Comments by M Winther
Bataille astrale (Astral battle) has pieces that can rotate and shield themselves from attack. It's an interesting concept. I made a Zillions program:
Mats
Ploy 
. Strategic Game of Maneuver and Capture, 3M Company - 1970.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In Ploy, according to my sources, pieces can only rotate 45 degrees, left or right. This makes sense. So I wrote a new Zillions program according to this rule. I have also tweaked the piece values, because Zillions values them incorrectly. Zillions plays strongly in this variant.
These two contributions of mine have still not been reviewed by the editorial staff. It's gone a long time.
http://www.chessvariants.com/invention/blockula-chess
http://www.chessvariants.com/invention/diarchic-chess
"Diarchic Chess" is a more advanced version of Blockula Chess, with two kings each. Witches have the kingdom under a spell...
Diarchic Chess
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Fergus, in the Comment section (here) I see this sentence above the comments: "SELECT * FROM Comment WHERE IsDeleted=0 ORDER BY CommentID DESC LIMIT 25". (I use Chrome in Windows 10.)
This is a new concept, isn't it? The pieces, except the friendly "Witch", are helpless against the attacking enemy king, which is immune against threats. But when the enemy Witch disappears, the spell is broken. It could put the enemy king in a dire situation.
When editing index information for a 'user submitted page' I cannot change the link to external site. The change is simply ignored when I save. This problem has existed a long time. It means that my variants aren't sufficiently explained. Can somebody fix this problem, please. /Mats
Gustav III's Chess. Invented by King Gustav III of Sweden (1746-92).[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I have now corrected the preset for the chess variant created by King Gustav III of Sweden (1746-92). It is a royal variant that functions very well.
Can't somebody explain this? All my work, which is considerable, has been destroyed. Why is this?
ChessV
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Is the Mastodon/Pasha implemented? It is a very suitable piece for big boards. /Mats
None of my presets work anymore on account of reworking of the compilator. How long is this going to continue and how long has it been so?
Several of my presets have disappeared, too.
Mats
Brigadier Chess. Introducing the powerful Brigadier piece on a 68-square Gustavian board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]It has been tested and it works fine. The Brigadiers are positioned on those initial squares so that they point to strongly defended pawns in the enemy position. Otherwise it wouldn't work very well. The Brigadiers can easily be exchanged, so a single queen becomes dominant. The queen can chase away a Brigadier. So it is a well-functional game, highly aggressive. /Mats
Fischer Random Chess. Play from a random setup. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Johnny, it appears from your comment that you aren't familiar with chess theory. It revolves around white's first move advantage and how to retain it. As soon as theorists discovers a method to neutralize white's advantage, that particular opening is virtually dead. This has happened to many openings, such as the King's gambit, which is hardly ever played anymore. Were it to happen to all openings, it would mean the death of chess. --Mats
All changes in nature depend on potential differences. A waterfall creates energy because there is a difference between high and low. In chess, there is a difference in "altitude", too. White has an advantage, which is converted to either a tactical or strategical initiative. This gives rise to fine pieces of art as well as interesting theory, because the potential serves to energize the game. It is possible to design a game in which this potential doesn't exist, but then it isn't Western chess anymore. For instance, I think Shogi and Xiangqi are different in this respect. I don't know about Shogi, but Xiangqi does not have the same status as chess. In China it is regarded as kind of vulgar, although it is great fun. So that's why I wanted, in the relocation variants, to retain white's first move advantage. Otherwise it isn't chess anymore, and it won't become as popular. The positions chosen are all very natural. There are no awkward positions, as in Chess960. Moreover, compared with Chess960, in some of the variants the array has been expanded, since there are also non-mirrored positions. Non-mirrored starting positions are congenial with real warfare. See my article, "Relocation variants": http://mlwi.magix.net/bg/relocationvariants.htm --Mats
by the players, such as Fischer Placement Chess.
--Mats
Seirawan Chess. Normal rules, except two extra pieces can be introduced: Hawk and Elephant (with zrf).[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I never claimed that one can gate more than one piece per time. I don't know what is so unclear with my description of the rules. Just follow the correct rules and play on my preset. It works fine. /Mats
Spengler, whenever a piece moves from its initial square, the player is free to insert an extraneous piece, if he so wishes. If he moves all pieces from their initial squares without introducing any of the extraneous pieces, then he has forfeited his right to introduce them. Castling is a double move, when the king moves from its initial square and the rook moves from its initial square. So it is essentially the same as all the other moves, except that here the player has a choice. He can place an extraneous piece on either the corner square or the king square. I see no problem in the description of the rules. /Mats
My Chess Variant page has changed address again: http://mlwi.magix.net/public/chessvar.htm M. Winther
Elk Chess. The double-barrelled Elk moves differently depending on square colour.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]My chess variant page has been down a long time, so I created a mirror here: http://boardgames.zxq.net/chessvar.htm /M. Winther
I have implemented Pretwa and other Indian war games on the following link. These are rather naive games, nothing like chess. http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/indian_wg.htm /Mats
"The main question of this thesis concerns the possibility of illuminating the presence and impact of the irrational element that is play in an ancient societal structure. [...] The study is based on selected game-related finds from the site of Mohenjodaro. Located in Sindh in southern Pakistan, the site constitutes the remains of the largest urban settlement of the Bronze Age Indus Valley realm (ca. 2500-2000 BC). One of the typical features of this realm constitutes a focus on small-sized art. Among other artefacts, numerous small objects of a supposedly game-related purpose have been found in Mohenjo-daro, such as dice and gamesmen. [...]"
Gaming in Mohenjo-daro – an Archaeology of Unities
I wrote an article about historical board games with special reference to mandala shapes, here:
The Boardgame Mandala
/M. Winther
The game earlier discussed in Variant Chess, called Vietnamese Chess, has now been resolved. But I don't know if it qualifies as a true chess variant: http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/nam_dinh.htm /M. Winther
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In Pushpawn Chess a connected pawn on the fourth or fifth rank can push back an enemy pawn that is placed before it, provided that the square behind the enemy pawn is empty. A Pawn that is situated adjacent to a friendly pawn, diagonally or horizontally, counts as “connected”. This is a serious challenger to Fide chess.
The pawn chain emulates a medieval shield wall. As the pawn is blocked by a shield, it cannot capture directly forwards. Instead, it captures diagonally forwards, which was a typical method, also in the roman army. But there is a move missing, namely a push move. In the ancient and medieval battle situation, soldiers tried to push the enemy shield wall back, to create a breach. The new push move emulates this ancient tactics.
Pushpawn Chess (Zillions)