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Eurasian Chess. Synthesis of European and Asian forms of Chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
M Winther wrote on Sat, Mar 13, 2010 12:10 AM EST:
As Variant Chess magazine has argued, Bolyar Chess (Bulgarian Chess) is a scam. All the historical evidence for it is constructed. Moreover, the variant is clearly inferior.
/Mats

Anonymous wrote on Mon, Mar 15, 2010 01:54 PM EDT:
Game, wich 'desrves' name 'Eurasian chess' is here:
http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/glennsdecimal.html

🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Mar 15, 2010 05:35 PM EDT:
Due to the preponderance of fairy pieces, that game is less grounded in the major regional variants and so is less deserving of the name.

Anonymous wrote on Tue, Mar 16, 2010 08:21 AM EDT:
But then it havs elements of Shogi.

Anonymous wrote on Tue, Mar 16, 2010 02:00 PM EDT:
I think, there should be piece, wich moves one squre diagonaly and one orthogonaly forward: it belongs to many regional chess variants, wich are still played, even Shogi.

🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 12:19 PM EDT:
It's more important to me for this to be a good game than for it to represent all major Asian regional variants equally. The short-range pieces in Shogi work well in that game due to the ability to drop pieces. To introduce short-range Shogi pieces into a game without piece drops will not give the game any of the qualities that make Shogi a good game, and it would be a pointless exercise in political correctness. If you want to make your own Politically Correct Pan-Eurasian Chess, go ahead and call it that, but stop complaining about the name of this game. I am not going to change the name, and I am not going to change the rules to reflect your vision of what a game with this name should be like.

Anonymous wrote on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 01:58 PM EDT:
Ok, but i didn't suggest you to change name. I just told my opinion. Game is good, really.

Jörg Knappen wrote on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 08:49 AM EDT:
The european invention of the queen was precedented by the Japanese invention of the 'Free King' in large Shogi variants (like Chu shogi) by some centuries. What is more striking in this context is that the european obsession since Carrera, namely the Chancellor/Marshall and the Janus/Paladin pieces, does not occur in asian chess variants. This says---IMO---something about the quality of the pieces: The Queen/Free King is a perfect chess piece while the other two leave something open.

Back to Eurasian chess: It has a nice piece and rule mix and makes a great variant (learning from several other excellent games). For my taste, the Eurasian pawn is a bit too complicated and the rules concerning the pawn could be simplified. Promotion to captured pieces only has an old-fashioned look, at least.

🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 05:18 PM EDT:
Since I don't play Chu Shogi, I wasn't aware of the Free King. For the context of this game, it's nice to know that the Queen has a counterpart in Japan. So, all the pieces in Western Chess are used in Asian variants, and it seems that the most distinctly European features of this game are the Pawn's double move and en passant capture, which are not found in Asian variants, the Pawn promotion rules borrowed from the European game Grand Chess, and the Vao, invented by a European.

Anonymous wrote on Sat, Apr 24, 2010 12:58 PM EDT:
I just want tell one curious thing: queen also where in one historical
Chinese game (it's Xiang-qi variant, but actually only common thing with
it is what it's Chines and played on intersections):
http://www.chessvariants.org/xiangqivariants.dir/chin7.html

🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, May 1, 2010 09:48 PM EDT:
The Diplomat in that game moves as a Queen but may not capture or be captured. The General also moves as a Queen, but it is a royal piece. So no piece in that game exactly matches the Queen.

HP wrote on Mon, May 31, 2010 07:46 AM EDT:
This game, of course, deserves to be called 'Eurasian', i think,
opinion of anonimous reader is strange. It's not based on all European
and
Asian forms of chess, but on form, wich is most popular in far east (XQ is
popular not only in China) and on most popular European form. I don't
think
that there must be pices from Shogi: Shogi is only popular among Japanese
and chess variantists. But there are mostly FIDE pieces because they are
very playable, this combination of pieces made FIDE chess the most popular
game in Europe. If Fergus Duhino would really wanted to make game with
most
used pieces, he really would put silver general instead bishop, as told
anonimous reader, but it would be mistake, and he did not made this
mistake. I think, telling that 'rook and knight was used in most forms
of chess and bishop  was invented independtly by both Europeans and
Japanese' is srange excuse of using FIDE pieces, especially about
bishop... It don't need excuses, using playable pieces is right. Only
thing, wich i would add to this game is cannon queen, but it's not
necessary, game is perfect without it to.

