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Game Reviews by GeorgeDuke

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Archchess. Large chess variant from 17th century Italy. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 18, 2016 07:53 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

ArchChess in the 17th century has what we call now Squirrel, D+A+N. Recently there was Hippogriff found in Tamerlane Chess of 14th century, where Hippogriff restricts 13th century Grande Acedrex Gryphon to its distant squares. Tamerlane or Timur's also has Dabbabah, so the Dabbabah had been around for ArchChess to pick up and make the probably first tri-compound it calls Centurion, settled on as Squirrel or Betzan AND today -- the order does not matter in Funny Notation compounds, so long as they are not sequential or double move pieces.

So Quintessential Chess is one new CV using 17th century Centurion/Squirrel, and there are 19th C. games with Squirrel for a continual line of succession.


Quintessential chess. Large chess variants, with some pieces moving with a sequence of knight moves in a zigzag line. (10x10, Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 18, 2016 06:57 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

The Quintessence is the best species of KnightRider, along with regular Betzan NN the latter not in this CV -- double letter is always rider able to stop at any distance. Knappen removes corner squares from ten by ten to get 84 squares for an 84-square contest. The Quintessence makes successive right angle changes of direction.

Pawns are fast-moving with always having two-step option, and additonally have what is called bockspringen. Leeloo is Rook plus Quintessence. Centurion is tri-compound Alfil plus Dabbabah plus Knight. Dragon Horse is Wazir plus Bishop. It would be interesting to find point value of these pieces, accompanied as they are by only one "conventional" CV piece, the Janus, who is commonplace 400-year old Centaur as B+N. To get the piece values for Quintessence, Leeloo and Squirrel/Centurion, the three really novel p-ts, there would have to be discount for having to face off against the strong and unusual Pawns/Bauern.


Rococo. A clear, aggressive Ultima variant on a 10x10 ring board. (10x10, Cells: 100) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Wed, Oct 12, 2016 05:18 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Robert Abbott was inventor of Ultima in the 1960s. Abbott commented 13 years ago on Rococo:

Abbott.

Rococo is my single preferred CV whether Orthodox style or Track Two Heterodox style like Rococo. It themes every piece moving like Queen but capturing differently. Contrary to Abbott, the border squares substantially make the game, because different pieces and Rococo Pawns react differently with those "half-squares" variously accessible according to the piece-types divergent Rules. "Divergent" is carefully picked to describe because all Rococo pieces are divergent in the CV sense that they move and capture differently. But then Abbott has a narrow specialty having invented several (not a lot) of great game rules and secondly made challenging mazes. He admits here and there he does not play games, CV or not, very much himself. He seems to have just chanced on 2 or 3 great Rules sets in card game Eleusis and CV Ultima. Or maybe Ultima gets attention because it was one of the first modern ones in between Parton and Boyer and just prior to Betza. There is not much follow-up insight on Abbott's part, where for instance most revisions of his suggestion worsen the great original. Abbott never really delved into CVs and does not consider Ultima even to be one like we do, but just using Chess equipment in his words.

However, over-all we have played Abbott's great Eleusis quite a bit more than Aronson and Howe's Rococo, no comparison really. Eleusis, so thanks aplenty to Robert for countless hours at Eleusis.


Switching Chess. In addition to normal moves, switch with an adjacent friendly piece. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Wed, Oct 12, 2016 05:05 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Quintanilla's Ready Chess was just noted by Kubach, and it is a shame Quintanilla's Switching Chess has been disregarded for ten years.  It was very popular its first few years and it is about the best natural Mutator possible to save 64 squares interest.


Kung Fu Chess. On a 14x10 board, the pieces in this variant are based on Kung Fu martial arts styles of combat. (14x10, Cells: 140) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 11, 2016 05:47 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Currently of Florea's new CV Apothecary are the classic Gryphon of Grande Acedrex and complementary Aanca. Here are another pair of them from 2001 Bostick's Kung Fu Chess: Wing Chun moving like Aanca and Bruce Lee moving like Gryphon.


Europan Chess. A 14x14 board with extra pieces. (14x14, Cells: 196) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 11, 2016 03:51 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Earlier than Mark Hedden's IO, that was looked at last week, Europan has 700-year-old Gryphon, though not paired with Aanca like in IO and later Gifford's Gryphon-Aanca and still later Florea's Apothecary.

As for some point value, Hedden pegs Gryphon at 7 points, but says "if you don't know how to use it well, it is still worth 5 or 6." Close enough estimate for many just trying out a novel CV.

Hedden maintains there is not a way to write his Archer as defined in Betzan Funny Notation. Paulowich at King's Court in last week comment found tri-compound in Chancellor, and Hedden's Super-Computer of both IO and Europan is also different tri-compound.


Gryphon Aanca Chess. Large Variant with Gryphons, Aancas, and a few other not-so-common pieces. (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 4, 2016 08:53 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Six or seven spellings of Gryphon can be counted. Here are Gryphon and Aanca of current topic.

