Comments by SamTrenholme

- Sam

Update The Zillions file with these variants is available as a file in the Yahoo Chessvariants group.

1. Af3 Nd6 2. Ng3 f5 3. Nd3 Nhf7 4. h3 e6 5. BI3 h6 6. Ah5 Bh7 7. Ke1?

Zillions, for mysterious reasons, made a meaningless king move.

7. ... I6 8. Af3 MI7 9. Bxd8 Qxd8 10. Nc5 Ng5 11. Ae5 Nf7 12. Ad4 Ad6 13. Mj3 Qe7

ChessV now has Zillions on the run. With a better pawn structure and two more pieces developed, black has more than equalized and now controls the game.

14. Nd3

At this point, Black can force the win of a piece. The moves to do so are left as an exercise for the reader.

In the game played, White never recovered and Black (ChessV) eventually won.

Personally, I'd rather see Andy spend his time figuring out how to do a queen vs. king and king mate on a Gustavian board than troll here on chessvariants.org, but that it just my opinion.

- Sam

- Sam

- Sam

P.S. I liked Andy's last comment.

- Sam

Edit: More links added.

- Sam

Another interesting idea is the crab eqivalent of a camel (e4 to d7, f7, b3, and h3), which is even weaker than a crab (colorbound). This piece doesn't have a name, so I'll call it a mirage. The 'mirage' can be combined with a ferz, alfil, or dabbah to make an interesting colorbound piece, or with a wazir to make an interesting non-colorbound piece. 'Mirage' + wazir is probably slightly less powerful than a knight on an 8x8 board, but slightly more powerful than a knight on a 10x10 board.

- Sam

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess/msg/aa184ce18ea1d8ae?dmode=source&hl=en

I do not think he would be overly offended if I reposted his proposed Variant, so here goes:

Super Chess on 14x14 board

 
Piece Symbol Description
 
pawn    P    moves: forward 1, forward 1 or 2 initially
             captures: diagonally forward, all
             promotion: promotes to all but king upon reaching final rank
knight  N    moves: L shaped 2 square in one direction, 1 square at right angle
                    to first direction
             captures: same as moves and occupies that square
bishop  B    moves: Diagonaly any number unless blocked
             captures: diagonaly first enemy in path, and occupies that square
rook    R    moves: Straight line any number unless blocked
             captures: straight line first enemy in path, and occupies square
queen   Q    moves: bishop+rook
             captures: bishop+rook
camel   C    moves: similar to knight but 3 and 1 instead of 2 and 1 (bigger L)
             captures: similar to knight but 3 and 1 instead of 2 and 1
octopus O    moves: knight+bishop
             captures: knight+bishop
shifter S    moves: like king
             captures: like king
jumper  J    moves: 2 squares any direction
             captures: can jump over one enemy piece like a checker, capturing
                       it and occupying the destination square, 2 away from
                       the start square
air     A    moves: 4 squares in any combination (straight+diagonal)
             captures: any enemy along path, stopping at that square
lord    L    moves: rook+knight
             captures: rook+knight
demon   D    moves: like king
             captures: none
             special: any friendly piece touched cannot be captured, other
                      than another demon
faerie  F    moves: like bishop
             captures: like rook
envy    E    moves: like king
             captures: none
             special: give any friendly piece touching other than an envy or
                      pawn, queen like movement and capture capability, in
                      addition to normal abilities, but only for one move if
                      contact is lost on that move. Once contact is lost,
                      piece reverts to normal.
grunt   G    moves: camel+king
             captures: camel+king
             special: if captured, returns to square of origin if not occupied,
                      otherwise lost (square of origin on either side (left or
                      right) of board, permissible)
king    K    moves: 1 square any direction, but not into check, no castling
             captures: 1 square any direction, but not into check
             special: if under attack, and cannot defend, it is checkmated,
                      game over, opponent wins. Stalemate is a loss. No draws
                      accept by agreement of players.
 
Initial board configuration:
 
ernbocqkcobnre
gdflsjaajslfdg
pppppppppppppp
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
d-+-+-+-+-+-+d
D+-+-+-+-+-+-D
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
PPPPPPPPPPPPPP
GDFLSJAAJSLFDG
ERNBOCQKCOBNRE

- Sam

• N then (NW or NE)
• E then (NE or SE)
• S then (SW or SE)
• W then (NW or SW)

An interesting piece is the 'wazir then wazir', which moves as follows:

Leap:

• (N, S, E, or W) then (N, S, E, or W)

I have some other ideas in mind, such as defining riders and 'bulldozers', which I will detail in a later comment.

