position
taking into account of the positions of all pieces including those in 
hand and whose turn it is. So in a sense it is more like go, only 
holistic evaluation can be done.

Chess had not had a tradition for handicaps, especially in the last 
100 years. (Before that in the 18th 19th century there was odds chess
which I thought looks like a good and fairly comprehensive system, but
strangely it does not seem to have been adopted by organizations like 
FIDE) So, recently I being thinking about handicap systems and thought
of a cross between shogi and chess that would provide a path toward 
handicaps. What I propose is then the weaker player given a set of tokens
that give him the ability to drop captured pieces as his own for the
price of the value of the piece he is too drop. In a even game the second
player receive a small set of tokens to balance first mover advantage.
If both player play with infinite tokens, the game becomes chessgi. If 
one side plays with infinite and the other player 0 then the infinite 
would probably have a guarenteed win. If both side have a limited supply
of token then the game would have a finer balanced hadicaps.

These are just some ideas, any comment welcome.

This list is quite comprehensive, and quite impressive. Which makes it 
doubly strange that the odds chess has not persisted in any serious way 
in chess clubs today, especially organizations such as FIDE to determine
the rating, handicap correspondence.

I wonder what is effect of symmetry of starting setup on strategy.
Comparing Shantranj and Chuturanga, it occured to me that one has
radial symmetry, while the other billateral symmetry. Which one has
better balance?

It would be nice if the penalty can be done in a uniform way, however
balance is more important, so applying it the first 10 moves is perhaps
a good balance between uniformity and balance.

An interesting variant might be to add the following rules:
3: No FIDE captures allowed
4: Win by pictorial mate.
5: Super-Ko no position maybe repeated

Quite interesting variant. With simpler army building then standard
CWDA, since only three piece types define a army rather than four.

interesting variant, I wonder if giving king a knight's move would make
the king too hard to capture. With all those combo pieces, it seems only
fair to give the king a bit more movements too.

I was thinking along these lines sometimes ago, but my ideas never geled
into a playable game. So it very nice to see some incarnation of it. 
Absolutely cool!

I think the question is essentially, if a player has a choice of 
perpetual check, or a different move. Can s/he chose the perpetual check
instead of the other move. which is covered:

http://chessvariants.com/d.chess/eternal.html

So I think the answer is yes and charles's friend is probably right.

quick note: web page for  Andrew Bartmess and tridim chess has changed 
to  http://www.grigor.org/tactical.htm

It is quite amazing to me that the rook remained so consistant over the
years. It is the only piece that is in all the historic variants, from 
shatranji to shogi. So if one really want to trace the history of chess,
the rook probably is a important part of that.

excellent game,

one of the illustration has the wrong coloring for the squares. The 
second set in the middle of the page, board2 should have the opposing
coloring

Really well designed and explained large variant without the clutter that
often afflict them

The page was not index so I'm writing the comment here:

Here's a modest variant:

immortal pawns:

Pawns promotes on the owner's last three ranks. 
Promotion required on last rank only.
Pawns promote to captured pieces only.
Pawns are return to the owner to be dropped, if captured.
Dropped pawn drops only to the first four ranks of the Pawn's owner.
Drops takes a whole turn.

Comments:

These changes are motivated by the desire to make it possible 
to resurrect any piece and have after some captures to restore 
back on the board the full 32 piece complement, and to do so with
minimal change to the rules. It seemed tweeking promotion as the 
simplest way to do that

Since white has slight opening advantage, it would be more equitable
if the game start with black refusing one move from white and then 
white move and refuse black then game continues as described ...

This been an idea I been thinking of for a while. It pleases me to no end
that someone has made a variant along these lines. It would be great to
see more variants using 'influencing' as an element in them.

