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David Paulowich wrote on Fri, Dec 16, 2005 08:32 PM UTC:

Dabbabahs are frequently called 'war machines' on this site. That would make a good name for the Wazir-Dabbabah combination, which is called 'Machine' in Jean-Louis Cazaux's 14 x 14 variant Gigachess. Here is an old Ralph Betza quote about riders completely lacking the ability to move an odd number of squares:

'The Dabbabahrider moves in (0,2) increments as opposed to the Rook's (0,1) steps. As a piece by itself, it is much weaker than a Knight, the main reason being that it is colorbound times colorbound -- it can visit only one fourth of all squares on the board. The Alfilrider is even worse, and can see only one eighth of all squares. Because of this extreme limitation, we have the interesting case where the AD (Alfil plus Dabbabah) has the same ideal value as the Knight but is much weaker in practice, while the AADD (Alfilrider plus Dabbabahrider) has an ideal value which is unknown but which must be appreciably larger than Knight -- but the practical value of AADD seems to be a bit less than a Knight.'

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Two Large Shatranj Variants. Missing description (10x10, Cells: 100)

💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, Jul 13, 2015 09:59 PM UTC:

Thank you, Tony, for the comment and the rating. Sorry I didn't notice it when you posted it. You were partly responsible for my interest in shatranj variants, way back when. The games were fun to do and I got to "meet" Christian Freeling in the process.

Fwiw, being very bad with awkward pieces, like the half-duck (HFD), and being terrified of relatively cheap but unblockable pieces capable of attacking several pieces at once, like the squirrel (NAD), I tried to design simple, obvious pieces that were easy to use and to understand. I didn't want them too powerful, but they needed to be much more capable than the original piece mix. It's nice to see some of my games being played. Thanks.

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Wed, May 20, 2015 02:14 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Great idea to explore short range moves, in the spirit of the ancient game!

💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 04:27 PM UTC:

Thanks for the comment, John. [And I appreciate the game. We certainly have different styles, don't we?] This fits in nicely with what George and I are talking about in the Modern Shatranj comments. And I promise to be brief. ;-)

At the risk of being somewhat immodest, I rate my handful of shatranj variants as individually good to very [very] good. Others may differ. What I think is excellent is the progression from game to game, playing variations on the same theme to build a range of individual games that are each an exposition of one step in the evolution of shatranj in that parallel universe where they don't play FIDE.

And you've got it, George. Just as the 'Shatranj to FIDE in 6 steps' comment in MS is a somewhat arbitrary ladder of my own devising, so too is the progression from historic Shatranj through my variants a somewhat crooked ladder that eventually leads to Chieftain and elsewhere stranger, and is no longer shatranj in any real sense, though it often uses similar pieces.

Still amazing is that Modern, Great, and even Grand Shatranj were not done long ago by someone else. They were obvious games, just lying there on the ground waiting to be picked up by anybody who wandered by that spot. Apparently I was the lucky one who looked there first, but others could have. And now Maorider has popped up, another game getting initial rave reviews, as just one example of many. Makes you wonder how many good games there out there in the dark, just waiting for us to stumble over them.

John Ayer wrote on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 03:05 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

I am also an annoying pedant (though I didn't write that remark). I should not have said that the Atlanteans would not know what an elephant is; they probably would have known. I am playing Great Shatranj D at the moment, and enjoying it. I consider it Good, subject to possible upgrade later.

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Wed, Jul 12, 2006 12:03 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

brilliant collection of games

Number of ratings: 6, Average rating: Good, Number of comments: 18

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