- Sam

- Sam

I respect copyright; I also don't like the idea of ideas being destroyed because of copyright. I find it somewhat frustrating that countless chess variants from the 20th century (and probably before) are not available online. Encyclopedia of Chess Variants is out of print, and Amazon currently only has one expensive copy available. I think most of the people who invented the variants in the Encyclopedia would have freely published them here if the web and this page existed at the time; the pre-internet model of using books and magazines which you buy to spread information has the advantage that it makes content which you have to pay someone to make available (such as quality novels and stories), but the disadvantage of content no longer being available if the book does not sell.

- Sam

Chess is dead.  OK, let me rephrase that--it was hard to come up with a
decent heading in 16 characters or less.  Chess, as a recreation studied
by humans alone is dead.  With the defeat of world champion Kramnik by a
computer this last October, and the failure of a human to defeat a
computer in a classical tournament since the 1990s, a good move in a chess
position is now found by mechanical calculation instead of human artistry.

What does this mean for chess variants?  It means that the study of
variants will now be greatly computer assisted.  This also means the end
of romantic gambits--no computer will give the king's gambit or other
romantic gambits a second thought.  It also limits tournament options--we
either allow computers to generate moves, or have a honor system that bars
tournaments being played for prizes.  

On the other hand, it does allow the automated creation of opening books. 
Greg Stong did some of this work with his ChessV program; I expanded on his
research to create an article for openings in a variant I have created
myself.  

So, computers have definitely changed the landscape.

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

Happy new year everyone!

- Sam

From a message I posted to the old Yahoo group:

There are 1,440 setups in 8x10 chess where the queen is to the left of the queen.

If you add a single faerie piece, there are 12,600 setups for 9x8 chess (with the queen to the left of the queen).

If you add two of a single colorbound faerie piece, there are 36,000 possible 10x8 setups (with the queen to the left and all that). If you add two of the same piece which isn't colorbound, there are 63,000 possible 10x8 setups. If you add two non-colorbound pieces, such as the archbishop (bishop + knight) and the marshall (rook + knight), there are 126,000 possible setups.

126,000 setups vs. 1,440 setups. No wonder why so many more are playable.

We can go even further: If you add three unique non-colorbound pieces to FIDE chess on an 11x8 board, 1,360,800 possible setups (680,400 if we add two of one kind of piece and one of anothe kind of piece, such as two archbishops and a marshall). If we add four unique non-colorbound pieces to the FIDE mix on a 12x8 board, we have 16,329,600 starting positions with the queen to the left of the king. If we insist on making it two pairs of colorbound pieces to a 12x8 board (such as two camels and two camels + bishops), this restricts us: We have only 1,296,000 possible starting positions.

And, even further: If we have a 'Grand Chess'/Shogi setup on a 10x10 board, with the pawns on the third row and two sets of Capablanca Chess pieces (we discard the second king) behind the pawns, we have some 92,201,259,150,000 total possible setups (with the king on the right hand side).

It might take a while for the chess variant community to come with a full opening theory for each and evey one of the above setups. :)

- Sam

- Sam

- Sam

- Sam

I just want to note that the Crab is also a piece invented by Ralph Betza that is a half knight.  Betza's crab can move, from e5, to d7, f7, c4, and g4.  It's a useful piece because it is not colorbound and is worth half as much as a knight.  It can be used to create other pieces that are worth about as much as a knight: Crab + Wazir, Crab + Alfil, Crab + Dabbah, and Crab + Ferz, to name just four examples.

Might also be useful in a Capablanca variant to remove some power from the board.

But, I do like the vision of someone being in a hot, sandy desert in a small dark cafe, stuggling to cool down and playing this game to pass the time. Something very romantic about that vision.

That in mind, I now have an open invitation to play this game. We'll see how things work out.

I need to say that, in general, a lot of Chess Variant inventors are more interested in quanity than quality. When we moved the server, no one seemed to care that a number of variants were lost; I had to recover a number of variants from my own personal 2002 backup. In many cases, the inventors of the variants had lost thier .zrf file when making the variant.

