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A while ago, I looked at 31 possible short range pieces. I have now expanded this research.

I have written a small C program which looks at all 16,777,215 possible leapers that move at most two squares. Some findings:

• I expected around half of all possible pieces to be colorbound in some way. Wrong. 16,452,080 (over 98%) pieces are not colorbound.
• There are 104 non-colorbound pieces with three moves, 2,512 pieces with four moves, and some 2,696,337 pieces with 12 moves.
• Only 2,944 possible pieces are Bishop colorbound: These relatively few pieces can go to the same 32 squares a Bishop can go to.

With some 16,452,080 non-colorbound pieces, if we replace the knight, bishop, and queen with a random non-colorbound short leaper, that gives us 4,453,099,898,116,838,912,000 which is, what, 4 hextillion possible variants, and that’s keeping the king, pawns, and rook.

OK, if that’s not enough possible variants, we can also add the ability for a given random piece to be able to be a rider in any direction it can leap (e.g. a fers-rider is our bishop; a wazir-rider is a rook, and a knight-rider is, well, a knightrider), where we randomly choose, from all the moves a given leaper has, for it to be able to ride in a random number of directions. For example, if we look at the wazir, then randomly choose which directions it moves like a rook and which directions it can only move one square, we get 16 possible pieces. If we do this for all 16,452,080 non-colorbound short range pieces, we get some 282,232,643,280 possible pieces, just over 2 to the power of 38 (2^38 or 2 ** 38 in Python notation).

This means an 8x8 board with random non-colorbound pieces and using a standard chess set has some 6,344,961,231,517,063,209,074,884,200,517,463,972,290,560,000 possible variants (the pawns and kings can keep their moves), just over 2 to the power of 152.

I don’t know the correct procedure to file a bug report for ChessV, so I will just note the bug here.

Description of bug

ChessV does not use the standard Chess960 numbering scheme for opening setups. See https://chess960.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/chess960-starting-positions.pdf for the reference of correct number to starting position. In particular, ChessV is off by one (Position 0 in the official spec is position 1 in ChessV, etc.)

Steps to reproduce

Open up ChessV. Choose Fischer Random Chess. When it asks for an expected setup, choose setup #692.

Expected results

The opening setup should be RBBQKNNR (Mongredien chess)

Actual results

The setup is BRQKNNRB

Notes

Position 693 is the Mongredien setup in ChessV, so one just needs to add 1 to the official position number to get the corresponding position in ChessV.

Position 518 (519 in ChessV) is the standard chess starting position.

I love the concept of spherical chess. I think one thing needs to be changed, however. Chess is already drawish enough on a square board, and more so on a round board. On a spherical board, where pieces move in all directions, draws may become the overwhelming norm. That is not my preference.

So, on a board like this, I would love to see something done about that. Possible ways to do it would be to put some restrictions on the movement of the King (as in XiangQi and Janggi), or to immobilize the King when in check, or to take away the King's ability to capture pieces, including attacking pieces.

The Wolf is ranked higher (stronger) than the Dog.

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/鬥獸棋

象>獅>虎>豹>狼>狗>貓>鼠

Elephant > Lion > Tiger > Leopard (Panther) > Wolf > Dog > Cat > Rat

I played this since childhood. This is the proper ranking of the animals.

The confusion about Dog > Wolf happened because on some of the cheap chess pieces, the wood carving of the Dog and the Wolf are almost identical.

Big thanks to Malcolm Webb for programming the zrf for this game! I would like those who download this to know that as of this date in 2022, I have updated the rules to Ito Shogi drastically, while the rules of this zrf file are based on the 2007 rules.

great article, this is definitely one of the easiest strategies for young chess players to skim through and learn. Might also interest for more Superhero Chess Sets see this page [spam url deleted].

great article , this is definitely one of the best for young chess players to read and learn strategy.  If you intend on writing more similar content on this site be sure to check out our page with more inspiration for future posts

Is there any .ZRF file for this game?