M Winther, Bulgarian chess is scam?! Please, give me link to page with
information about it - i want to know details.
And another one curious thing: in 7 players Chinese chess queen don't
mathche, but bishop do. Bishop also was in 'Citadel Shatrang'
under name Dababa, so bishop was invented independently many times.

Anonymous wrote on Mon, Aug 1, 2011 09:15 PM EDT:Average ★★★
The game is far too cluttered with so many pawns. It should only have half the number of pawns, which would resemble Chinese Chess a little more closely.

Mr. Anonymous wrote on Tue, Aug 2, 2011 08:51 AM EDT:
Let's keep this more or less anonymous for now - it's only fair.

I will disagree with the previous poster. I've played Eurasian Chess a
couple times now, and I find it to be an excellent game. In reference to
your specific comment about the number of pawns, well, what are the
purposes of a pawn? This game is played with all the standard Western
pieces. Without the twin pawn barriers between the pieces, the game would
most likely devolve into an early shoot-out. I would expect this to give
White a major advantage with the first move. 

I have a question: what pawns would you remove? Gotta leave the rook pawns.
Just taking 2 pawns out, say the knight pawns, hardly seems worth it. If
you want 2 modest variants, try Six Pawn Chess. One variant removes the
knights' pawns and the other the bishops' pawns. And here's another
question: what do the first 10 moves look like? In Eurasian or 6-pawn?
Wouldn't the major pieces, especially rooks, slide through those holes?
We'll ignore the queen rampages, because they happen anyway. The 'Mad
Queen' has earned its name. Everyone remembers what queens did when we
were just learning the game. Knights messed us over badly, but queens
ruled. Why would removing pawns from Eurasian or regular chess produce a
game any different from the bloodbaths we all experienced back when?

Charles Gilman wrote on Wed, Aug 3, 2011 02:42 AM EDT:
I too would defend having a full row of Pawns. For that's what they are, Pawns - the divergent piece that spread west to the Middle East and Europe, and east to Burma and Thailand, but not China. In all the countries using it in a fixed array they occupy every file and can form chains in which a less advanced Pawn can protect a more advanced one. Perhaps the person suggesting reducing them has been misled by the Chinese symbol.

🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Aug 3, 2011 07:13 PM EDT:
Thanks for the support of my design decisions. Since they are the usual western Pawns, it makes sense to fill the rank with them. Eurasian Chess remains one of my favorite games, even among the several other games I've invented. It evolved from Yáng Qí, which had a more open Pawn structure that gave greater mobility to the Vaos. I think the more traditional Pawn structure of Eurasian Chess is an improvement over Yáng Qí. It restricts the initial mobility of the Vaos but compensates by giving them greater attacking power. In terms of pieces to spaces, it is less cluttered than Chess, since each side's pieces initially fill 22% of the board instead of 25%.

Kevin Pacey wrote on Sun, Sep 18, 2016 09:51 PM EDT:Excellent ★★★★★

This looks like a great game. A 10x10 board perhaps is as about as big a board one can hope to fit on a coffee table (e.g. as a decorative board), and still use fairly standard size chess pieces with.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Nov 29, 2016 11:32 AM EST:

The Asian contribution to this game is a bit meagre; basically it is an orthodox FIDE army augmented with two types of Cannons, only one of those of true Asian descent. That did not stop it from becoming one of the top favorites of this site, however.


Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Apr 11, 2017 05:55 PM EDT:

I'd tentatively estimate the relative values of the pieces in Eurasian Chess to be:

P=1; V=2; B=3; N=3.5; C=3.5; R=5.5; Q=9.5, with a K's fighting value guessed to be about = 5 (noting it cannot be traded). A K's fighting value would be much lower in my estimate, but for its ability to restrict the enemy K's movements (especially on a file), which IMHO makes it stronger than just having the fighting value of a chess K (i.e. 4), but bearing in mind the likelihood it's normally not as effective in battle as a Eurasian Chess R (even taking into account that a K also can diagonally restrict an opposing K's movements in this game, too).

One thing that may be worth mentioning as well is that K+P vs. lone K seems to be won if the superior side can 'protect' the P by being on the same file. Then the P can be pushed through to promotion, with its K always staying on the file behind it, as the lone K will always be forced to give way by zugzwang (the superior side's K makes a move on the same file if and when necessary).


🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Apr 11, 2017 10:21 PM EDT:

Why do you think a Knight is worth more than a Bishop? Wouldn't the Bishop's value relative to the Knight's increase as the board expanded from 8x8 to 10x10?


Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Apr 11, 2017 11:43 PM EDT:

I was mainly going by parts of the commentary on your Eurasian Chess page, Fergus, i.e. about the relative values of the various pieces (given at one point in decreasing order of value, though excluding any numerical values) . This was based on the various listed bare means of delivering basic Eurasian Chess checkmates. Correctly or not, I tried to take these listed bare means heavily into account myself when putting a N as slightly ahead a B (in numerical terms, in my case).

By way of comparison purposes, for my own 10x10 Sac Chess variant, I estimated a B at 3.5 and the N at 3, i.e. the reverse of what I've estimated their worth at in Eurasian Chess, which is in line with the premise your question (greater B mobility on a 10x10 board should favour it on average) as far as that game goes. However, Sac Chess is played with Ks that are like chess Ks (unlike in Eurasian Chess), so even for an average case Sac Chess endgame, I'd suppose the relative values of B and N would not be in any way affected. It may seem I'm going into contorsions a little to justify these values, but fwiw it seems to me one often has to use somewhat convoluted thinking to come up with estimates of the relative values of fairy chess pieces, unless one trusts fully in computer studies (in my case, I'd prefer to at least have a program used for a study that has a strong chess rating, if nothing else).

Note that even for Eurasian Chess I thought a B should be worth at least 3 pawns, but neither it nor a N should be worth 4 pawns. I wasn't going to have a Cannon worth 4.5 pawns (I think it was valued this in a Chinese Chess book I've seen, for what that's worth, though that book put R=9 to give context).

Note that a drawback of having V=2 is that three Vs=6 (greater than a R) yet any colour combination of these would never suffice to mate a lone K, not even by a helpmate.

I must point out that there's a slight discrepency between my Sac Chess value Q=10 and my Eurasian Chess value Q=9.5 (with the formula Q=R+B+P used for both games), given that the Eurasian Chess value for the Q really ought to be ten pawns too, in my view, but since in general reality cannot be perfect in every way, I wasn't going to quibble over 1/2 a P in value for such a high value piece as a Q (noting, though, that 2Rs=Q+P is a material equivalency formula that perhaps ought to still be valid in practice on average, in the event that that material balance happens in either game).

P.S.: Partly to avoid the slight discrepancy mentioned in the previous paragraph, here's my latest (possibly more accurate) set of relative values for the Eurasian Chess pieces, albeit with more (and uglier) fractional values included: P=1; V=1.75; B=3.5; N=3.75; C=3.75 (but just 2.75 in an endgame); R=5.5; Q=10 and K has fighting value=5. This set of values has the added point that 3Vs are now worth less than a R, though at the moment I'm feeling slightly uncomfortable with having such a relatively low value for a V, since for one thing it's possible 2V+K, or perhaps even V+K, can routinely hold a draw against B+P+K with ease (e.g. perhaps just by parking a V, if of the opposite colour of the B, on a square on its own side of the board in front of the P, and then only moving the defending K from then on). Also, is a N really worth more than 2V on average? Granted, this piece plus a V mate a lone K, unlike 3V...


Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Apr 12, 2017 12:30 AM EDT:

For what it's worth, here is what I'm using:

Piece Midgame Value Endgame Value
Pawn
1
1.25
Knight
3
3
Bishop
3.75
4.25
Rook
5.5
6.5
Vao
3
1.75
Cannon
4
2.75
Queen
10.25
12.25

Kevin Pacey wrote on Wed, Apr 12, 2017 02:02 AM EDT:

I've edited my previous comment somewhat extensively.


Glenn Nicholls wrote on Wed, Apr 12, 2017 05:44 AM EDT:

For Chess-playing ability and hard work, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, and Magnus Carlsen have my respect indeed, and I have no doubt their Chess ability would manifest itself in any sensible Chess-variant given the proper time to learn and study such Game.  As I have said before, let's drop the word "Variant" for any sensible Game e.g. Capablanca-chess, since these Games are still Chess. Yes, sensible is subjective, but top Chess-players would, I think, form a consensus of opinion on any particular Game or Set of Games.

As an aside I think that Bobby Fischer's ELO rating of 2785 achieved in July 1972 is, in reality, the highest achieved and that there has been, as former world champion Anatoly Karpov has stated, inflation of ELO ratings. 


Glenn Nicholls wrote on Wed, Apr 12, 2017 06:28 AM EDT:

The layout of pages setup by using MS Word documents has changed and has resulted in something of a mess for my pages.  What has happened?.  Can this be put right?  I would very much appreciate an answer.


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