I mean, we have thousands of variants here, yet I don't see people doing any play testing or trying to develop an opening stratefy for their variant. Instead, they move on to their next chess variant invention, leaving a variant with little or no testing, no real sense of strategy, and certaintly no opening library.

I have, I think, posted all of one chess variant invention here. I did a lot of work with the variant; in addition to countless Zillions games, I also played (and usually lost) a number of game courier games and even started to develop an opening library. I wish other inventors would care for their inventions as much, instead of making a new invention, maybe making a .zrf and a game courier preset, playing a couple of games, then walking off to invent their next game.

My next invention is one based on a board with both triangles and squares, and is based on ideas I have had since 1994. I may have a complete game by the 2007, or maybe not.

In the meantime, I will continue to play Schoolbook chess.

Again, this is not against any particular people but against an entire community who makes too many games and seems to care too little for each game they invent.

I wonder how hard it would be to add camel + bishop pieces to ChessV's 8x10 board?

- Sam

HRNBQKBNRH
BRNHQKHNRB
RNBHQKHBNR

I like both the names 'Sage' and 'Mage', but like Sage more than Mage,
since M in 8x10 chess can stand for 'Marshall'-the Rook + kNight piece. 


Everything else being equal, I like to have a given piece name use a
letter not otherwise already used for a piece name.

- Sam

Why is it drawish? Because, in the midgame, the common theme in chess is to try and get an attack on you opponents king, often times with a sacrifice. However, if there are two kings, and you have to mate both of them to win, then this very strongly discourages sacrifical play. For, if you make a sacrifice or two, and get one of the opponent's king, your army is now decimated and the other person can easily win by playing the 'exchange down to a favorable endgame' strategy.

Now, having it so you have to get every royal piece to win might make sense in a variant with an obscene amount of power on the board, such as the 'Flying kittens' variants proposed about a year ago.

One thing about internet communities is that it can be difficult to know whether someone is OK if they decide to leave the community, and it can be difficult, if not impossible, to dig up an obituary if they don't have loved ones who know what internet communities they were a part of to tell said communities that the person is no longer with us.

On the topic, V.R. Parton (the guy who invented Alice Chess) invented a games called Double King Chess. This is a symmetrical opening: RNBKQQKBNR; checkmating either king (or attacking both kings at one with a piece that can not be taken) wins the game.

One interesting variant is one where we have one chancellor and two queens. Then the following setups look interesting: RNQBCKBQNR and RQNBCKBNQR, with me preferring the second setup, since the knights are more likely to be used.

Of course, it may make more sense to have, on an 8x10 board, no queen, an Archbishop, and then, from Shogi, have a 'Dragon' (Rook + King) and a Horse (Bishop + King) piece. Here, the archbishop is the most valuable piece, and the power balance on the board may be better. One possible opening setup is RHNBAKBNDR.

• First, we place the bishops. There are 2025 ways of arranging the bishops.
• Next, we place the knights. For each arrangement of bishops, there are 1820 ways to put the knights on the board.
• Next, we place the rooks. For each arrangement of bishops and knights, there are 495 ways to place the rooks.
• Next, we place the Archbishops. For each arrangement of the minor pieces, there are 28 arrangements for the archbishops.
• Next, we place the Marshalls. For each arrangements of all of the above pieces, there are 15 Marshall setups.
• Next, we place the Queens. For all of the above setups, there are 6 ways to have the queens on the board.
• Next we place the king. There are two places he can go. However, this is balanced by the fact we remove all mirror images.

Sorry it took so long to verify your number. This is the first time I have had a computer with an arbitrary precision calculator and net access at the same time in a while (Let's hear it for Ubuntu live CDs).

Edit: Yes, 64-bit computer owners, the above number can easily be calculated using 64-bit integers. I'm still in the 32-bit stone age. Do they even make 64-bit laptops that weigh less than 6 pounds?

But, for people not comfortable with all of the force on a Capablanca Chess board, the question is this: How do we have a set up pieces that is 'balanced', the same way the Capablanca Chess pieces are balanced? Well, the rook, knight, and bishop make sense, since these three pieces combined cover all 24 squares one or two away from where the piece is located. [1]

So, we need some way of naturally extending the movement of the rook, knight, and bishop that doesn't put quite as much force on the board. My idea is based on ideas from Shogi and a variant available in ChessV called royal court chess.

