Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

https://playstrategy.org/variant/noCastling

PlayStrategy supports it as a separate variant.

Thanks Lev. Here is what I just posted in regard to my governance friend's second question:

"Regarding your second question, even if a player is on the edge of being mated in some random position where he's down to almost nothing but an unmoved king and rook, if castling were legal then so would be moving the king sideways one step, I'd think."

2)"Can you think of any positions in which castling would be the only legal move (illegal in a no-castling variant)?"

It is pretty obvious that castling is never the only legal move: if you can castle you are not in check, and you can move the King one step towards the Rook, and the Rook anywhere between Rook and King. Unless you are talking about Chess960 and Fischer castling:

Does anyone wish to make a Rules Page on CVP site for this variant (No Castling Chess), which Kramnik invented (see the wiki link I added to my post I'm replying to)? That's assuming there's no copyright issue that I don't know about. Such a Rules Page might have a photo of Kramnik on it in the Introductory part, if the one who makes it knows how to upload a [large] photo. A rules enforcing preset would be a snap to make for it, say with the Play-Test Applet.

It is not a variant. It is just orthodox chess played from a different starting position, a position that already is in the game tree of orthodox chess. Tournaments of such games are known as thematic tournaments, where you are obliged to play a certain opening line.

We are also not going to make pages for a 'variant' that only differs from FIDE by the Pawns in the King  file starting on e4 and e5.

I thought 'No Castling Chess' might seriously qualify as a 'Modest Variant' (the link for that on the Topics Index Page is broken, by the way). There are Pages for those. Anyway, when a world chess champion makes a chess variant [attempt], we have pictures and well-done Pages for their games, in the case of Fischer Random and Capablanca Chess.

For a Modest variant, No Castling Chess also has an interesting story behind it, judging by the wiki I gave.

I'm not sure who should judge if something qualifies as a CV, for this CVP site at least. It belongs to Fergus, so maybe he should be the final arbiter(?). In the case of my Throne Chess, there is only one difference from chess, yet it was published on CVP, for example.

One other issue may be that Kramnik, unlike Fischer or Capablanca, may object to our using his photo, if we do. It would be a similar story in the case of Seirawan Chess, perhaps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Castling_Chess

Throne Chess

Well, it seems to me it should be quite obvious that the Queen's Gambit, or From's Gambit should not be considered chess variants. So I don't see any reason why this No-Castling Chess (not to be confused with the No-Castling Chess that has existed for many decades on servers like FICS and ICS, which is a shuffle variant) should be considered one. It doesn't bring anything new compared to orthodox Chess, much unlike Capablanca Chess, which is totally different in character, and the indeed more dubious case of Chess960, where at least most initial positions are not reachable from the FIDE position, so that it makes sense to have a separate server for it. But this No-Castle Chess can already be played on any server in the world that features normal Chess, most of them far better than Game Courier.

Well, if neither player can legally castle (as here) that makes a lot of difference, especially to the opening sequences that may be playable for one side or the other. Indeed, that may be one thing typical about chess variants, even those on 8x8 with standard armies - openings used in orthodox chess cannot be followed by one side or the other very deep into a typical game being played of them. [edit: in that way my own 8x8 modest variant 'Throne Chess' is different - the difference with standard chess possibly shows up only in the later stages of a game being played of it.]

It also makes a lot of difference when you have to continue a game after 1. e4 c5 or after 1. d4 d5. That doesn't make the Queen's Gambit and the Sicilian different chess variants. It also makes a lot of difference whether you get 90 minutes or 2 minutes or 30 days on your clock. Not every difference, no matter how large, creates a new chess variant.

Throne Chess has different rules from orthodox Chess. In fact so different that at no time you can enter the game tree of one from a position in that of the other. The more the game progresses, the more this difference will be felt. (Like in the more popular King of the Hill, based on a similar idea.) This in contrast to, for instance, Seirawan Chess. Where after trading Hawk and Elephant you just end up in an  orthodox game. Even from Chess with Different Armies you can eventually convert to an orthodox Pawn ending.

So you should not be fooled by the term 'modest'. That term means something very specific here, and in any case not that the change in rules cannot have huge impact. If I am not mistaking, even Ultima and Arimaa count as a modest variants, because they can be played with an orthodox Chess set on an 8x8 board. (Of course I take the position here that they are not even Chess variants...)

To be fair, after trading Hawk and Elephant off in S-Chess, it's still a slightly different game since players can promote to either of those piece types if they wish. Same story for CWDA.

Getting back to No Castling Chess, at least it's impossible to get the same setup as the one for in chess (i.e. still have castling rights there). Play 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2 Ke7 3.Ke1 Ke8 in chess and you have the same position in No Castling Chess as after 1.e4 e5 there, for example, but no experienced players would do that voluntarily.

