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Seirawan ChessA game information page
. FIDE chess, put players have N+R and N+B in hand to drop.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Sep 19, 2016 01:38 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I've played a few games of this variant with friends. I found that certain standard opening moves in chess were less attractive to me, such as any involving an early fianchetto (P-N3 intending B-N2) or Open Sicilians (1.P-K4 P-QB4 2.N-KB3 intending 3.P-Q4) with White, in both cases if the opponent still has a Hawk and/or Elephant to drop when still developing. However, play may soon get richer after the Hawks & Elephants are dropped, regardless. Also, unlike some variants with R+N compound pieces, there may be less likelihood such pieces will be similarily developed to cells on the same file, & then exchanged, right away in the opening. I don't quite like that if all Hawks & Elephants are captured then the game becomes indistinguishable from chess from that point on, but that doesn't affect my opinion that Seirawan chess should get a high CVP Rating. The extra pieces may make for a slightly crowded board near the beginning of a game, though that's even slightly more the case in my own Sac Chess variant (with no pieces to be dropped in it at all).

My estimates for the piece values would be: P=1; N=3.5; B=3.5; R=5.5; H=8; E=10; Q=10 and the fighting value of K=4 (though naturally it cannot be traded). Since I tend to believe a B is microscopically better than a N on average on an 8x8 chessboard, perhaps adjust N=3.49 (also adjust the H and E compounds minutely since they have a N component), though I also usually try to avoid listing ugly fractions for values.