In royal court chess, there is a piece called a 'crowned knight'. The crowned knight is a non-royal piece with both the moves of the knight and the king. This is a interesting way of improving the knight without making the rules needlessly complicated.

I proposed extending the idea of the 'crowned knight' to the rook and bishop: The 'Crowned Rook', which is a non-royal piece with the move of rook + king; and the 'crowned bishop', which has the combined moves of bishop and king. I'm not quite sure how valuable these three pieces are, but their combined value is considerably less than the combined value of the Archbishop (Knight + Bishop), Chancellor/Marshall (Rook + knight), and Queen. The crowned knight and bishop are probably each worth about a pawn more than a rook, and the crowned rook is probably about 2.5 pawns more valuable than a rook. 19.5 pawns value total; compare this to the 25 pawn value of the three combined pieces in Capablanca chess.

So, the next question is this: What is the ideal starting setup for this 'Crowned Chess' variant? There probably isn't a single ideal opening setup, but I am curious what ideas other editors have for the opening setup.

- Sam

Footnote:

[1] We can take this idea all of the way, and make a variant of Cherry's Capablanca Shantraj where the rook is wazir + dabbah, and the bishop is ferz + alfil, and the queen is the combination of those two pieces. However, Chess variants already have a hard enough time attracting interest without us making the movement of all the non-royal pieces different, making the game even harder to learn.

For example, I only think color balance for pieces matter if the pieces are colorbound. It doesn't matter to me what colors non-colorbound pieces end up on, since those pieces can change color at will.

As another point, I no longer think it's essential that each and every pawn in the opening setup is defended. I think it's a good idea for white to be unable to threaten mate on his first move, since otherwise Black can be prevented from making natural developing moves in the opening; having all pawns defended stops these kinds of threats. One of my proposals posted in this thread, 'Narcotic chess' (RQNBKMBNAR), for example, has an undefended flank pawn, but appears to be a perfectly playable variant. The original Carerra setups (RANBQKBNMR and RMNBQKBNAR) have the same undefended flank pawn 'problem', but again appear perfectly playable.

I am not sure every pawn around the king has to be defended two times or more. FIDE chess has had, for over 500 years, the King Bishop's pawn defended by only the king, and this has not stopped FIDE chess from becoming the most popular Chess variant that we will ever have. However, I can see why one may not want these weakly defended pawns in a Capa setup, since there is 18 pawns more power (2 more pawns, the archbishop, and the matshall/chancellor) on the board than in FIDE Chess.

One thing I like to see in an opening setup is a Chess-like arrangement of the minor pieces. One problem with, say, RNBQKAMBNR, is that moving the center pawns forward two squares blocks the diagonals of the bishops, and it is difficult to make the knights active players in the game. The nice thing about, say, RQNBKABNMR, is that the knights, bishops, and center pawns are naturally developed without getting in each other's way.

So, in conclusion, since I have my own ideals about the initial position of the pieces, I will come up with a different opening setup than other chess variant inventors may decide upon,

- Sam

• A crowned bishop is worth about a pawn more than a rook: 6 pawns.
• A crowned knight has the same value: 6 pawns.
• A crowned rook is worth somewhat more, probably about as much as an archbishop: 7.5 pawns
• In total, 19.5 pawns of force for these three pieces

Now, it would be nice if Greg added the ability for black and white to value pieces differently in ChessV, so that we could more fully test the values of pieces.

I wonder if there is some other way of enhancing the rook, knight, and bishop to give us even less force on the 10x8 board than the 'crowned piece' enhancment. One idea: A non-capturing king's move. Or, if that doesn't give the pieces enough power to make the game have interesting tactics, A non-capturing camel's move.

If we simply have another rook, knight, and bishop, that adds 11 pawns of power to the board. The weakest usable enhancment I can think of is a non-capturing leap one or two squares forward. This makes the enhanced bishop non-colorbound, and allows the enhanced rook to more quickly get in to play, and makes the enhanced knight a little more mobile.