What If They Castle Do they Tell you?

But why the limitation to set up queen and archbishop on different coloured squares, when they can change the square colour by moving like rook resp. knight?

I've been playing a lot of this game recently (via Ai Ai), partly for my own enjoyment and partly as inspiration for my own 16x16 experiments. There are relatively few modern Chess variants played on 16x16, and for me, this game is the best example thus far.

The variety of pieces presented here is at first intimidating, but one soon realises there is a logic to everything presented here, and shortly thereafter you'll find the piece movements become natural. The balance of the initial position is excellent, with every piece finding its way into the fight without too much awkward development. Games are long -- against AI at 2 minutes/move my games take at least 400 plies, with my longest so far at 695 -- but as a large Shogi variant fanatic this doesn't bother me at all. Throughout those long games one will find drama, excitement, and plentiful opportunities for subtlety and subterfuge.

If I were very picky, I might say that I'd like to see the Rook + Camel/Bishop + Camel compounds in here, which I find really fun on a large board. Also the basic leapers -- Camel, Giraffe, Knight -- feel less impactful in a game this size. Having said that, everything works well together, and I enjoy this game tremendously.

I've played the heck out of this via Ai Ai, and I absolutely adore this game. I prefer the greater piece density and the more interesting piece mix here to those of Grand Chess. The resulting play is interesting and nuanced both tactically and strategically. In my opinion Opulent Chess is one of the finest 10x10 variants.

My one complaint is the presence of Pawn promotion by replacement, but that's not particular to this game, I just dislike it everywhere. Promoting stuff is fun and interesting, so I prefer just being able to promote to any piece without restriction. After all I'm a Shogi player, and what can I say, we like promoting stuff! I also dislike some of the weird effects the rule can produce in rare circumstances, but that's more of an aesthetic objection. I do like the extended promotion zone though.

On the whole, a delightful game. Strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in decimal variants.

hi

For as long as I have known about the games with the Rook-Knight and Bishop-Knight added, I have agreed that adding just them unbalances the game even further towards the line pieces than Chess already is. This is the main reason I have made an alternate history where Capablanca looks outside of the modern descendants of the Western tradition for help in designing his proposed “next stage of Chess”. I made him look all the way to Japan simply because the first place I had thought to post the idea was the 81Dojo forum. However, the other idea I have always had was that he would simply invent a “Great Carrera” with the missing pieces (King-Knight, Queen-Knight and two step Knightrider). This game would have been possible to play with the King-Knight, two step Knightrider or Rook-Knight doubled if the players wanted.

The quality of the page has not been improved in more than one year. If everyone is happy with that, fine.

This appears to be a fine variant, in spite of the 2 unprotected pawns per side in the setup (that kind of helps make up for the 6 ranks distance between the initial pawn ranks, actually).

@ Greg:

Hi. One player mentioned to me that this preset doesn't seem to work perfectly. Namely only two-square K move to castle either side (i.e. not three-square K move to the queenside) has been allowed by it. Also, capturing by en passant isn't always allowed, I guess meaning if a 3-step pawn move is made by the opponent. Has this preset been tested for either of those possible problems? If not, please fix if you can, at your leisure.

K

This is a great concept for an army! I like how the Vouivre encourages tactical play with its forking capabilities and ability to do nasty smothered mates, while the Geese are more focused on strategic pawn play in the endgame; similar to how the tactical Knights and the strategic Rooks provide a variety of viable playstyles in the Fabulous FIDEs.

In your opening line, 2.Vg5 doesn't work because of Qxg5.

PS: If you're willing to upload this army to ChessCraft, I'd be happy to playtest them alongside my own Starbound Sliders.

Edit: Upon closer inspection, this army is actually very weak.

