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Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Jan 17, 2023 09:13 PM UTC:

Hi H.G.:

These 2 latest CV ideas here are ones I thought of back some years ago, when I was keen to keep the FA pieces as part of the CVs (and some others), as they were part of the Courier-Spiel tradition. They also are handy when trying to keep all pawns guarded in the setup (a principle at least Fergus and I like to follow, even though the other 'Classics' than chess [Chinese Chess and Shogi] break it big-time, in ways extensive playtesting seems to justify however - Janus Chess is a well-tested modern CV that breaks it too).

Even much earlier you suggested the Phoenix (aka Waffle) to me, and I did use it at the least in my long-ago submitted 10x8 Waffle Chess preset, but I found keeping every pawn guarded was awkward enough that I used my Fast Castling rules even for that, though I didn't like doing so for a 10x8 CV (however enemy forces it seemed to me could make a more normal type of castling [e.g. Capablanca Chess style] problematical). Maybe I used Phoenix' in my old 12x8 Wide Chess CV too - I'd need to check. [edit: indeed I did. Note that someone took the name of Phoenix Chess before I could use it.]:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/wide-chess

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/waffle-chess

https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/courierspiel.html