Before finishing off, some quick random thoughts:

• They have just recently solved 8x8 checkers (Look up Chinook). How long will it take to solve Chess?
• 3d printers will very soon go from costing $100,000 to costing about $10,000. This will make it possible to somewhat affordably make custom Chess variant pieces without having to have an arts and crafts project.

I think I need to clarify some tthings so you can understand me better. Anything in italics like this is something you wrote. So, let me make some minor clarifications:

The color-bound pieces imbalance (e.g., queen and archbishop both on dark or light spaces)

'Colorbound', for me, has a very specific meaning. I use Betza's meaning for colorbound: A piece that, for the entire game, always has to be on the same color. A bishop. for example, that starts on the white squares will always be on the white squares for the entire game, since it can not make a move going from the white squares to the black squares. Netither the queen nor archbishop are colorbound; both pieces can reach any square on a blank board in two or three moves.

As an aside, I like your using 'what squares can the power pieces go were they the only pieces on the board' as an evaluation criteria for evaluating an opening setup.

you have a vast number of positions to choose from (12,000+ according to Reinhard Scharnagl)

Actually, we only have 72 positions to choose from (see the beginning of this thread again).

Edit: It looks like the beginning of this thread got eaten, so, again: I observed that all of the various Capablanca opening setups proposed over the centuries have the following three features:

• Symmetrical with the rooks, knights, and bishops.
• The rooks are either in the corners or one file away from the corners
• The king is always in a center file

An undefended pawn can, with perfect play by white (the player with the first-move-of-the-game advantage) over a number of moves irrefutably result in a stolen pawn despite perfect play by black

As I recall, the evidence for that assertion was very questionable. An undefended flank pawn will not result in a proven win for white. It might make the opening a little more tactical; for example, in Narcotic Chess (RQNBKMBNAR), black might be forced to develop his marshall side knight in order to defend his archbishop pawn.

Again, please do not take my postings personally, and thank you for your insights.

- Sam

Don't feel bad. I have worked hard making my own open source project. Have I gotten a single cent for this project? No.

- Sam

• FIDE chess: 47.50/4.14/48.35
• Janus Chess: 50.32/2.19/47.47
• Embassy chess: 50.36/2.26/47.37
• Grand chess: 50.07/2.68/47.23
• Capablanca random chess: 50.84/3.07/46.07

Is 'crowned chess' closer to this ideal then FIDE chess or Capa chess? I have no idea. The only way to find out is via computer and other testing.

I can also make the argument that my Capa setup, Schoolbook, is closer to 50/0/50 than other Capa variants, since having the powerful pieces in the corner and harder to develop and having the area around the king well defended may lower White's advantage.

- Sam

I also noted that the perfect game (for myself, at least) would both have no draws and no advantage for the first player to move.

Looking at some other games, it looks like drops helps us get closer to this ideal:

• Shogi (called 'Japanese Chess' over there): 48.63/0.98/50.37
• Chessgi (called 'Loop Chess' over there):52.38/0.49/47.11
• Minishogi:51.62/0.80/47.57

• Player #1 makes a move for white
• Player #2 chooses whether to play white or black
• The game continues normally

Another idea is to take Capablanca chess, and add the pie rule in order to neutralize white's advantage. In fact, maybe it is possible to further reduce draws by adding even more powerful pieces to the armies. Hmmm, Grand Chess with the Amazon added, and the knights augmented with an Alfil (2 squares diagonal) jump, and the pie rule may make for an interesting game.

In reply to Derek's comments that the numbers at BrainKing may not be perfect: The numbers are the best numbers I can find for win/draw/loss ratios of chess variants. While not perfect (and no numbers in the real world ever are; this is why we really can't have piece values more accurate than 0.5 pawn or so), this gives us an idea of what variants will make for a fair, competitive variant where draws are rare and neither side has an unfair advantage.

One piece of data I wish I had was good win/loss/draw data on the doublemove variants. The nice thing about doublemove variants is that we can lower White's advantage by giving him only one move for his first move.

- Sam

Many of his games can be played on his website.

- Sam

In other words, since Mr. Rutherford asked for this variant to get more attention in a recent comment, I am commenting here to see what people think of this variant.

I will look at it late on, when I get a chance. I'm just settling down after a 4-day road trip.

- Sam

For people who like games like Chu Shogi, I can see the appeal of this variant.