• Ouroboros: 2x5pts Although the Ouroboros is about Rook strength, it's the only one that's as strong as its claimed to be.
• Roc: 2x3pts+0.5pts colorbound pair bonus The Roc is colorbound and has limited range, making it weak and finnicky even by minor piece standards. Complicated maneuvres are less viable when the board is full of pawns, which further highlights the Roc's difficulty in movement. It is definitely not as strong as a Rook, though its ability to reach 12 squares means it may be slightly stronger than a Knight.
• Flying Goose: 2x1.5pts The Flying Goose has very little value, and also gives the Beautiful Beasts the very annoying trait that they can't castle without moving one of the three Pawns that will be in front of the King (unless they castle queenside and mave the a pawn). Granted, the Flying Goose is little more than a slightly stronger pawn anyway, but still.
• Vouvire: 9pts The Vouvire is reasonably strong for a Queen equivalent and it's great for tactical play, the problem is that there's nothing to play tactically against. Knights are fun to use because they're the weakest piece in the army (so when they fork something, you're in business!) while the Vouvire is the strongest piece so it can't fork anything that's protected. Also, it can't go to any of the 8 adjacent squares, which makes maneuvering on a crowded board surprisingly difficult.
• Total: 28.5pts CwDA armies typically range from 31.5 (Fabulous FIDEs) to 33.5 (Nutty Knights) with more complicated armies needing more value.

This is an interesting and logical approach to tackling how to have a double-move variant addresses pesky rules like check and en passant.  They always require special-case rules to address, and how it is addressed here "feels" right to me.  Marseillais Chess handles the check thing fine, but falls down on how en passant is handled.  You seem to have neatly solved that, too.  I also like how you are limited to one capture per move and cannot move the same piece twice.  This also helps to preserve the strategical similarity to orthodox chess. I guess Marseillais is more of a "let's make double moves and we'll end up with an interesting but totally different game."  Originally, it wasn't even "balanced" (white started with two moves.)  This is an ambitious attempt to add the property of double moves games being "balanced" while changing as little else about the game as possible.

Extra Move Chess also provides similar benefits.  You can make a second move, but don't have to, as long as it doesn't capture or move a piece that just moved.  If you make a second move, it can be a two-space pawn move (which a first move can't, except for white's first move of the game.)  This also neatly solves check and en passant.

I'd like to add this to ChessV.  I think it's doable but I need to think some things through.  The thing I see that most concerns me is this:

Each position created by a two move turn is included in the count toward a draw by threefold repetition, or toward a draw by the Fifty move rule (or the Seventy-five move rule)

If I understand this, it would be difficult to implement and doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Are you saying that any move in a single move turn or responsive move turn should not count towards the 50-move rule, nor should they be counted toward any potential repetition?

This seems like a nice variant. I especially like the 32221111Q movement of the pawns. The falcons/bison are also fun to play with, their long leaps make for nice tactics.

Pretty much the only thing I'd change is that castling leaves the King too close to the middle. Instead, I would make it so that castling results in the King and the Rook swapping places (White king can go to b1 or i1, black king can go to b10 or i10; rook always goes to the f file) as this gets the King 1 space away from the corner. This would also fix one of the gripes I have with regular chess: queenside castling is usually terrible. Opposite side castling often leads to fun games, so making it happen more often seems like it would be desirable. Also, it would allow players to castle by moving the Rook first, as the ambiguity between O-O and Rg1 is removed.

I came on this page by accident. After so many years, the name of this game is still wrong. It is Doushouqi, not Shou Dou Qi at all. And the comment about jaguar for leopard is absolutely right. The solution to avoid a L is to call this piece a Panther, panther or leopard is the same animal.

I've only played this once, but it feels right somehow. The hexagonal board, oriented horizontally like this, gives a distinct chess experience that square boards generally lack. It feels more natural than square shogi to me.

I like the Stars, they present a naturally digestible identity, in keeping with the elementary makeup of Classical pieces. I would have invented a more relatable name for them, perhaps 'Sheriffs' or, something you know, that has a real life character, but nevertheless I praise you for their design.

Nice work.