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The Game of Jetan. Extensive discussion of various versions of the rules of Jetan. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Wed, Jul 7, 2010 03:23 PM UTC:
This continues from Cazaux's Jetan article. Cazaux himself implicates the second older and original variant by Burroughs with clearly non-jumping Odwar. I saw it too in the text of 'Chessmen of Mars' separate from the two main sets of rules. Jetan is a literary CV that never polished clear-cut rules but did come rather close, and the job has to be finished for him. Non-jumping Flyer is superior, made fully multi-path by clear specific pathways along diagonals always three-step. Otherwise, if full leaper instead -- ignoring for now the yet other hybrid interpretation mixing both stepping and leaping -- Flyer/Odwar becomes plain tri-compound of Ferz (1,1), Camel (1,3) and (3,3), the latter which Gilman dredges from our problemist past as ''Tripper'' by ways of George Jeliss. There are no other destination squares. Jetan's best main-line formulation, attributable to Burroughs, reserves jumping to Princess and Thoat exclusively in the natural order of things (further justified in follow-up comment). The Odwar should not leap because the diagonal pathways are interesting in themselves and because those destinations combining Ferz, Camel, or Tripper are meaningless without the idea of three diagonal steps inclusive of them all. Any leaper to those grouped squares is inferior to other popular organizations of target squares, such as Gilman's duals as bi-compounds or Buffalo (Ca, Z, N) as tri-compound. The latter is aesthetic for instance because the squares are adjacent to themselves and away from the departure square. Particular Jetan Odwar leaping becomes on the same ordinary level of Canadian Omega Chess Champion as more or less arbitrary tri-compound. That jumper Flyer ruins his whole point of existence, because the player does not then regard the underlying structure in similarity of three required steps on the diagonals of 10x10.