- Sam

A chess variant the can not end in a draw, and that does not give the first player (nor second player) any noticeable advantage

The idea is this: One complaint people have about FIDE Chess is that the game has too many draws. Another complaint is that white has too much of an advantage. My proposed category is to design a chess variant where draws are impossible, and where the inventor of the variant demonstrates that their variant does not seem to give either player an advantage.

This is a little tougher category to invent for than to, say, invent a 56-square variant, so more creativity is needed with the inventors.

I propose another category:

A variant that computers can not be programmed to play well

In this category, the inventor has to make a variant that they can demonstrate is difficult for computers to play. Multimove variants and other variants where there is a high branching factor are obvious candidates, as are variants where it is not easy to calculate who is ahead (Can this be done?)

What do people think of these categories?

- 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.

Here is an image you may wish to use which I just made, based on the game courier preset:

- Sam

31 short-range pieces

3 2 1 2 3
2 5 4 5 2
1 4 . 4 1
2 5 4 5 2
3 2 1 2 3

Here is a look at all 31 combinations of these possible moves, or, if you will, 'atom' pieces:

D N A W F

1 2 3 4 5       Name                                            Colorbound
N N N N Y       Ferz                                            2-way
N N N Y N       Wazir                                           No
N N N Y Y       Guard; Commoner                                 No
N N Y N N       Alfil                                           8-way
N N Y N Y       Alfil-Ferz                                      2-way
N N Y Y N       Waffle; Phoenix                                 No
N N Y Y Y       Guard + Alfil                                   No
N Y N N N       Knight                                          No
N Y N N Y       Knight + Ferz (Augmented knight)                No
N Y N Y N       Knight + Wazir (Augmented knight); Vicar        No
N Y N Y Y       Crowned Knight; Centaur                         No
N Y Y N N       Knight + Alfil (Augmented knight)               No
N Y Y N Y       High Priestess                                  No
N Y Y Y N       Alfil Knight Wazir                              No
N Y Y Y Y       Crowned Knight + Alfil                          No
Y N N N N       Dababa                                          4-way
Y N N N Y       Ferz + Dababa                                   2-way
Y N N Y N       Woody rook                                      No
Y N N Y Y       Guard + Dababa                                  No
Y N Y N N       Alibaba; Deacon                                 4-way
Y N Y N Y       Alibaba + Ferz                                  2-way
Y N Y Y N       Alibaba + Wazir                                 No
Y N Y Y Y       Mastodon                                        No
Y Y N N N       Knight + Dababa (Augmented knight)              No
Y Y N N Y       Knight + Dababa + Ferz                          No
Y Y N Y N       Minister                                        No
Y Y N Y Y       Minister + Ferz                                 No
Y Y Y N N       Squirrel                                        No
Y Y Y N Y       Squirrel + Ferz                                 No
Y Y Y Y N       Squirrel + Wazir                                No
Y Y Y Y Y       Lion                                            No

The pinwheel piece

. X . . .
. . . . X
. . * . .
X . . . .
. . . X .

. . . X .
X . . . .
. . * . .
. . . . X
. X . . .

Each 'pinwheel' piece is 5-way colorbound; you need 5 pinwheel pieces to cover every square on the board. However, its colorboundness is unusual and a pinwheel combined with any one of the other atoms (Ferz, Wazir, Dababa, Alfil, or even the other Pinwheel) becomes a non-colorbound piece.

Dividing up the knight in to the two pinwheels, we now have 64 possible short range pieces, 54 of which are not colorbound.

Other ways of dividing up the Knight

There is one way of breaking up a knight in to two moves-to-4-squares atoms that preserves both left-right and forwards-backwards symmetry, and two ways to break up the knight in to 4-square atoms that only preserve left-right symmetry.

All three ways of breaking up a knight have already been discussed by Betza. To summarize:

Sub-knight atoms #1: Narrow and wide knights.

Narrow knight:

. X . X .
. . . . .
. . * . .
. . . . .
. X . X .

. . . . .
X . . . X
. . * . .
X . . . X
. . . . .

Sub-knight atoms #2: Crab and Barc

Crab:

. X . X .
. . . . .
. . * . .
X . . . X
. . . . .

. . . . .
X . . . X
. . * . .
. . . . .
. X . X .

