Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I support conceptual and propose additional subcategories:

a) historical

b) sci-fi

c) geographical

I'd like to suggest a multiple-board theme, either a set number (2,3,4 etc.) or perhaps just any number more than 1.

Ha .. Finally a contest ..

An example you might like for a game that uses one type of piece is Chad, by Christian Freeling.

This brings up the suggestion of having a confined King as a theme. The most obvious example is Xiangqi. Other examples I can think of are Seenschach, Sphinx Chess, and Congo (which is animal themed.)

Like Graeme Neatham suggested, a Multi-board contest would be nice. (Examples being Alice Chess, Bughouse, Tandem-84.)

However, I would also suggest that using triangles for cells would make a nice change. Not necessarily equilateral triangles or a flat board.

Also, using pentagons is also a nice change. Using the Cairo tiling for example.

You can specify a certain board for the game. Like the Crazy38's board or the board in The Central Squares, or an Icosahedron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron).

Congo, by Demian Freeling, is Animal themed. This is also a pretty theme for a contest.

Other suggestion: games that use a Royal piece that does NOT move like a King. (Either a specific piece, like a Queen, or the player is given the choice.) Examples are many for Queens and Knights. Horus by Peter Aronson uses royal Falcons. Some games use a stationary King. (There's a game in the Number 10 contest, which used a piece that can only move when in check, called the President.)

Speaking of Christian Freeling's games, a theme that immediately comes to mind is games without pawns. Another theme is that Pieces can't capture each other (unless in specific situations, like in Chad.) In Caissa, instead of capture, you swap places with the other piece. Usually the only piece that can capture is the Royal piece.

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As for my vote, I vote for boards that use a fixed board, specifically the Icosahedron (admittedly, I have an idea for a game.)

I prefer the voting method to judge the contest.

I also opt for a voting method of judging, that way no-one need be excluded from entering. I would suggest each entrant should pick 3 games ordered 1st,2nd,3rd - 1st gets 3 points, 2nd 2, 3rd 1.

Additional theme suggestions:
- incomplete knowledge
- no FIDE pieces (including King)
- winning condition other than mate

I also support Abdul-Rahman Sibahi's suggestion of having a confined King (or other Royal piece)

Might I alsso suggest a contest with more than one theme? Say have 3 themes e.g. one Piece based (no FIDE pieces say), another special Criteria/Rule based (restricted King, say), and the third Conceptual (sci-fi/fantasy)

Each contestant could then enter any or all themes with the same or different games and have a vote in each theme entered. The theme winners would then be voted on by all contestants other than the theme winners to decide the overall winner.

Graeme, I like where you're going with this, but this explanation is a little bit confusing to me. Could I maybe ask you to try to clarify and elaborate, just a little bit, what you have in mind below?

Each contestant could then enter any or all themes with the same or different games and have a vote in each theme entered. The theme winners would then be voted on by all contestants other than the theme winners to decide the overall winner.

I'll try...
Suppose the contest has three themes - call them t1 t2 and t3. Each contestant may enter a game in each theme. This could be a different game for each theme (contestant designs 3 games) or a single game thst meets the conditions of all 3 themes (contestant designs 1 game that is entered into t1 t2 and t3) - or somewhere in between (designs 2 games, one for entry in t1 and t2, the other for t3). Of course a contestant does not have to enter all 3 themes - they may just design 1 game for entry in a single theme (t2 say).

Within each theme those contestants entered in that theme will vote for a theme winner (see my other comment on a suggested voting system). Of course you may NOT vote for your own design.
The theme winners will then participate in a second vote by all the contestants apart from those winning the theme, to determine an overall contest winner

I propose the theme of a draw- and tie-free chess.

If the mechanism of a game allows repetitions, one needs a rule to deal with them, and players have to keep track of the positions occuring in the game. This is not always easy. In an endgame with Queens, e.g., one might chase the opponent's King several times round the board. Then have fun remembering all the previous positions, not to overlook a repetition.

Also, if repetitions are possible, this usually means that the game can last an exponential number of moves. As an upper bound for the game length, one can count all legal positions with the given pieces on the board (with pawns remaining where they are), and the number is usually gigantic. To break such ties, the artificial and ugly 50-moves-rule (or something similar) is needed.

So I find it desirable to invent a Chess variant with a playing mechanism which can't lead to repetitions. A simple example would be that pieces can move only forward, as in the game of Breakthrough.

I. Number of Squares (Traditional)
 
 * Unknown starting board size.
 
 V. Piece Types:
 
 * Different pieces per side.
 
 X. Games with Drops
 
 * Captured pieces can be dropped or some starting pieces can be dropped
 
 XV. Confined King
 
 * As in Chinese Chess
 
 XX. Incomplete knowledge
 
 * Hidden pieces, pieces can only see where they can move?
 
 XXI. Winning Conditions other than mate.
 
 * Players can move any pieces and attempt to capture a rogue piece?

Thomas, I have invented a game that fits your description:

Advancing Chess

by Michael Howe

3/10/07

This game is played on a standard chessboard with one set of pawns and two sets of pieces per player.

Pieces only move forward, but capture as orthodox chess pieces.

Pikemen are like orthodox pawns, but can capture backwards as well as forwards.

Vicars can move and capture like bishops or one square orthogonally.

Castles can move and capture like rooks or one square diagonally.

Champions can move as either knight or king, and despite being represented by the king piece, are not royal and can be captured like all other pieces.

Queens and knights are as in orthodox chess, but can only move and capture forward.

