Comments by jcr015
Are you talking about victory by "allowing" perpetual flight of the opponent's final Queen? That is not the same as eliminating or subjugating a royal piece, which is the real object of a Chess variant. If it was necessary for that to be ruled a victory condition due to the mix of piece types in play, then the game is not really perfect.
Besides this, when any piece may ultimately ascend to royalty, the paradox is then whether the piece type named as "royal" is "really royal". The problem with naming a game which throws up this paradox as a "Chess variant" is that it then has no real royal piece, and Chess is defined as having a set of piece types which are royal and another set which, and any promotion to royalty must be a privileged promotion open only to certain piece types. Once again, if you were so strict about what the rules were to be like that you made yourself need to do this, then the game is not really perfect.
In summary, the game, although interesting, is not really perfect nor really a Chess variant.
You have done much excellent work on this game. However, you have evidently missed the point that a game about subjugation or elimination of some royal piece(s) needs said royal piece(s) to be tamed by some form of restricted mobility-whether by design to be range limited or by soft or hard prohibition from seeing its/their opposite(s) along an otherwise open “line” (in Dr. David Li's terminology telepotency)-and also by check if it is a singleton. In your case, telepotency is the only restriction which will allow you to keep with your idea of using only line pieces (I do not dismiss it as entirely uninteresting although I find flawed your reasoning to get to it and disagree with its premises).
Maha Chatukanga. Variant arranging Chaturanga's paired pieces and all their compounds in the style of Grand Chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In his Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, David Pritchard writes this of the Silver piece in the entry on Makruk: "Less convincing is the presence of the B[ishop], which equates to the Gin of shogi, since the piece is also found in Indian and Burmese C[hess] where it is known as the Elephant, its move resemblimg the four feet and trunk of the pachyderm." Since "alfil" means "the elephant" in Arabic and an alternate Elephant move equates to the Silver move, it stands to reason that the names "Kangaroo" and "Infanta" do not need to be lost although Makruk technically has no piece actually named "Elephant".
Courier Chess. A large historic variant from Medieval Europe. (12x8, Cells: 96) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I can imagine that a "square Courier" assize did ultimately arise out of this game, but not such as H. G. Muller proposes, due to the influence of the free-sliding Courier piece and the perceived clumsiness of the 12x8 board and the statutory opening moves. One way I imagine that this arose is that first the Elephants and their files were dropped from the game, but their move was compounded with that of the Commoner, Schleich and Queen. Very soon subsequently, the statutory opening moves changed into optional initial moves of the same pieces. Now made mostly redundant by her new natural double step, the Queen's optional first move quietly fell into disuse and the restriction on which three Pawns were initially permitted a double step option fell into disuse along with it. Finally, the redundant Queen and Schleich and their files were removed and the Queen's name transferred to the Commoner. The other way is that first it was the redundant Queen and Schleich and their files which were removed and the Queen's name was transferred to the Commoner. As in the first progression, the statutory opening moves very soon changed into optional initial moves of the same pieces. Next, the Elephants and their files were dropped from the game, but their move was compounded with that of the Queen. Finally, now made mostly redundant by her new natural double step, the Queen's optional first move quietly fell into disuse and the restriction on which three Pawns were initially permitted a double step option fell into disuse along with it.
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True as it doubtless may be, your comment about the minimum amount of material loss which will be decisive in top-level Chess is not really terribly germane to the subject. Nor, in fact, do you yourself seem to think the same of the rarity of checkmate in top-level Chess as you have mentioned it only parenthetically.
More germanely to the subject, this game has no non-royal piece type which has a move set which is not strictly a subset of that of the royal piece. This is a problem because it now requires a two-piece battery merely to give a safe check to this royal piece, to say nothing of what it would require to give a checkmate. On top of this, the proposed royal piece is a Queen, which is already problematic on its own due to how freely any type of line piece may run around the board unless it is restricted from passing through an en prise position, notwithstanding that the proposed board has no horizontal or vertical edge. Thus it is that perpetual flight of the final opposing royal piece should appear to be the only reasonably possible conclusion to play, which is why he had to make it a victory condition to "allow" this to happen.