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Comments by JorgKnappen

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MSeternitychess[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2023 02:40 PM UTC:

Interesting variant with innovative promotion rules.

The rules are inclomplete with respect to double check and pincers on both Kings, it should be specified what happens than. Technically, the fake King is in check but not necessarily checkmated in such a situation.

The rare case of double checkmate should also have a special mention in the rules: Is this the end of the game with a win for the checkmating party, or will the game continue with the fake King demoted to a pawn and the checkmating piece being removed?


Teutonic Knight's Chess. Played on an oblong board with rarely used pieces: The teutonic knight, the archchancellor and the crown princess. (8x10, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Jörg Knappen wrote on Sun, Oct 29, 2023 09:31 PM UTC in reply to HaruN Y from 06:20 AM:

@HaruN Y: Thanks for the interactive diagram here and for Zabel Chess.


Colorful Osmosis Chess. (Updated!) All basic pieces are colorbound or colorwithching. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Sat, Oct 28, 2023 09:04 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 08:34 PM:

Yes, I think so, the Imam covers a stretch of three adjacent squares (1,2)(1,3)(1,4) and can manœuvre with a Wazir move, this should be sufficient for a checkmate. One has to be careful not to stalemate the lone King, because the Harvestman component covers so many squares.

The WNC is featured as Teutonic Knight in Teutonic Knights Chess.


Jörg Knappen wrote on Sat, Oct 28, 2023 06:46 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 06:29 PM:

Hm... what should a rotary counterpart of the Harvestman be: Ferz, followed by Girlscout (aka Crooked Rook)? This is almost the same as a Girlscout lacking the initial Wazir steps and I doubt that this piece was ever used in Chess Variant.


Jörg Knappen wrote on Sat, Oct 28, 2023 06:43 PM UTC:

X-Chess by Jeremy Gabriel Good featured the Harvestman among other pieces of Seenschach, but this is the only other game I am aware of.


Jörg Knappen wrote on Sat, Oct 28, 2023 06:40 PM UTC:

The Evangelist has also the can-mate property because it covers all range-1 squares like a Mann does, and King+Mann can mate a lone King.


Icon Clearinghouse 1. (Updated!) A collection of chess icons for all to use in Interactive Diagrams and Game Courier setups.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Sat, Oct 28, 2023 12:18 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Thu Oct 26 11:28 AM:

There is an alternative German plural to Mann, it is Mann/Mannen with an archaic flavour and a restriction in meaning, it is a soldier or a servant of the king only, but not any male human being.


Seenschach. Variant on 10 by 10 board with lake in the middle and new pieces. (10x10, Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Jörg Knappen wrote on Sat, Oct 28, 2023 12:07 PM UTC:

@H.G.Muller Thank you for the interactive diagram!


@ Bob Greenwade[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Wed, Oct 25, 2023 10:38 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from Sun Sep 10 02:05 AM:

The KC piece is named General in Paulovits' game from 1890.

EDIT: Corrected spelling of Paulovits


Jörg Knappen wrote on Wed, Oct 25, 2023 07:07 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from Thu Oct 12 02:21 PM:

This piece (Nr. 87 "King Cheetah") is featured as Pegasus in Beastmaster Chess by Glenn Overby II (2002)


Irrational Chess. Chess game on an exotic board. (9x10, Cells: 66) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2023 05:07 PM UTC in reply to Max Koval from Tue Mar 14 06:16 AM:

In addition, I think the coordinate system is unnecessary complicated, the number should number horizontal rows (each row starts with light blue fields). In this case, they will run up to eight for the top row of light blue fields, but there are no dark blue nor white fields in row 8.

The complicated notation system does not add anything to the game (it can be played without coordinates, after all).


Jörg Knappen wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2023 10:24 AM UTC in reply to Max Koval from Tue Mar 14 06:16 AM:

I think movement diagrams from the light blue squares would be a good addition to the game description, those squares are qualitatively different from the dark blue and white ones.


The Emperor's Game. Variant on 10 by 10 board from 19th century Germany. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2023 10:16 AM UTC:

The name of the author is still kind of a mystery. I think the author is best identified as "L. Tressan" (Ludwig is obviously an interpolation and not really sourced). In the comments on Sultan's game (Sultanspiel) we had a longer discussion on the mysterious "L. Tressan".

Also, the title of Tressan's book contains a typo, it should read "seine" instead of "siene".


Borderline. Without pawns, with only one king, capturing opponent's pieces is omitted. (7x7, Cells: 49) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Wed, Feb 22, 2023 03:33 PM UTC:

I think I understand the game better now, but here is the next rule question:

What about simultaneous double check by red and blue, e.g., Blue moves the Knight to give both check and a discovered check by a red line piece.

