Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Okay, we'll feature Shako in April. It has been programmed for Jocly, Game Courier, ChessV, Zillions-of-Games, PyChess, and Ai Ai, and it even has an Interactive Diagram on the page. Its games on Game Courier go back to 2006, and it has been played every year on Game Courier since 2015. On a personal note, it is one of the first Chess variants I learned about after getting involved with this site, as it was in the Large Variant contest of 1999, and David and I were trying out variants in that contest together.

It's already the last day of April. Does anyone have a nomination for a game to feature in May?

Metamachy is quite popular, and looks as though it has yet to be featured (based on this and this).

Since no one has seconded Metamachy, and it doesn't seem to have a Zillions-of-Games file yet, and the currently featured game has the same inventor, I will not feature it just yet. Without any other nominations, I will pick an already recognized variant that has not been featured, and that variant is Wildebeest Chess, whose page I just updated last week.

I have ZoG for all my variants. I have to find how uploading them on this site. Many of my variants are also implemented on AI AI, thx to Eric Silverman.

It is of little use to ask such questions one day in advance, when there is only a slim chance anyone would see it in time at all, and even less to fix something on the presentation if that would be needed. Deciding it one week in advance seems more reasonable.

I can already suggest a few candidates for the coming months; in particular some variants for which there exists a community that is actually playing it, and for which equipment can be ordered. Which is such a remarkable feat in itself that I think it deserves some attention:

• Superchess: many wooden pieces in Staunton style can be ordered, and there a yearly championship for over-the-board play is organized.
• Paco Shako: a specially designed plastic set which allows pairing of pieces on a single square can be ordered; there also seems to be a site where people can play it on-line.
• Musketeer Chess: many beautiful fairy pieces are available in plastic, such as Lion, Camel, Rhino. Dragon...

As for historic games:

• Tenjiku Shogi: a large Japanese games from the Edo era, for which there is a yearly correspondence championship
• Chu Shogi: a variant that already exists since 1350 AD, for which there still exists an official association in Japan, who also have a website for on-line play (I think).

As a recent invention that became popular in a very short time on chess.com, there is

• Duck Chess

One of my personal favorites is, remarkable because of its complete asymmetry:

• Spartan Chess

Metamachy is also a good variant, but I agree that we should not have too many variants by the same inventor shortly after each other. But we should certainly keep it in mind for the future.

I have to find how uploading them on this site.

We have a file manger for that. It's the same one you use to upload graphics, and it will accept .zip files.

So, i will just put the zip file on the page dedicated to the same game. I have nothing to do on the page dedicated to Zillions, right?

No, we have separate pages for Zillions-of-Games files, as this makes it easier for someone interested in them to search or browse through them. Start to post a page like you would to post a game, but choose the "Create Zillions Item" option.

There seems to be some inconsistency, or at least something that is very confusing. When I go to a page of one of the variants mentioned here as a link, this displays a black 'attention box' at the top mentioning it is on our list of 'featured games'. When I click the link that box refers to, I get to a page which appears to be an index page with an alphabetical list of (presumably) 'featured games'. Most of the variants mentioned in that list are also labeled there as 'recognized'.

The point is that there seems to be no relation to that page, and the one we comment on here. Spartan Chess is mentioned as a 'featured game', but it is not mentioned here as being a featured variant. Chu Shogi is labeled 'recognized', but it is not mentioned here as ever having been recognized. (What makes this extra strange is that we used to have no article on Chu Shogi here, but just an external link, until I created one (in 2015), and I think I did that long after the 'recognized' program had been terminated.)

Is the 'featured chess variants' page incomplete, and are their time periods in which variants were chosen to be labeled as 'recognized' or 'featured game' that are not mentioned here at all? Or is 'featured chess variant' something different from 'featured game'?

BTW, I think that, even when an organized effort to choose a 'recognized' variant of the month is no longer done, the consistency of this site requires us to label obviously important (historically, or because of a large player base) chess variants as 'recognized'.

@HG: it is even more than that. The black 'attention box' you mention doesn't exist for Cylindrical C. and Shako.

The table "Recognized Variants of the Month" looks strange with 2006 at left end and 2001 at right end. I would have set it the other way.

Some comments from my side on the potential candidates for future Featured CVs:

• Superchess: there are (too) many games named "Superchess". You mean Superschaak obviously. I see it more as a open concept rather than a specific game. It remains that the author (Van Haeringen) sells very nice fairy pieces, in wood, excellent size and high quality.

• Musketeer Chess: also good for the concept and the availability of the plastic pieces. However, the page describing it here is of a very low quality and has never been corrected and improved. Second, if Musketeer Chess is recognized, it should be mentioned Pioneer Chess from Mats Whiter which precedates it and which is almost the same game.

• In my recent book ("More Chess and More Than Chess") just published, I described several CVs, in addition to my own creations, that could be good candidates: Expanded C., Sac C., Opulent C., Elven C., Gross C., Hectochess, Enhanced Courier C.

Indeed, I meant Superschaak, which in the English section of its website is referred to as Superchess. (It seems even the website has two domain names, superschaak.nl and superchess.nl.)