It all depends if you somehow can find plausible moves to get from a game of No Castling Chess to a standard chess' same position, with no castling rights in the latter case that are left - hardly always a likely story, for games between experienced players at either game.

OK, you are right about the promotion, although the effect of that would (especially in Seirawan Chess) be very minimal.

You cannot get to a position with castling rights in No-Castling Chess, but you can get to a position as would be reached after castling. In orthodox Chess castling rights are not preserved forever, and usually expire when most material is still on the board. All positions that follow would also be reachable from the No-Castling initial position. But the point was really the other way around: that the No-Castling initial position could be reached from the FIDE setup. Not in the way you mention, because you could not get the Pawns back on 2nd rank, but by Nf3-Rg1-Rh1-Ng1 (repeated for the other three Rooks).

That some moves in this opening line are sub-optimal is not really relevant. In fact all opening lines but one must have sub-optimal moves in them, in Chess. The whole idea of thematic tournaments is that you want people to play from positions they would not reach voluntarily. In computer matches one often intentionally uses opening lines that are very poor for one of the players, bringing them on the edge of losing, before the engines are allowed to play the moves of their choice. And then play a pair of games with reversed colors to make it fair. This to eliminate the draw margin, which by the standards of modern engine play is so wide that virtually all games starting from an equal position end as draws. By starting on the edge the outcome can go either way (draw or loss), with about 50% chance, and a reversed pair of games has only 50% probability of ending in a draw, between equal players.

So no, poor quality of an opening line does not make a game where that opening line was played a chess variant.

H.G. wrote "...the No-Castling initial position could be reached from the FIDE setup. Not in the way you mention, because you could not get the Pawns back on 2nd rank, but by Nf3-Rg1-Rh1-Ng1 (repeated for the other three Rooks)..."

I cannot argue with that, though somehow many people seem to be treating No Castling Chess as if it were a legit variant. Meanwhile, here's a link to an event in India with it being played, with 89% decisive games played in it:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-first-ever-no-castling-chess-tournament-results-in-89-decisive-games

Well, what do orthodox Chess players know about variants?

Some practical considerations are that an explanation of the rules is redundant; any Chess player already knows you can lose castling rights, and very likely has experienced this himself more than once in a game. Special computer programs for it do not have to be created, because all existing engines for orthodox Chess that are in common use already can play it. Special servers for it are not needed, because it can already be played on all servers for orthodox Chess. (The server would not be fully rule-checking in that case, but who cares? We have presets here that don't check any rules at all, and it never discouraged people from playing these variants. Many servers do allow you to play from setup positions anyway, and there you could even set up a position without castling rights.)

The only thing that is new is that you cannot find books with opening theory on it. But the fact that a player has not memorized an opening line does not make something a variant.

We have presets here that don't check any rules at all, and it never discouraged people from playing these variants.

That depends upon how you quantify people. It never discouraged everyone from playing these variants, but it has discouraged some people on an individual basis.

I wonder if Kramnik has realized his 'mistake' by now, or even cares? In any case if someone here wants to make a Rules Page for No Castling Chess, they can add mention of your 'clear refutation' of it being a true variant H.G. (i.e. that it's a poor opening variation that can arise from FIDE Chess) - that would be one more anecdote for an Introduction or Notes section on such a Rules Page. :) edit2: I'm not sure that we should reject this 'variant' - would we be seen as snobs?

edit: one note about your refutation H.G. - those rook and knight moves by both sides from the FIDE start position would eat into the 50-move rule count, but that's almost guaranteed to be restarted after someone should decide to move a pawn, if it were still FIDE Chess being played. :) Same goes for avoiding/allowing 3-fold repetition early on. :) However, note that it would no longer be possible to make an early agreed draw in the FIDE version, say at move one. :)

I've edited my post I'm replying to, in case anyone missed it.

Bruh can you just add No-Castling as a version of Chess on its existing page?

I'm not sure that we should reject this 'variant' - would we be seen as snobs?

Yeah, let us behave like ignorants, otherwise the ignorant masses notice we stick out...

Well, that is not my philosophy of life.

Bruh can you just add No-Castling as a version of Chess on its existing page?

That is what we usually do for small rule changes that do not need any additional explanation.

Hmmm.

Speaking of snobbery, reminds me of the era when the US extended a 'No Fly' zone over Iraq. The NY Times thought that was incorrect (Pidgin English) and used the term 'No Flight' zone in their newspaper. No one else followed their example.

Hi Lev

There are two existing Rules Pages for Chess that I am aware of. One is older, the one by Hans Bodlaender, while Fergus has made a newer Rules Page. So, not being the author of either, I cannot follow your suggestion regarding including a summary of the rules for No Castling Chess on a Rules Page for Chess myself. Hans no longer visits the site as far as I know, but maybe Fergus might think about your idea...