Sub-knight atoms #3: Forward knight and Backwards knight

Forward knight:

. X . X .
X . . . X
. . * . .
. . . . .
. . . . .

. . . . .
. . . . .
. . * . .
X . . . X
. X . X .

As an aside, the most successful are ones where we don't even known who invented the variant. FIDE chess was invented somewhere in Italy or Spain between 1400 and 1500; we can't place it more closely than that. We don't know who invented modern Shogi nor Chinese chess. And, Bughouse chess, which is the only chess variant I have actually seen other people play over the board [1], is also a variant where we do not know who invented it or where.

Interesting thought: The most successful chess variants were invented by people who did not care if they would become rich or famous with their variant; they just wanted to have some fun with the chess pieces. Something to think about.

- Sam

[1] I myself have occasionally played a variant with a FIDE board, such as Berolina pawn chess or 'Knights move as Squirrels' chess.

However, now it has become even easier to be world champion. You no longer have to win a 1-on-1 against the current champion. You merely have to win a single round robin tournament to hold the crown. I think this will make the championship more dynamic and exciting. From Steinitz to Kramnik, there were only 14 world champions. Now we should have a different world champion every two or three years.

It's a very interesting change in the world of chess, but one it needs to breathe some life in to a game that I feel is in a slow death spiral.

- Sam

I get the feeling that XP's or Vista's unzipper is fussy in a way that Winzip accidently breaks. As an aside, I have never had problems unzipping files in Windows XP that were generated with the *NIX zipping utilities, even after using a special program called 'advancedcomp' to make the .zip file about 5% smaller than an ordinary .zip file.

I will post a report about ChessV 0.9.3 tomorrow.

I would like to thank Greg for the update, and for this excellent, free program.

- Sam

• There is no documentation on how to actually use fairy max. The only way to figure out how to use the program is to read the C source.
• The C source code does not contain any license text. I would like to know under what license the program is released, and whether the terms are OSI-approved Open Source compatible (GPL, etc.)
• The program itself has no built-in help
• There is also WinBoardF, which has support for a few chess variants. However, there is no documentation about how to interface WinboardF with fairy max.

- Sam

P.S.: I will change my rating once documentation is available to actually interface fairy max with WinboardF. I will change my rating to one even higher if a well integrated fairy max + WinboardF package is made, which doesn't require any messing around with .ini files to play fairy chess against the computer.

A good social game is one with easy rules that people can learn quickly; I'm thinking the card game 'spoons': One less spoon in the center than the number of players; each person has four cards, gets one card from the left, passes one card to the right. When someone has 4-of-a-kind, they grab for a spoon; then everyone else grabs a spoon, irregardless of whether they have a 4-of-a-kind. The last person won't have a spoon, and is eliminated and the next round begins.

Chess is not a social game; women in particular are very uncomfortable playing Chess because of its competitive aspects. It's a game where men are in a contest to see who the better man is. Since, these days, a computer can give the world champion a hell of a game, I don't see the point of seeing how well I can do something a computer can do much better.

I can see why chess clubs are dying out and going to the Internet; people generally don't play chess to make new friends, and the game is no fun when two players have different skill levels.

- Sam

- Sam

- Sam

- Sam

- Sam

- Sam

Maybe one way of handling the pawns on a 10x10 board is to make the pawns a little stronger. One idea that comes to mind is using Winther's scorpion pawn to make the lowly pawn more powerful. Another piece that is weaker on the 10x10 board is the knight; Strong, in Opulent Chess handled this problem by having the knight also being able to move like a rook, but only square (knight + wazir). I myself would make it so the knights could also jump exactly three squares diagonally (over other pieces, if needed), or have it so one knight can also jump three squares diagonally, and the other knight can jump three squares like a rook.

A lot of 10x10 variants were proposed in the 10 contest.

Joker80 soundly defeated ChessV 0.9.3 and Zillions of Games, even with a time handicap in both cases.

Anyway, some issues:

• I can't set up a custom opening setup in Winboard, save the opening setup, and have Winboard read the setup without complaining the file is unreadable
• It would be nice if Joker80 had support for the 'free' castling used by Grotesque and Univers Chess (not to mention my own humble contribution to 10x8 chess, Schoolbook)

This one one of the possible Displacement chess opening setups.