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Comments by chappy

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Grand Chess. Christian Freeling's popular large chess variant on 10 by 10 board. Rules and links. (10x10, Cells: 100) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Wed, Mar 25, 2015 01:33 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This is a favorite of mine for the rules and board size, more than being another Capablanca. I am making some sets to give away for Christmas. I am including extra pieces to be a variant basic kit. I will post my changes for my "Grand Chess and Beyond" on the respective pages of each game.

Courier-Spiel. 19th century variant of Courier Chess. (12x8, Cells: 96) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Fri, Mar 27, 2015 09:50 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Courier-Spiel is the basis for my other favorite, Dragon Chess, so I chose it as my first addition to the Grand Chess & Beyond project. For my "Grand Courier" I chose the names Duke (KN), Elephant (FA) and Fool (WF) so they wouldn't conflict alphabetically with the other pieces of my basic set. I drew my E & F file placement from Chu Shogi.
King ; F1 & 10
Queen ; E2 & 9
Rook ; A1 & 10, J1 & 10
Knight ; B2 & 9, I2 & 9
Elephant ; C2 & 9, H2 & 9
Bishop ; D2 & 9, G2 &9
Duke ; F2 & 9
Fool ; E1 & 10
Pawns ; ranks 3 & 8

Mideast chess. Variant on 10 by 10 board, inspired by ancient Tamerlane chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Sun, Mar 29, 2015 02:00 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Mideast is my favorite decimal Tamerlane, but I am making some changes for my second addition to Grand Chess & Beyond, "Grand Tamerlane". First,  upgrading to a Wizard (FL) and a Sorcerer (WJ). Second,  simplifying the Cavalier to a Griffon. And finally,  I personally like the Pasha/Mastadon better than the a Squirrel, but I am using the Jumping General name for alphabetical reasons and I am a fan of Joe Joyce's work.

Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Tue, Apr 14, 2015 06:25 PM UTC:
Does this page have a Facebook page?

John Davis wrote on Wed, Apr 15, 2015 10:12 PM UTC:
It would require a moderator, so I understand why not. Promoting the site is the best reason I can think of, I've seen others try to steer people here on chess.com but there is also alot of trolls on chess.com

Chess on a Really Big Board. Game that introduced rose and knight-camel-zebra...[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Fri, Apr 17, 2015 01:34 PM UTC:
It would also be nice if the "GU" was exchanged for a ".DF"

Elven Chess. 10x10 variant with 4 new pieces, of which one can double-capture. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Sat, Apr 25, 2015 03:55 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
This variant gave me the idea for my Grand Chess and Beyond project. My idea is more inline with the nut shogis. I think the Shishi is to powerful for 10x10 and am going with a KAND Lion, plus it's a bit complex for beginners. I also wanted a Lance type piece on the edges and chose a Flying Stag. For "Grand Chu Shogi" King; F1 & 10. Queen; E2 & 9. Lion; F2 &9. Guard; E1 & 10. Dragon King; D2 & 9, G2 & 9. Dragon Horse; C2 & 9, H2 & 9. Rook; B2 & 9, I2 & 9. Bishop; B1 &10, I1 &10. Knight; D1 & 10, G1 & 10. Flying Stag; A2 & 9, J2 & 9.

John Davis wrote on Mon, Apr 27, 2015 03:53 AM UTC:
Mr Muller, I am aware of your passion for Shogi and the Shishi in particular. My opinion is built on Mr Duniho's piece on designing good chess variants. I am interested in your opinion of my array, whether a Shishi or KAND is used? This is the most original of the the ones I am proposing for GC&B. I do not have the computer skills to create something like this on WinBoard or any of the others and I have not been able to play test it. The Flying Stag does fit into your criteria of crowned pieces.

John Davis wrote on Thu, Apr 30, 2015 03:48 AM UTC:
Yes, top heaviness is covered in the Rook level Chess thread. I have seen Elven Chess on chess.com and thank you for trying to expose them to something other than 960. Your ratios give me even more of a clue to your goals, and are good guidelines in general. We are both trying to introduce Chu Shogi pieces, but mine is a Grand Chess variant, so no castling. The array in Elven Chess demands castling to develop a Guard/Dwarf. Elven is tactically Chess with a Shishi. I want something that is more tactically Chu, in having a placement of minors behind majors, without the worry of what minors promote to or a horde of one step pieces. The ratio highlights the problem with all Capablancas, but people still keep putting them out there. Cetran 2 has only one minor piece, and I find it to be an enjoyable and balanced game. Minor point: I'm not sure I follow your math with the ratios, I count Elven as 2,4,6,10 and GCS as 2,8,5,10.

Chu Shogi - Alfaerie Style. Private Chu Shogi with Alfaerie Style Pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Thu, May 7, 2015 03:17 AM UTC:
I have an etiquette question. Pheko Motaung makes repeated illegal moves and deletes games. I am considering deleting all my games with him.

