Game Reviews by Sam Trenholme

Of course, David’s next challenge is to make chess variants for all of the regular polygon tilings. Or, if that’s too ambitious, how about a chess variant for this tiling.

The possibilities are nearly endless...

Speaking of which, is there any interest in my inventing a variant using an alternate tessellation. I have an idea that has been bouncing around my head for over a decade which I should make a variant out of, but only if people would be interested in looking at it.

- Sam

Another idea I like along the same lines is to keep black pieces where they are, but swap White's queen and king. Now, in White's OO move, the king moves right two squares (from the d file to the f file) and the h rook moves left three squares, and in White's OOO move, the king moves left two square (from the d file to the b file) and White's a rook moves right 2 squares to the c file.

Any other ideas for modest chess variants that keep the game the same as much as possible, while throwing out the FIDE opening book?

- Sam

SMIRF has a very romantic style of play, making bold sacrifices. For example, in thie game against Zillions of Games, where both sides have five seconds to make a move on a Pentium Core Duo 1.5Ghz, SMIRF has the black pieces and makes several bold sacrifices before finally delivering the mating blow to white:

1. e4 Ng6 2. f3 Nd6 3. d3 Af6 4. NI3 e6 5. Ng4 Ah5 6. I4 AI6 7. Nb3 h5 8. Nc5 Qc8 9. Ixh5 Axh5 10. NI3 Af4 11. g3 Ah6 12. h3 b6 13. Ng4 Aj5 14. Nb3 Mh8 15. Af2 BI6 16. Bj4

SMIRF gets ready to make his first sacrifice.

16... Mh5!? 17. NI3 Mxj4 18. Nxj5 Bxj5 19. Ag1 Mh5 20. Kf2 Mg5 21. f4

SMIRF now sacrifices both of his knights to continue the attack on White's King.

21... Nxe4+! 22. dxe4 Mxe4+ 23. Kg2 Nxf4+! 24. gxf4 Mxf4+ 25. Kh2 KI8 26. c3+ f5 27. MI5

SMIRF sacrifces his bishop in order to keep his attack lively.

27... j6! 28. Mxj5 Qb7 29. Bf3 Qxf3 30. Axf3 Mxf3+ 31. Kg2 Mf4+ 32. Kh2

Black can now force mate; finding this mate is left as an exercise to the reader.

In another game, SMIRF plays ChessV, with SMIRF having the white pieces and each side given 30 seconds to decide their move on a Pentium Core Duo 1.5Ghz. Here is how that game went:

1. Ng3 e5 2. Mh3 Ne7 3. Nd3 Neg6 4. e3 d6 5. f4 exf4 6. exf4 Ad7 7. Af2 Axh3 8. Axh3 Ke8 9. Bg4 Bh4 10. Bd7+ Kd8 11. Qe1 Ne7 12. Bf2 Nhg6 13. Nf5 Bxf2 14. Kxf2 c6 15. Nxe7 Nxe7 16. Qe2 d5 17. Nc5 Ng6 18. Rje1 Kc7 19. Bxc6 Kxc6

At this point, even though White is down material, he can force mate. The mate, again, is left as an exercise for the reader.

I like the new tessellation that this variant uses; there are so many
possible tessellations out there, yet most Chess variants use a plain
square tessellation.  Only sometimes do we use a plain hexagonal
tessellation; far rarer is something radical such as a board using
triangles, parachess [1], or this board.  

I applaud you for trying out a new tessellation!

- Sam

[1] http://www.chessvariants.com/shape.dir/parachess.html

I think the problem is that Andy wasn't fully able to see that he hurt Glenn's feelings when he was critical of his chess variant. It is very hard to be critical of a chess variant; see this discussion where I was critical of a variant.

In terms of Dragon, as I said before, I won't play it until a computer implementation is made, and Glenn is currently unwilling to make one. But, yes, I think this kind of Chess + wargame hybrid is a good idea. The rules are a bit complicated for my taste to try and learn this game unassisted, however. Then again, I never played anything more complicated than Axis and Allies without a computer.

I'm adding an excellent rating mainly to counterbalance Andy's poor rating.

- Sam

I have a black and white version of the board here:

http://www.samiam.org/new-ivorytower9x10-bw.bmp

- Sam