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Comments by Andreas Kaufmann
To get an idea about what chess variants people like to play, one can look into statistics of running games at BrainKing.com (http://brainking.com/en/Statistics?p=2): 3. Chess 3128 11. Dice Chess 1325 12. Dice Chess 10x10 1316 26. Loop Chess 385 27. Japanese Chess 369 44. Massacre Chess 207 45. Chinese Chess 207 46. Dark Chess 202 52. Anti Chess 163 57. Atomic Chess 151 59. Embassy Chess 149 61. Ice Age Chess 145 64. Horde Chess 139 66. Ambiguous Chess 132 67. Grand Chess 132 70. Fischer Random Chess 125 74. Fortress Chess 112 76. Amazon Chess 109 78. Los Alamos Chess 109 87. Extinction Chess 95 89. Behemoth Chess 95 90. Three Checks Chess 94 91. Capablanca Random Chess 91 92. Corner Chess 89 93. Janus Chess 88 94. Racing Kings 87 97. Minishogi 83 99. Cylinder Chess 82 100. Recycle Chess 82 102. Crazy Screen Chess 77 106. Screen Chess 70 107. Knight Relay Chess 68 110. Legan Chess 66 116. Knightmate Chess 59 122. Berolina Chess 54 123. Cheshire Cat Chess 53 126. Maharajah Chess 44 Unfortunately statistics for finished games is not easily available at this site. Still one can visit pages for particular variants and see the number of total finished games, e.g. for 'Dice Chess': Statistics of won games white 33290 (51.71 %) black 31028 (48.19 %) Draws 60 (0.09 %) No suprise, that such great games as 'Loop Chess' and 'Japanese Chess' at the top of the list. However, it is amazing to see 'Dice Chess' as a second most popular chess variant (after chess itself)!
Any volunteers to create Game Courier preset for 2-player bughouse, like described in 'Bughouse per e-mail' section? Looks like a fun game!
Good idea! I would be interested in 'double move variants' tournament. One more idea: * 'Drop variants', which would include Crazyhouse, Hostage Chess and Recycle Chess.
I think the most natural rule is that you can't capture your own king. This is a rule used on BrainKing.com (see http://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=98). The game is really fun to play!
Very original and interesting idea about how to introduce 'new' pieces R+N and B+N to chess. Advantages over 8x10 and 10x10 variants are obvious: starting position stays the same (with usual opening patterns). The board dimension stays the same, so balance in piece values is retained. I think the names for these pieces chosen by Seirawan are fine: since ordinary chess player donesn't know them anyway, no problem to come with names you like more.
The problem with this game is that it is too complex. It is already difficult to remember how pieces move in all these different armies, not speaking about more advanced strategy or tactics... For ordinary chess players pieces, which combine moves of existing pieces, like R+N or B+N, have more chances to attract the attention.
Just try a game with Jeremy (chose white and DON'T make rook->'nightrider in pocket' move early in the game) and you will see for yourself... Still, I think the game is balanced since white can prevent early forks by black nightrider and have time to pocket nightrider from rook as well. The only problem with this game is a lack of variety in the opening, since the majority of the game starts with pocketing nightrider.
I agree with Jeremy that nightrider is more valuable than rook in this game. May be its value is somewhere between rook and cardinal: * rook - 5 pawns * nightrider - 6 pawns * cardinal - 7 pawns. So, moving all nightrider-combined pieces one class up will probably improve this game. In any case, this will avoid that most of the game start with rook->nightrider pocketing as of now. Certainly, some play-testing is needed to see if really there are situations where you will prefer nightrider over cardinal. Other possible alternatives: 1) Add a new piece class between classes 3 and 4 and move nightrider and SuperRook there. 2) Remove nightrider-combined pieces completely to simplify the game and make it more strategic.
According to http://www.janko.at/Retros/Glossary/Andernach.htm the pawn promotes first and then changes the color.
There are cetainly much more Shatranj openings. You can find a lot of them in Murray's book 'A history of chess'.
'Game History' menu item for Minichess in Zillions-of-Games says: 'The recent play has suggested that the game is a draw with the best play.' Does anybody has more information on this? What is the best play in Gardner minichess?
This chess variant is usually called 'Gardner minichess', since it was Martin Gardner, who first invented it in 1969.
An interesting chess variant suggested by an anonymous on Wikipedia chess article talk page:
...Nobody has ever cottoned on to my variant 'Schizo-Chess' where you play as normal until you capture- if you capture you switch to the opposing side and play a further move, if that is a capture you switch back, until there are no more captures. Aim is to win on your move, usually with a combination where you play the winning move as checkmate. 'Schizo' because each player has to play himself simultaneously, also- it does your head in..
...Nobody has ever cottoned on to my variant 'Schizo-Chess' where you play as normal until you capture- if you capture you switch to the opposing side and play a further move, if that is a capture you switch back, until there are no more captures. Aim is to win on your move, usually with a combination where you play the winning move as checkmate. 'Schizo' because each player has to play himself simultaneously, also- it does your head in..
From my game against Zillions-of-Games:
Mastodon chess, white plays and checkmates in two moves.
Mastodon chess, white plays and checkmates in two moves.
Hi Mats! From large chess variants I prefer Capablanca chess variation with good initial setup. For example, Gothic chess or Embassy chess.
The reason is that for ordinary chess player it is quite easy to remember moves of chancellor and archbishop and these new pieces add interesting tactical and strategic elements to the game.
By the way, Alfred Pfeiffer found a nice way how to implement Glinski's standard notation in ZRF. One can simply use 'translate' command to give the cells desired coordinates: (translate ('g2' 'g1') ('g3' 'g2') ... ). I updated ZRF on my homepage (see my previous comment) with these changes.
ZRF with a nice graphics can be downloaded from my homepage. ZRF is by J. Mark Thompson and Ivan A Derzhanski, graphics created by me.
Another suggestion: contest to create a chess variant, which can be conviniently played on usual chess board with usual chess pieces (may be with more then one chess set, also it is allowed to use less pieces). Piece moves should be also the same as in chess. Example of such variants: * different capture rule (e.g. Crazyhouse) * different goal (e.g. Extinction chess) * incomplete information (e.g. Kriegspiel, can be played with 3 boards + arbiter) * different move order (e.g. Marsellias chess) * different starting position (e.g. Fisher random chess or Una chess) * random elements (e.g. Dice chess) * multiplayer variants (e.g Bughouse) I think this is broad enough to appeal to many people.
How about contest to create a chess variant with incomplete information, like 'Dark Chess' or 'Kriegspiel'?
Interesting attempt to create a synchronous version of chess, in which both players make the moves simultaneously: Xymyx chess. They created a very nice real-time server to play this game. I tried it out today - the game is a quite fun to play live!
Can you please post a link to Sudoku puzzle with chess pieces, you mentioned in your message? Thanks!
“Scandinavian” is probably Bughouse. This chess variant one of the most popular between chess players. In Russia Bughouse is called 'Swedish chess', may be in Bulgaria it is 'Scandinavian'. I also think that “Reverse chess” is losing chess, what can it be else?
The following was posted to Wikipedia article 'Chess variants' by anonymous editor: '...Super Knight: Starting position for white is the same as in chess. Black gets 8 pawns, his King, and a knight ...the SuperKnight. The SuperKnight checks like a regular knight, but it can move to ANY unoccupied square or capture any of the opponent's pieces. The game should be won by white every time but only if he keeps his pieces well defended. The white rooks are not defendable so blacks first two moves are usually to capture white's rooks.' Does anybody heard about this variant?
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