Comments by JohnLawson

There have been so many points made here I cannot comment on them all, but
I will mention some that have drawn my attention.

FYI, I have also volunteered to be a judge.  Am I to be classified as a
newcomer or a veteran?  It seems the proposed critia are based mainly on
contributions to the CVP.  I am not blessed with that sort of creativity,
but I have been a regular visitor and commentor for five years, and I have
been interested in chess variants for 40 years.  Furthermore, I seem to be
of approximately average playing strength among variantists.

There are two good ideas that are mutually exclusive.  One is Fergus's
idea that the top five games advance in each of the three pools of eleven.
 The other is Mark's suggestion that the pools are too large, and six or
seven games per pool would be better.  Perhaps the protocol should be left
to Hans in this case, because it depends on how many judges are
available.

When it comes to dividing up the games, there are several ideas.  I like
David's idea of balancing out the pools by format of game.  I think it is
a good idea to separate both contributions by the same person into
different pools.  Of course any contributor who also judges should not be
allowed to judge their own game.  I emphatically think it is NOT a good
idea to segregate the games designed by 'novices' and 'veterans'.  It
seems clear to me that a pool of 'veteran's' games would be more
competitive than a pool of 'novices's' games, and would result in skewed
first round results.

As a judge, I would expect some guidance on the criteria I would be using
to rate.  I expect to play, as David suggested, at least two of each game
(ideally more, if the nature of the game was eluding me).  I assume I
would play with the other judges of my pool, or with the inventor, if he
makes himself available as David has.  As the prospect of playing 22 large
and complex variant games simultaneously is daunting, I am already
beginning to extricate myself from my other gaming activities to make
time.

Well, it's not exactly on this site, but....
http://www.chessvariants.com/link2.dir/chessplusdeck.html

I'm just testing making posts as a member.

Regarding chess sets for variants, there are also styles other than
Staunton that could be combined with a Staunton set, if you don't mind
some stylistic inconsistency.  Possibilities include Bauhaus and Art Deco
styles, illustrated here:

http://chessandmore.com/r617p.htm

http://chessandmore.com/p2220p.html

Echoing Ben, Henk van Haeringen's wooden Exchess sets are also nice, go
nicely with medium quality boxwood and ebonized boxwood Staunton sets, and
the prices are fair for the quality.  The shipping cost from the
Netherlands, however...

Look at:

http://www.schoenberg.at/6_archiv/designs/designs_chess_e.htm

http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/schoenberg/painting/gamehtms/noritter10.htm

In the original concept of the Pizza Kings, the Meatball (Queen) was a
WFDAN.  This was, in practice, too strong, and I weakened it to a WFDAfN,
which seemed to be just right for that army.  (This was one of those cases
where the theme had to yield.)
Also, I've lately been playing Exchess, which includes a piece (Veteran)
whose movement is K+N.  On an 8x8 board, I find it to be almost as useful
as a major piece (Q, B+N, or R+N), and if you can get it across the board,
it is excellent at supporting threats by the more long-range pieces.  I
would expect a Pancake to be similar in strength.
Since we now have the Bakery Bombers, as well as the Pizza Kings as CWDA
experimental armies, maybe players' appetites have been whetted for the
other armies I suggested, the Beer Batterers and the Avenging Appetizers.

While it is convenient to have universally understood conventional names
for common variant pieces, it will always be true that variant designers
will want to use ad hoc names that fit the theme of their variant.

Additionally, there *are* conventional names for the most usual
first-order atomic moves (Ferz, Wazir, Alfil, Dababbah, Knight, Camel) and
second-order moves (Rook, Bishop, Queen, King) built from them.  Add the
nearly universally understood use of 'rider' and 'leaper', and it is easy
to describe most variant pieces.

I am in agreement with Mike Nelson in supporting the universal use of
Ralph Betza's funny notation in move descriptions, and I further believe
that an effort to standardize the syntax of funny notation would be
worthwhile.  Once the syntax is consistent, so that a given move can be
validly descibed in ony one way, the Piececlopedia could be upgraded to a
database, where, e.g., one could enter a query for 'ADF' (but not 'AFD' or
'FAD') and get a list of all the names of pieces with that move and what
variants they are used in.  This seems like an enormous labor, but there
is now so much material on the CVP that no one can be familiar with it
all, and this will aid designers in discovering if their new variant has
been anticipated by someone else.

There are more current developments, like 'zB' for Crooked Bishop.  I try
to find them and add them here.

How would you code a piece from Henk van Haeringen's Exchess called the
Herald?  It is normally a straight-forward FA in Funny Notation, but on
its owner's first rank it becomes FAsW.  Another challenging example would
be the Ultima ruleset where the range of a piece varies with the rank it
stands on.

Regarding the Moo-rider, I am not clear on one thing: is it optionally
either a Mao-rider or Moa-rider on any given turn, or do you get to choose
either the moa-path or mao-path between each touch-down point on a single
move?

I get the image of a cow on a motorcycle.