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Comments by JohnLawson
Cardinal. Moves as bishop or as knight.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Although I'm certain all Primates are primates, the word has an unfortunate (in this context) second meaning. How about Prelate or Monsignor? The piece you describe, B+W, has also frequently been called a Crowned Bishop.
Raven. Can move as a Rook or a Nightrider.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hmm. So a non-capturing Marshall could be called a Marshmallow?
Tai Shogi pictures. Photos of a commercially available Tai Shogi set.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The board is wider than my arms are long, so the tongs helped me position pieces across the board without standing and leaning. It took hours. When I've done this in the past, it took about two hours of steady work, but this time I interrupted the job several times for other household chores. Thankfully, the cats took no interest. Bifocals were the worst impediment.
1st World Open Chess Variant PBEM Championship. Tournament proposal open for public comment before creation.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The selection for options 2 and 3 should be limited to variants posted at the time the contest is announced. Otherwise you have a moving target, with the later registrants having slightly more choices, and even the possibility of a contestant submitting a variant with an unobvious second player win, and then choosing it for his third option. An acceptable way of 'gaming' the choices, if a contestant were very strong at one of the option 1 games, would be to choose option 2 and 3 games that no one would want to play.
It occurs to me that the wording could be a little more precise on the selection options. It could be wrongly interpreted in such a way that a contrary registrant could try to select the same variant for all three options. BTW, if either Christian Freeling, Ralph Betza, or Wayne Schmittberger registered, and chose a game he invented as his option 1 game, would you require option three to be one they did not invent? Or would we be so pleased, we wouldn't care?
Capablanca's chess. An enlarged chess variant, proposed by Capablanca. (10x8, Cells: 80) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The page on Bird's Chess is http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/bird.html
PromoChess. Everything but the king can power up. Mix of Japanese/Western/fairy pieces. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I'm not sure a King should be promoted. If it gets out seven ranks, I'd assume one of two things is going on: It's getting chased all over the board by the opponent. The opponent probably deserves to win, so why make it harder? It's advancing despite the best the opponent can do. Why are you fooling around with your King? Put that effort into mating or gaining a winning material advantage.
More Shift Square Chess. Shifted Square Chess needs more than one page to explore its possibilities. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Aha! Thanks! I was looking for that, and the reason I couldn't find it was that it is 15x8 (two Kings, but only three Rooks.) The CVP link page is: http://www.chessvariants.com/link2.dir/millenniumchess.html .
Hans Bodlaender resigns as editor-in-chief. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I'm sad. It's not often one creates something that develops a life of its own. Thanks, Hans.
Abstract Chess
. Pieces are represented by stacks of different heights.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I think many people would be tempted by the strategy Peter mentions, of the 'pawns' getting combined into the back rank pieces early on to build more powerful pieces. The approach I would try in my first game, however, would be to combine pairs of pawns into knights, resulting in having a total of six knights. There's even some logic in demotion: you start with a rook and two pawns, and end with three knights; or a queen and four pawns, and end with five knights. If you carry this idea to its conclusion, you get two bishops, and thirteen knights. In the endgame, you can recombine into whatever more powerful pieces you need. Of course, all this conversion carries a cost in tempo.
'Now, promoting a Rook to Queen, dispite the gain of 1.5 to 2 Pawns is less obviously a good idea because of the leveling effect.' And because it takes two tempi, not one. You can use two tempi and two Pawns to change a Rook to a Queen, two Bishops and two Pawns to two Rooks, or a Rook and two Pawns to three Knights. Or two Bishops and two Pawns into four Knights. Which would you rather have? That is a question anawerable only by playtesting.
A Xiangqi problem. A Xiangqi problem.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]And I'm certain the first vote was mine. Both contributed equally.
Abstract Chess. Pieces are represented by stacks of different heights.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This is an interesting general mutator. Imagine it appplied, for instance, to Ralph Betza's Chess with Different Armies.
Doublewide Chess. A discussion of the variant where two complete chess sets (including two Kings per side) are set up on a doublewide board. (16x8, Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I have to try this game! A couple of observations, based on logic alone:
Castling your Kings toward the center might allow the defense, in some
situations, to use alternation ('inside lines') to good effect, thus
freeing more forces for a counterattack. All the better if this strategy
were unanticipated.
Regarding different armies, each player could use the same pair of armies,
but there is the choice of like opposite like, or like opposite unlike.
That could become interesting if the two armies were of very different
strengths on a 16x8 board, and like was not opposite like.There was something like this in Verney's 'Chess Eccentricities', but I remember it as a four player game, and cannot remember if only one King needed to be mated, or both, since I haven't seen the book in over 30 years.
As long as we're combining variants, how about Doublewide Optima-Abecedarian Big Slanted Sideways Escalator Chess? 10.5 x 21 square board, and more different pieces than stars in the sky!
David, I think you missed part of Ralph's point. Doublechess is a good game and fun to play, but I think Ralph was interested not only in the effects of the double-size board, which applies equally to both games, but also in the effect having two kings to defend and attack has on the play, when losing either (not both) ends the game. Furthermore, in any contest between equal players, I would bet on the Doublechess army, simply because it has an extra Queen, and only only one King to defend.
Caïssa Britannia. British themed variant with Lions, Unicorns, Dragons, Anglican Bishops, and a royal Queen. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'the standard Bishop would be assumed Anglican in most of the English-speaking world' I should have commented on this earlier, but in the United States there are 2.5 million Episcopalians (Anglicans) but almost 60 million Catholics. I know better, but most chess-players would be more familiar with Catholic bishops that Anglican ones. Most other Protestant denominations do not have a rank of Bishop at all.
Xiangqi: Chinese Chess. Links and rules for Xiangqi (Chinese Chess). (9x10, Cells: 90) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Good question. Certainly the modern sets that I own only distinguish between the Kings, Elephants, and Pawns. However, book illustrations vary. Most only show the diffences noted, but some also differentiate the Cannons and Advisors. 'The Chess of China', Dennis A. Leventhal, 1978, shows all the pieces with differences between the sides. This book was published in China, and reprinted in Taiwan. What the actual historical usage is, I do not know. I also referred to 'Schachspiele in Ostasien', Peter Banaschak, 2001. I found no reference to it, but my German is weak, and I could well have missed it.
Octahedral Chess. 3d-board in octahedral form. (9x(), Cells: 340) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Charles, Are you aware of the Yahoo group for 3d Chess? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/3-d-chess/ There are links there to other 3-d chess sites as well.
Taikyoku Shogi. Extremely large shogi variant. (36x36, Cells: 1296) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Miscellaneous Chess FAQ. Some answers to some frequently asked questions about chess and trivia.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]You can force him to move the piece. It's still up to him to choose any legal move with it.
Doublewide Chess. A discussion of the variant where two complete chess sets (including two Kings per side) are set up on a doublewide board. (16x8, Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'But how does one win?' It's like one of those 'co-operative' games where everyone wins or loses together. Note also, if you are registered, that you can actually edit comments you have previously made.
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