I don't think that being an 'open concept' should be a problem. 'Chess with Different Armies' is also an open concept, and it has been awarded the 'recognized' label.

That the description on this website might be sub-standard should not deter us from an intention to award the featured status to a deserving variant. It just means we have to improve the presentation, of push the author to improve the presentation, and perhaps provide some computer opponent if there is none. This is why I was pushing to do these nominations one or two weeks in advance, so that there is time to make the necessary changes and preparations before the variant actually gets featured.

The variants from your latest book are all good candidates. But they do belong to a family of closely related games, which was the theme of the book. So also here I suggest that we should not pick too many of those in a row, but regularly also pay attention to variants that involve more exotic rules that put them outside the scope of your book. (Such as double moving, atomic captures, immobilizers and move inducers, location-dependent moving, type-change on capture, capture-the-flag winning condition, asymmetry...)

As a specific candidate for next month, I propose Duck Chess. This has a description here with an Interactive Diagram; it can be played on-line at chess.com, there is a WinBoard/XBoard version that supports it, and several engines that can be loaded in WinBoard/XBoard to play it against the computer.

BTW, there appears an attention box on that page that says it is written by its inventor, but this is not true. I don't know what triggered this.

Perhaps I should also have mentioned as a future suggestion:

• King of the Hill

This is another variant that can be played (and is reasonably popular) on chess.com, and a good representative of variants with an alternate winning condition.

I think there can be another approach. Popularity is a questionable criterion in most cases because people tend to play what they were given by a search engine, the inventor's activity to promote a CV or his initial popularity like in the case of Chess960. Chess in its structure is closer to a formal science, so, the function here prevails over the form, and it would be a valid point to explore the less showcased specturm of the medium which can provide the reader with an efficient or original idea. By saying that I mean this as another possible approach, that does not exclude others. There are plenty of hidden gems on this site, some of whom didn't even get a single comment, it would be better in my opinion to promote them for further discussion instead of established CVs.

Among relatively known ones, I personally would vote for Modern Chess and Singularity Chess.

The page for Singularity Chess here is completely empty, though...

Do you mean this page? It was probably dedicated to a different game that shares the same name. The tags mention that it is multiplayer, while the original Singularity is played only by two players (https://www.printables.com/model/71969-singularity-chess-board).

Well, this was the page that is in the alphabetical index under the name Singularity Chess. If the variant you mention is a different one, it does not even have a page here.

There seems to be some inconsistency, or at least something that is very confusing. When I go to a page of one of the variants mentioned here as a link, this displays a black 'attention box' at the top mentioning it is on our list of 'featured games'. When I click the link that box refers to, I get to a page which appears to be an index page with an alphabetical list of (presumably) 'featured games'. Most of the variants mentioned in that list are also labeled there as 'recognized'.

Indeed, the link in the attention box is just the mainquery with listprimary=1. "Primary" is just a flag on an item in the database, and I'm not sure we've always used it consistently; they show up at the top of search results lists, and so have been Recognized variants but also just archetypical games (of the presumably searched category), and a few in that list I don't know why they're marked as such at all. There is a separate flag for Recognized variants; is there one for Featured variants (I don't recall and can't look right now), or should there be?

BTW, there appears an attention box on that page [Duck Chess] that says it is written by its inventor, but this is not true. I don't know what triggered this.

That is triggered by having Author and Inventor the same personid. When a member submission is made, both fields are filled with the submitter, and an editor needs to change the Inventor if that assumption is incorrect. I've done so for Duck Chess (adding a Person listing for Tim Paulden in the process).

Chu Shogi does not show up at the top of the alphabetical index page for 'Ch', but it is on the 'featured games' list.

Hm, maybe I was confusing Primary with Recognized? Then what does Primary do? (Note that Links can also be Primary, but that's entirely separate.)

It seems none of the recognized variants is displayed at the top of the alphabetical index pages anymore.

Then what does Primary do? (Note that Links can also be Primary, but that's entirely separate.)

In the past, search results would show only primary links if there were too many search results, and you would be provided with links to subcategories that might not have too many search results. Since I did not consider this a good way to provide search results, I recently changed this when I updated queryinc.php. Search results are now limited to 500 at a time, and if there are more, you get a link to another page of results. You can still see a list of primary links if you want to, but they no longer show up by default. All that usually happens is that the name and description appear in boldface.

Primary links are not synonymous with recognized variants or featured variants, though at one time, a link to the games marked primary was misleadingly called featured. Currently, the notice about the featured game gives a link to this page, which should help encourage people to post nominations in a more timely manner.

It seems none of the recognized variants is displayed at the top of the alphabetical index pages anymore.

Also, in the past, primary pages would appear in the search results ahead of the complete search results, and the complete search results would appear only if there were not too many. Since I modified queryinc.php to always show the actual search results, the need to show the primary pages separately was not as great. I also thought it could make the search results confusing by leading people to not look at the complete search results. So, primary pages no longer show up separately unless that's what you specifically choose to search for.

Well, I think that was a very bad idea. Having the primary results first was very useful, as most of the time I would be looking for one of those. So please re-instate this feature.