Is this a legal move, and if it is, what are its consequences? Can red now take the King and win, or must the red player move the King out of check? If the King is checkmated, who scores the win in this case, or will it be a draw?


Jörg Knappen wrote on Tue, Feb 21, 2023 02:37 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 01:12 PM:

Well, you must move the King into the other camp to be able to give check and checkmate. You also need to occupy the squares on the borderline such that the King cannot escape to that line (this is possible, because the pieces cannot by captured). A defense against this is just to push the King back. A defensive player can always hold a draw by pushing the King back to the borderline whenever the offensive player pushes it into the camp where it can be hurt by check and checkmate.


Jörg Knappen wrote on Tue, Feb 21, 2023 12:53 PM UTC:Poor ★

As far as I can see there is no rule that forbids moving the King back to the place where it came from (at least, when the King move wasn't motivated by escaping check). So a situation can occur where the two players just move the King between two squares in an endless loop and the game makes no progress.


Tags Listing. A listing of the tags used on our pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Sun, Jan 22, 2023 08:01 PM UTC:

I find the square board tags quite handy, they allow a quick navigation to other games on the same board. Going to the game info page and selecting the right category (best working is the number of cells in the case of square boards) takes longer.

And I really love the piece tags.


The Sultan's Game. Variant on 11 by 11 board from 19th century Germany. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Mon, Jan 9, 2023 05:42 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 03:43 PM:

And the use of RNF and BNW in Pocket Mutation Chess by Michael Nelson predates all of this, just their names a purely technical there (SuperCardinal and SuperChancellor). But I agree, these pieces play well on big boards.


Jörg Knappen wrote on Mon, Jan 9, 2023 03:06 PM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from 01:33 PM:

Here is one genuine German Franz Tressan from Verden an der Aller: https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&cqlMode=true&query=idn%3D110743078X

My pieces are free to reuse and I feel flattered that you like them.


Grand Cavalier Chess. The decimal version of Cavalier Chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Thu, Jan 5, 2023 09:49 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Wed Jan 4 09:53 PM:

What has happened to the diagrams here? They show 10x19 boards with a lot of blue non-squares to me.


Diagram Designer. Lets you display diagrams without uploading any graphics.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Tue, Jan 3, 2023 05:28 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 02:18 AM:

This green/white layout looks good and has no annoying flaws.


Jörg Knappen wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2023 09:50 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 06:25 PM:

I don't like the khaki/smoke scheme and I think this can be pinned to the following two factors:

  1. It does not from a well-defined board boundary on the present background colour (this is probably easy to cure with an outline)

  2. The colour difference between the interior of a white piece and a light board square is just noticeable, but not really a contrast. This does not look right.


Terminology: Names for some square boards, extending decimal and dozenal[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2023 09:41 PM UTC:

While adding some tags here and there, I am thinking of tagging some more square boards and I need agreeable names for that tags.

Two are quite clear:

16x16 hexadecimal (from Greek)
20x20 vigesimal (from Latin)

But what about the other numbers 11, 13, 14, 15, and 18 (I leave out 17 and 19 just now, they are probably too odd)?

I'm thinking of

11x11 onzenal (from French)
13x13 treizenal (also from French)
14x14 quatorzenal (again from French)
15x15 femtenal (from the metric prefix "femto" 10^{-15}, ultimately from Danish 15)
18x18 attenal (from "atto" 10^{-18}, ultimately from Danish 18)

What do you think?


The Sultan's Game. Variant on 11 by 11 board from 19th century Germany. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Sun, Jan 1, 2023 07:24 AM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from Fri Oct 14 2022 09:24 AM:

@Georgi Markov

Thanks for your publication on Sultansspiel and Kaiserspiel, and special thanks for publishing it in an open access journal. Now I finally know where that ominous "Ludwig Tressau" comes from.

However, I think that the common publishing place Leipzig is not suitable to draw far-reaching conclusions: At that time, Leipzig was the hub of German book publication and had the largest concentration of publication houses all over Germany. Also, Ludwig is the most probable expansion of the initial L. and may be an interpolation by Oettinger. The second most probable expansion would be Louise or Luise, a feminine name, and the fact that the author hides consistently behind the initial makes this possibility even more probable.

Having said this, Tressan is an extremely rare surname in Germany, and Tressau is even more obscure. I searched some huge databases of personal names (telephone directory and DNB Normdatei) and Tressan occurs once or twice, but Tressau has no hits at all. It should be feasible to identify that specific "L. Tressan/L. Tressau" using genealogical databases without sifting through too many hits.


Circular CV[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Fri, Aug 6, 2021 08:43 PM UTC:

I think I finally found it, it must be Nadvorney's Spherical Chess as described here

https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/spherical.html


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