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Hey Silvio,

As far as I know, Peasant's Revolt is completely in the public domain. I
certainly didn't invent it. I remember it from a book a friend lent me
well on 28 years ago, whose title I can't recall. 

Go for it!
:)
George

I see what you mean about 4 knights versus a bare King, it's just that (in
my admittedly limited experience) the game seems to revolve around Black
protecting and then queening his pawn. With 4 knights as well as his King
at his disposal I have found that White's options for removing that threat
are not great and Whites pawns create a landscape of their own which can
work to Black's advantage in hemming the White king in with the knights. 

Regardless I'm ecstatic to finally get some history on this and I'm glad
we can have some proper accreditation listed. :-)

Very similar in spirit to Peasant's Revolt is the following:

. q . q k . q .
p p p p p p p p
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
P P P P P P P P
N N N . K N N N

I don't know if this variant is already listed on these pages, or not. Again, it is not really a variant; it is normal Chess starting from a different opening setup. The setup is unreachable from the orthodox setup, however, so perhaps it qualifies as a sub-variant. In that case, I would propose the name 'Charge of the Light Brigade'.

At first glance it looks the game is heavily biased in favor of black. After all, conventional wisdom has it that a Queen is worth three Knights, or even more (Q=9.5, N=3). And here you have only two Knights for each opposing Queen. This does not take into account the elephantiasis factor, however.

I tried this with engines, and it seems the given setup, with 6 Knights is about even. With a 7th Knight on d1, there is little doubt that the 3 Queens virtually do not stand any chance at all, which in itself is already spectacular. Most Chess engines count themselves leading by +5 to +8 Pawns with black in that case. As a consequence of such gross mis-evaluation, most normal Chess engines are pretty poor at playing this too. It required a specially re-programmed engine that sets the piece values Q=9.5 and N=5 (rather than the usual 3) to do well with white. In that case normal Chess engines (even the very best) lose more often than not with black, even against 6 Knights. If black also knows that it is favorable to trade one Queen for two Knights, it becomes much harder to win with 6 Knights, as it is difficult to always avoid such trades. It could be that valuing the Knights even higher, so that you would rather give up Pawns than allow a Q vs. 2N trade, would be an even better strategy, and make this position a definite win fo white even with 6 Knights.

Well, as I originally saw this as standard Chess with a peculiar position, I allowed each side to promote to Queen. If one sees it as an independent Chess variant, it is indeed an interesting idea to fine-tune the odds in this through the promotion.

Now that I am converging to an engine that is pretty good at this, (compared to normal Chess engines), it seems that black has the better chances after all. The path to a black win almost always goes through trading a Queen for two Knights. With two Queens vs four Knights it is usually an easy win. It is very difficult for white to avoid a Q vs 2N swap, (for which all Knights must remain doubly defended, or defended by a Pawn), keep all its Pawns defended, and prevent creation of a passer, and in the long run it will not succeed.

The development advantage of white also is a bit illusory: although the Knights can be developed in a single move, you have many, and to develop 6 Knights takes 6 moves, comparable to the 5-6 P+Q moves you need to develop 3 Queens. The Knights start in a very vulnerable position, all undefended, and the array has some Pawns undefended as well. Even with a more favorable array, (moving 4 Knights and 4 Pawns one rank forward) white scores only 20%, now that black uses a proper strategy.

I guess, however, it makes little difference what black promotes to. Even limiting him to a Knight, would make promotion a sure win. In practice white never allows promotion; it gives a Knight for the passer. But loss of a Knight is always fatal.

Seven Knights still have a light advantage over three Queens. (When I start the Knights from the back rank.) From watching the games, however, I get the impression that the Knights could do better than they do now, with a bit more strategic insight. Such as awarding keeping them close together, and defended by the King or a Pawn. I usually see it coming when white is wrecking its own position (to greedily capture a far-away Pawn), and indeed, it than somewhat later its score collapses, and it loses. It is very easy to create an outpost Knight, defended only by another Knight, but not able to move anywhere. In the long run a second Queen then comes to attack it (which was initially beyond the horizon), to secure a Q vs 2N trade. So if I could program my insight into the program, seven Knights might get back a huge advantage.

For the Queens the situation seems mainly tactical. They are dependend on white letting its guard down, and when that happens they force the decisive trade.

On 30.Jan.2017 H.G. Muller brought up pawn-accompanied 7N versus 3Q: End_Games. Here is where he originally broached researching this match-up among others, http://www.chessvariants.com/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=25357, in several Peasant Revolt statements of different unusual endgames -- because not normal Beginners' Chess piece mixes that get memorized from tables.

George Svokos says too(All Comments PR) it takes K+N+N+N+N to defeat K, that three Knights are not enough. Of course games are won with definitional insufficient mating material depending on the leftover position. Usually you want the best definitions to exclude such cases, but the present example you can arrange K+3N to a mated position (not all of them necessarily Helpmates).

Muller's very insight then that "that the Knights could do better than they do now, with a bit more strategic insight" has parallel in my on-again maintaining that on 8x10 Rook versus Falcon should turn out to be 5.0 to up to 5.75 maximum, if Falcons are instructed to strategically open as early as possible.

Board size almost always factor, and on 8x10 or certainly 10x10, the 3Q will defeat especially 6N more or even most often(majority); on 10x10 the Peasant Revolt mix tilts way towards the Knights and Black. Rules are crucial too raised by Charles Gilman's query, is promotion in yQs v. xNs to Queen both sides, or not?

From tablebases we know, that not only KNNN vs. K is won for the Knights, but even KNNN vs KN is generally speaking a win for the side with the three Knights.

 

P.S. Posting anonymously, because my login failed