Pikemen start on each player's third rank, and then a double set of chessmen are arranged on each player's first two ranks, the array being bilaterally symmetrical.

There is no castling, no en passant capture, no check or checkmate.

The first player to move a piece to the last rank so that it cannot be captured immediately is the winner. A player who cannot move loses.

The game is both tactical and strategic, with early fighting to gain material or positional advantage, and an endgame centered around breaking through the opponent's position to safely get a piece to the last rank. Draws are not possible! Queens and champions are the most valuable pieces, and are roughly equal with an edge to the queen. Rooks, vicars, and knights are the minor pieces, and their value depends on the position, but the vicar's long-range forking ability perhaps gives it an edge.

There are 5040 different possible starting arrays after accounting for left-right symmetry, which ensures that opening play will never become stereotyped.

A Zillions implementation also exists, though I will not be posting it here.

http://www.chessvariants.org/contests/10/vesquj/vesquj3.html

This is the game I was talking about, to quote:

'The President, as a modern head of state, does not lead the army to battle. In fact, the President cannot move unless attacked! If in check, the President may move by trading places with any piece on the same side except a Sergeant. (The military whisks her away to a refuge.)'

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My vote, from the current list, ordered by preference :

A. Tony Quintanilla's suggestion (which is, in short, designing a mutator.)

B. Winning Conditions other than mate. (Losers, where you have to get mated.)

C. A game with Triangles as cells.

D. Specific type of Board : The Central Squares.

E. Multiple Boards. (1+)

My vote: Alternate pawns and kings.

Rationale: There are hundreds of variants where the pieces are new but the king and pawn structure is the same.

My suggested design parameters: Could be played on an 8x8 board, with a standard chess set. The design must use alternate kings and pawns, may use alternate queens and/or rooks (including optional inverted rooks), and may not use alternate bishops or knights.

I'd also like to state that I am a big fan of rules/variants that reduce the chance of a draw.

Cavebear

3 more suggestions:

• Simultaneous moves
• Incorporate non-chess gaming element(s) - e.g. dice, cards, quiz questions, gaming chips
• Boundless boards e.g. Circular, Toroidal, Spherical

I'm planning to extend this process for a few reasons. We are having a very interesting discussion here about what forms of variants to work with and I think we should be allowed to have a pure discussion without so much pressure to choose. I need time and help to put in place the polling technique. Many people are doing various summer recreational things and don't have as much time as they would like to think about this contest.

Graeme and Cavebear, thank you for your additional suggestions. I will update the page shortly to include them. On the subject of Simultaneous Chess, John Kipling Lewis has been working on a very interesting such variant for years which he discussed with us once on the chess variants yahoogroup and I'll hope to post some information about that soon.

Thanks to everyone for all your suggestions. Keep them coming.

Thanks to Michael Howe for sharing his variant here.

Another theme idea: having unequal armies on the light and the dark squares.

A player might have pieces of type A, which can move only on light squares, and pieces of type B, which move on the dark squares.

The opponent may have the same types and numbers of pieces, so that the armies are equal over all. The opponent might also have his A-pieces on light and B-pieces on dark squares, so that the A-pieces fight each other, and also the B pieces, but an A piece can never meet a B-piece. It's also possible to make the setup vice versa, so that on any square color the A-pieces of one side fight the B-pieces of the other.

What about a pseudo-historical chess variant contest? That way the Short Range Project variants could have their own contest.

P.S. I think that a love themed variant contest is an interesting idea, seeing that chess has played a part in some romance stories.

P.P.S. I have always wondered what a Cupid piece would be like.

P.P.P.S. I therefore suggest that the contest be to design a chess variant which is pseudo-historical and/or love themed, but the Cupid piece, if there is one, is not too powerful in order to represent the fickle nature of love.

I like the idea of a contest, though I can only come up with ideas for about half the themes. How about a category for 'Contest Entries That Never Materialized' - either the game or the contest never materialized, but now you've got this game... I, too, have a 45-square entry, and a 64 square version that I re-worked it into when I realized there was no 45-square contest, and it languishes, maybe justifiably. 

Thomas, the game you are suggesting sounds very much like Dada, by Abdul-Rahman Sibahi.

JCRuhf, Jeremy Good has 1 cupid piece in a game; it moves in a heart-shaped pattern, I believe. I'd like to suggest another. This cupid would prevent any adjacent pieces from making a capturing move, but not a non-capturing move away from cupid's influence. This piece should probably have a generous movement capability, at least that of a queen, maybe an amazon or zig-zag general. One version might be unkillable; it can only be banished by capture. A captured cupid would then be returned to the owner to be dropped on any subsequent move.

A 45-46 SQUARES CONTEST will make up for lost time in the small board category. Next year we could have a 47-48 SQUARES CONTEST.

A LARGE (144-256 SQUARES) CONTEST allows the somewhat popular board sizes of 12x12, 16x12, 16x16, etc. Also 6x6x6 and 4x4x4x4 in higher dimensions.

Hi, I just want to add this comment about new users and this contest. I am
a new user, and I submitted a variant about a week ago and I have never
heard a response. the email was chessvar@yahoo.com. I hope this is the
correct place. 

Regarding the contest, could you not also pick variants that already exist
in  the website and submit them to the relevant categories? For example, I
have a variant that I will like to send for the site itself. I don't
really know how applicable my variant will be for any of the categories in
the contest. But since the entries are going to be 'judged', then should
not the entries already on the website (if relevant) be judged too?