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Grand Tamerlane Chess. (Updated!) John Davis invented this variation of Mideast Chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡John Davis wrote on Sun, Feb 17, 2019 06:29 AM UTC:

Thank you for noticing and your comment Nicolino. Mr Muller posted it here at my request. I only have an android phone and have not tried to submit my own rule pages. My idea with Grand Tamerlane, Grand Chu Shogi and Grand Courier is to make a basic set for beginners. Grand Chess and Eurasian Chess would round out the set. 


Hectochess. 10x10 variant that can be played with 2 mismatched Chess sets.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Sun, Feb 10, 2019 06:31 AM UTC:

To H G, thank you for your efforts, but one small mistake, the Stags should start on the second rank next to the Rooks. This thread is not the appropriate place to carry on. Would you please post the interactive diagram of Grand Chu Shogi as a comment on my Grand Tamerlane page and post the link to the jocly Scirocco on the Scirocco comment page. I will post my thoughts on Scirocco on it's comments page.


John Davis wrote on Thu, Feb 7, 2019 04:50 PM UTC:

To H. G. We talked about it in the Elven Chess comments and there is an unpublished preset under the name Grand Chu Shogi and a record of my play test with Joe.

To Ben, thank you . I have trouble finding free time between work and family. I have 8 unpublished presets, but Grand Courier and Grand Chu Shogi are the main ones.

To Adam. My long-term project is to make a basic set for beginners (a 10x10 board, peiclopeidia and a collection of games) and this is a good addition , but calling the Leo a Cannon isn't the only issue. In your rules for pawn promotion, you give the option to promote to a Vao, but not to a Pao. This might be another reason to avoid confusion and change the name of the Cannon to Leo and give the option to promote to Pao and Vao.


Game Courier Tournament 2019. Chess Variant Tournament to be played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Thu, Feb 7, 2019 04:18 PM UTC:

Thank you Greg, the short answer is I prefer your array, Grand Betza Stong. The long answer. After my game of Chess on a Really Big Board with Georg Spengler, we both decided that the Rose was a horrible piece. Then I was mortified to find that our game is still on the Wikipedia page for CoaRBB. The Rhino is also mentioned in the article for the game and I wanted to try playing with that piece. With the Rhino being a slider, I hoped it would be less obnoxious then the Nightrider and a full major piece . I also wanted to play with the Phoenix and Kirin, and the number of pieces suggested a 10x10 board for a good piece density. This was my first attempt at an array from scratch and the Grand Betza array seems to favor white to much. If you don't wish to have your name attached to it, I'm ok, but I much prefer your array and would like to have it as the official array for a published preset under either Grand Betza or Grand Betza Strong, your choice. 


John Davis wrote on Thu, Jan 24, 2019 07:13 PM UTC:

I'm sorry to hear that, I'm always willing to be cannon fodder ;-).

But seriously, the last tournament gave me an idea of who plays at my level.

I was surprised that Shako or Metamachy wasn't picked for Cazaux's game since those are the ones on Jocly and in his book. And I realize that my game/games are not suitable for tournament play since mine purposely don't have rules enforcement, so they can be played with different rules.


Hectochess. 10x10 variant that can be played with 2 mismatched Chess sets.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Sun, Jan 13, 2019 08:44 PM UTC:

Oops, I didn't intend for the extra posts. I too am a fan of the 10 x 10 board, but lack the computer skills to post pages for my 10 x 10 Courier and Chu Shogi.


John Davis wrote on Sun, Jan 13, 2019 07:37 PM UTC:

I am  excited to see a game that uses the Leo, but I find it confusing that it is called Cannon. As an aesthetic issue, I don't agree with using the standard Cannon in Yangsi and then calling the Leo a Cannon in Hecto. There is a Leo graphic in the Abstract set. 

On a more stylistic note, the introduction mentions using a second set of pieces for OTB play. I might have used the inverted graphics of the FIDE pieces in the Alfaerie preset to suggest which pieces to substitute .


Abstract Chess Pieces. Icons of chess and chess variant pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Sun, Jan 13, 2019 02:53 PM UTC:

The Rocket piece is supposed to replace the Squirrel. 


Yangsi. A very playable chess variant with 12 different pieces on a 10x10 board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Davis wrote on Thu, Jan 10, 2019 01:52 PM UTC:

Sac Chess has the same piece density and is a popular game. Play testing is always a good idea.


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. 


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. 


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. 


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. 


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.


Dragonchess. A three-dimensional fantasy variant. (3x(12x8), Cells: 288) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
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.


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 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.


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"?

Fischer Random Chess. Play from a random setup. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
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?

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?

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 Fri, May 8, 2015 01:46 AM UTC:
Thank you, again

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 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 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.

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

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