Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Single Comment

Mainzer Schach. Large variant with Janus, Marshall, and different setup. (11x8, Cells: 88) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Sam Trenholme wrote on Fri, Mar 10, 2006 08:03 PM UTC:
h7 looks the be the weakest pawn in this setup (the knight-side pawns are a good deal weaker than the bishop-side pawns). The corresponding fool's mate that takes advantage of this weakness is 1. c4 Ak6?? 2. Axh7#. With two archbishops, which make for rather powerful midgame attackers, this will be be more intensely tactical than the various 8x10 chess setups out there.

I'm a bit worried that white may have an overwhelming advantage here; basically, white can use the bishop-moving pieces to attack the right hand pawns with moves like c4, d4, and e4 to put pressure on the right hand side and make it very difficult for black to develop his pieces. There may be a way for black to sucessfully defend his knight side, but this will make it much harder for black to equalize, since black needs to deal with the issue of defending his knight side instead of engaging in normal development.

Note that I haven't actually playtested this game.

- Sam