Since ALL FIDE laws apply, I would say the answer for the question is 
most likely the following:

1: Fifty move rule, the stalemated player gets to roll the dice and if 
the opponent's roll or one's own removes stalemate before the opponent
manages a checkmate then the game continues otherwise if it is still a 
stalemate after fifty moves then draw (probably extremely unlikely)

2: This is a tricky one, most variants would probably say that definitely
double step allowed for a2 but a1 I'm not sure, though I think it 
probably should be allowed

3: I think that should be a yes

Hope we'll have adrain's take soon

mating is not necessarily more difficult but endgame strategies are
dramatically impacted. What I think will happen is a sequence of checks 
that manuavers the general in to a square such that a final fork of the
pegasus and the general gives mate. To win a player must somehow 
construct the sequence, and not to lose by preventing them. Also it 
definitely impacts promotion choice and skew it toward pegasus for 
defense, or toward wizard/champion (maybe) for offence

It seems to me that the elephant in xiangqi (on the blackside) is
most likely and almost certainly an import from india since china
has no elephants. the character used on the black side is that of 
elephant which would be quite strange if it originated in china. so
certainly that perticular character and that piece must have come after
contact with india. 

The cannon piece almost certainly originated in china, since
china invented gun powder quite early on.

Also the different symbols on each side almost hint that it might be 
different army game once, with different powers on the sides, though
there might have been a more prosaic reason, that all the pieces have
different symbols between the sides since the original pieces were carved
and the only way to tell the sides were the characters. (red and black
came later)

And finally, since it is the elephant (xiang) that gives name to the 
whole game, that is if translated directly word for word xiangqi would
be elephant boardgame (qi having being derived from weiqi) and that 
elephants only known in china after contact with india, it is very likely
that modern xiangqi derives from indian source.

how cool, I was just wondering about leapers for a variant I was 
designing. this is perfect for it. and the diagram of the where all
the leaper go is great, a very good exposition

this is a very nice page that provide info on a whole class of pieces.
I like its organization very much

I think part of the trouble with this variant, and the reason that people
hesitate to try it is the lack of a coherent theme, by theme I include 
abstract themes such as all pieces have abstract quality X. 

this game have various categories of pieces:

King : royal

Squire, Viceroy, Pawn, Crowned Knight, left/right schzzhi: normal, 
      i.e. no special powers but can be effected by others

Bobber: extending powers (to itself)

dazzler, hyenna : immobilizer

archer, zednick : confabulators

yanzee : invulnerable

extentialist : morph

teleporter: transports self.

I feel there's a excess of categories and overlap between the powers 
between the pieces. this game would be better I think if no two pieces
have the same higher power. for example having had the dazzler both 
hyenna and yanzee is somewhat superflous.

similarly archer is a more coherent piece than zednick which has 4 
unrelated powers, so it would be a better games without zednick.
A compromise would to give the power of the zednick to the bobber
which creates the stretegic tension of whether to keep the bobber 
around or to confabulate it with some other piece to increase that
piece's power.

I think the more constrained variant below might be easier to start 
with:

all the normal pieces and the king.

King : royal

Squire, Viceroy, Pawn, Crowned Knight, left/right schzzhi: normal

Dazzler: as the immobilizer and giver of invulnerability

archer: as the confabulator

bobber/zednick: moves as bobber or can confabulate as a zednick

teleporter: transports itself

extentialist: cycles through all the non-royal pieces, on 11th move it 
              sleeps, than another cycle, then explode.

I think I have preserved all the ideas in your game and simplified it
a bit. hope you find it interesting.

this is absolutely amazing. a very clear exposition and easy to follow.

The thing that intrigues me the most is a move leading to stalemate is
not allowed. which get's away from the fuddily rules in FIDE and other
variants dealing with stalemates. I think this is a worthwhile rule to 
adopt in other variants.

I agree, it is hard to come up the specific scale of handicap, however
what I meant by 'easy' is that to give handicaps in Rental chess does
not require any special torture to the rules.

As for where the handicap zorkmid comes from, from the same the salary
per turn comes from. However my original idea that I discarded was to tax
the better player, but such a rule would be far too complex I would think.

Then along these line one can establish a notation for describing 
the rule set of chess variants, in a similar spirit as Ralph Betza's
Funny notation for pieces. And if we have that, then we can have a
Funny variant notation to zillions translator, from that we can have 
a program that spits out random variants to play.

Whether this is good or not is in the mind of the bethinker