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Back in the 1980's, with two other friends I played many games of what I believe was a Canadian version of Kriegspiel that was described in the Chess Federation of Canada's printed magazine that was still being published then. I recall that the rules were as described above, except as follows:
1) When something was captured, the referee announced 'Pawn captured on' or else 'Piece captured on' (but without specifying the piece type) before naming the square the capture occured on;
2) When a pawn could capture something on a given square, the referee would announce 'Pawn capture available on' before naming the square the capture was available on.
After one friend was no longer in town, I put together a BASIC computer program for this version of Kriegspiel that used less than 16K. My remaining friend and I sat in seperate areas, each with our own chess set, while the BASIC program I wrote kept track of the position, in memory, as though it was the referee. My friend or I would take turns sitting at the terminal, depending on whose move it was, trying a move to see if it was legal until the side to move found a legal move. If the computer said that a move was illegal, the person whose turn it was could decide to return to his physical board area and then ponder on what move to try next.
Because of the effect of the rules regarding incomplete information, or regarding information at times revealed by [pawn capture/king/various] move tries or checks, my tentative estimates for the piece values of this variant are quite different than for standard chess: P=1; N=2.5; B=2.5; R=4; Q=7.5 and the fighting value of K=3 (though naturally it cannot be traded).
Here is a story about Kreigspiel , as found on my web site at http://www.travel-tidbits.com/tidbits/003629.shtml, a portion of my “Computer Memories,” as found on my Travel-Tidbits.com site. This took place over 40 years ago.
Oh, no!. From Chessbase: 'April 1st: Forbidden draws or Kriegspiel tournament? 03.04.2005 It happens to us, year after year. We always forget that at the beginning of this month people are celebrating a pagan ritual known as 'April Fool'...'. I have to admit: it was perfectly elaborated, not only the browser-friendly tables of scores, but photos and annotated high level games. Good job, and I feel foolish.
Kriegspiel is a relatively old variant, the inventor was Michael Henry Temple (1862-1928). One of the few top-level chess masters to have taken up Kriegspiel before this days was Alekhine, as is shown by quotes from the 1926 BCM (March, page 124 and July, page 314 respectively): ‘Monsieur Alekhine (now a naturalized Frenchman and an official representative of French chess) remained in this country for a short time after his success at Hastings. On 9 January he spent the afternoon at the Imperial Chess Club playing Kriegspiel and beat every one of his opponents. Kriegspiel is a lighter branch of Chess.’
Results in the first two rounds in the Kriegspel Tournament in Monaco: Kriegspiel Round 1 (12th?, if we consider the 11 previous Rapid and Blindfold games) Bareev-Anand 1-0 Vallejo-Kramnik 1/2 Shirov-Ivanchuk 0-1 Leko-Svidler 1-0 Morozevich-Van Wely 0-1 Gelfand-Topalov 1-0 Kriegspiel Round 2 (13th?) Anand-Bareev 0-1 Kramnik-Vallejo 1-0 Ivanchuk-Shirov 1/2 Svidler-Leko 0-1 Van Wely-Morozevich 0-1 Topalov-Gelfand 1-0 Bareev and Leko have played Kriegspel many, many times, for years, and Bareev is specially strong in this 'detective' variant... I have read that Leko has played many other Chess variants, but I don´t know which of them...
Top Grand-Masters are playing a Kriegspel Tournament in Amber!!!. Bareev beats Anand 2-0 in first round Kriegspiel, today... He may have finished at the bottom of the table in the Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, but Russian GM Evgeny Bareev started with a stunning 2-0 victory over Vishy Anand in the Kriegspiel section which started today in Monaco. He and Peter Leko (2-0 against Svidler) are expected to dominate. Bareev is a Kriegspel specialist, and for Anand this is his first contact with this variant. Gelfand is also playing Kriegspel at his first time, but he has shown a natural talent, he beated Topalov in the first round, but blundered in the second after consolidate a demolishing position against his rival. Almost all the rest of players have played Kriegspel at least once!.
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