John Davis wrote on Thu, May 7, 2015 11:44 PM UTC:
Mr Duniho, thank you for your efforts. 
Mr Georg, I apologize. I wanted to read the warning on the delete page. I don't entirely understand what happened. It seems that sometimes when I hit the delete button, it goes to a warning page and sometimes it deletes without taking you to the warning page first. At the time I was distracted and did not realize our game had been deleted. Please forgive me, I have enjoyed our games and hope to play you again. 
Mr Duniho, is it possible to restore game 2015-105-948?

John Davis wrote on Fri, May 8, 2015 12:59 AM UTC:
We were almost to 90 moves http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DChu+Shogi+Alfaerie+Style%26log%3Dchappy-cvgameroom-2015-105-948%26userid%3Dchappy

John Davis wrote on Fri, May 8, 2015 01:46 AM UTC:
Thank you, again

Fischer Random Chess. Play from a random setup. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Sat, May 9, 2015 02:19 PM UTC:
By "richer strategy", it's sounds like you mean,  a predetermined strategy. Doesn't this defeat the point of having a random starting position?

John Davis wrote on Sun, May 10, 2015 09:08 PM UTC:
By "richer strategy", it's sounds like you mean,  a predetermined strategy. Doesn't this defeat the point of having a random starting position?

What is a Chess variant?. An essay on what distinguishes a Chess variant from other games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Sat, Apr 23, 2016 07:09 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
In the section titled Fairy Chess, it reads "and organizations for correspondence games didn't exist". Shouldn't that be "did exist"?

Dragonchess. A three-dimensional fantasy variant. (3x(12x8), Cells: 288) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Tue, Jun 7, 2016 08:25 PM UTC:

Cam, I wish you luck in putting something together. Dragon 100 is the only of my old Dragon magazines I have kept. I am not a lawyer, but if you want to  make money off of Dragon Chess,  you will probably have claims against you. The good news is that as far as I can tell, Hasbro doesn't hold the rights to it. According to a 12-12-2012 article in Forbs by Michael Peck, Gail Gygax, his second wife, holds all rights to his property. The article also mentions his sons Eric and Luke are still active in gaming. Another consideration is the Dragonchess (one word) game, they might also wish to fight over the name. If I were you, I would certainly put in plenty of due diligence in research before put alot of time and money into the project only to have it swamped with cease and desist letters.


John Davis wrote on Sun, Jun 12, 2016 04:14 PM UTC:

So, there is nothing prohibiting someone from making a game courier page. I like Alfaerie graphics, I'm thinking, X, .ZF, .BW, for the upper board. For the Courier-Speil middle board, .EF, GU, .NGU, and SE, ~CO, _JG_.DW, for the lower board.


John Davis wrote on Sun, Jun 12, 2016 04:15 PM UTC:

So, there is nothing prohibiting someone from making a game courier page. I like Alfaerie graphics, I'm thinking, X, .ZF, .BW, for the upper board. For the Courier-Speil middle board, .EF, GU, .NGU, and SE, ~CO, _JG_.DW, for the lower board.


Proposal for New Chess Variant Tournament[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
John Davis wrote on Tue, May 16, 2017 09:42 PM UTC:

HURRAY! I'm back. Thank you Greg, and thanks for taking an editorship. As far as the tournament, most of my study has been in categories 3 and 4 and most of 6. Unfortunately I have little to no experience in the others. I feel comfortable with 1, Fischer Random 2, Makruk 5, Cylinder and 7, Wildebeast or CwDA.


zebra vs knight[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
John Davis wrote on Tue, Nov 7, 2017 09:27 PM UTC:

I'm not a programmer, so I can only offer my seat of the opinion. I have played Herculean, Cataclysm, Chess on a Really Big Board and Golden Age Chess on a Really Big Board, and I would guess that by 14x14 a Zebra is starting to be better than a Knight. But why use a plain Zebra? Most seem to use a Wizard now instead of a Camel. It's easy to come up with new major pieces, but not so easy to make a good minor piece. I'm a bit prejudice,  but I'm a big fan of the WZ Sorcerer. 


Kudos to Fergus[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
John Davis wrote on Sat, May 19, 2018 01:37 PM UTC:

Yes, thank you. I have my own experience with 10% of the people doing 90% of the work. Thank you. 


Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Mon, Nov 26, 2018 03:25 AM UTC:

Hobby Lobby sells checkered fabric with 2 1/2 inch squares. It's 17 squares across and as long as you want. For pieces, printing out your favorite graphics and glueing them to poker chips is the easiest. 


SOHO Chess. Chess on a 10x10 board with Champions, FADs, Wizards & Cannons.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Sun, Dec 30, 2018 05:24 PM UTC:

I'm not sure this adds to the conversation, but in "A Guide to Fairy Chess" by Anthony Dickins. It lists the Dragon ( Pawn + Knight ) which you used in Champagne Chess. It also has Gryphon, Griffin as ( Pawn + Bishop ). I have thought the PB might be useful in some cases. 


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