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I have been thinking about the Camel + Bishop piece lately. It is an interesting piece: About a pawn more powerful than a rook, but, at the same time colorbound (colourbound, British speakers). I have discussed this piece before; and now, with the next version of ChessV having support for this piece, I would like to think about three possible opening setups on an 8x10 board adding a pair of these pieces to the standard chess array. Since this piece does not really have a name, I propose the name 'Hafiz'. This is a Muslim name for someone who has memorized the entire Quran, and is consistant with the theme of Camels and the theme of Bishops. Anyway, here are three interesting possible 8x10 starting arrays using this piece, which has the letter 'H':

HRNBQKBNRH
BRNHQKHNRB
RNBHQKHBNR

Anyway, I have no idea how a game with these pieces will play. It seems to be more wild than normal chess, but not quite as tacticfully sharp as the various Carrera/Capablanca games out there. Having two pairs of colorbound pieces cetainly does interesting things to the tactics. I'm a little worried that having so many colorbound pieces will make things more drawish, since, in Chess, bishops of opposite colors is generally a draw, and, with two pairs of colorbound pieces, these kinds of draws may be more likely. Then again, since there is no single piece worth exchanging for a Hafiz, the chance of one side having a white Hafiz and the other a black Hafiz is less than bishops of opposite colors are in FIDE Chess. Anyway, when the new version of ChessV comes out, I will be able to do some testing to see how playable this variant really is. In the mean time, George Duke will probably kicck my butt in Schoolbook again. - Sam