Gifford's Falcon and Hunter are from the World War II era game matching abilities forward Rook and backward Bishop of Hunter, with reverse for Falcon. Other CVs using that Falcon and Hunter are rare, but Whale Shogi has Hunter: Grey_Whale.


IO Chess. Variant on 16 by 16 board with many pieces. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 4, 2016 08:33 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Here are Griffin and Aanca as Spider of recent talking points.

IO Chess is complicated like Betza's Captain Spalding but at least C.S. is on simple 8x8 whilst IO is the largest acceptable size of 16x16. Computer promotes to Quantum Computer. Around 2000 it was the style to include a sample game with every worthwhile write-up, and sure enough Hedden puts a plausible first 13 moves for IO Chess. Is this the first recorded move order for 256 squares?

Pawns have initial 5-step option. Rook promotes to Castle upon Castling, and then that piece Castle, already Queen value, further promotes to Fortress upon reaching the last rank, attaining value comparable to Amazon. Also appearing are two-square-occupancy Wall and Crooked Knight, named a little differently by Knappen in Nachtmahr article on the many Knight riders. There are several other piece as opposed to pawn promotions besides the Rook -> Castle -> Fortress told above.

Tamerspiel and Pocket Mutation and this IO Chess were three of those having double promotion for some pieces around and after year 2000. Check of dates of invention could show which ones were duplicating that general idea from the earliest one. This IO may be the first to use it.


Captain Spalding Chess. Find an Elephant in your Pajamas.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 4, 2016 08:10 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Half or more of Betza's 150 games in CVPage have, as Captain Spalding does, realistic opening moves or entire game scores annotated for examples. Here too are couple pieces in Betza Notation by Betza himself that Muller and Florea have been revisiting. Captain Spalding is character by Groucho Marx in 1930 'Animal Crackers'. The first talkie at all was 1927, and most European countries had first talking movie production in same 1930. Marx Brothers play Chess: Chess.

Harpo Marx watches Chess in Moscow: Chess_Match_in_1931


King's Court. Variant on 8 by 12 board with Chancellors and Jesters. (12x8, Cells: 96) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 4, 2016 07:55 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Kings Court is very good but I rated Good here 12 years ago, so this is finetuning. David Paulowich once came up with a rule for a CV from looking at Chancellor here as tri-compound:

In Move_Length, Paulowich suggests self-contained movers Nightrider, Bishop, and Rook go unlimited distance, bi-compound go up to four steps, and tri-compound like this Chancellor up to two. Kings Court Chancellor is limited Queen plus Knight, or short Bishop + short Rook + Knight. The other new piece Jester is unique and not like mimicking Jesters of other games.


Alpha Centauri. A very complex game, somewhat exotic, with some elements from Rococo. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Sep 27, 2016 08:57 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Italian mathematician Roberto Lavieri moved to South America and became Venezuelan.   Alpha Centauri lacks the clarity the later Altair brought to the Horizontal rank movement of both games.


Jacks and Witches 84. Variant on 84 squares with special pieces and special squares. (12x8, Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Fri, Sep 23, 2016 09:25 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

More could be done in other CVs with the Transporter or Teleporter cells of 2002 Jacks & Witches.


Field Chess. On an 8x12 board with 8 extra pieces per side (Archers). (8x12, Cells: 96) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Fri, Sep 23, 2016 08:30 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Archer Pawns are not rifle piece at all and do capture by displacement.  The board is unusually aligned for new type Archer.


Leaping/Missing Bat Chess. Large variant on a 16x12 board with many fairy pieces. (16x12, Cells: 192) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Fri, Sep 23, 2016 08:07 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Savard is mathematician and this is satire too a little overdone.  I mean Bat as root-65 leaper?

Can the Bat reach more than the 16 squares shown in the diagram of the 12x16 board? If so how many squares are ultimately reachable by Bat?

Besides the Bishops and the Bats, what other (several) piece-types are unable to reach all 192 squares and how many can they reach given the set-up array?


File Sharing Chess. File Sharing, pawn swapping, always passed pawns. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Fri, Sep 23, 2016 07:56 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

This is serious recent attempt to reduce Draws in small board 64 OrthoChess. How about a subvariant as follows?   The Pawn swap involves moving opponent Pawn.  So whenever a player uses the Pawn swap in lieu of regular move, the other player immediately has two choices.  One, make a regular move,  Or two, move opponent's (the swapper's) any unit by legal move.  Then follows the swapper's next turn.  And perhaps it needs no double swapping consecutive turns.


Gridlock Chapter 2. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Fri, Sep 23, 2016 07:46 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Gridlock 2 (as 1, 3, 4 too) has last words 7 years ago so this revives the great satire.  Paul Leno and I disagreed then on using social media to develop a Chess project since I don't still even want to look at whatever social media is, but Gridlock deserves recognition as the funniest Chess article, along with circa 1950 "A Quiet Game of Chess,"  though Leno claims to have actual defined CVs here too.


Grande Acedrex. A large variant from 13th century Europe. (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Dec 29, 2015 06:01 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This game page is twenty years old and Grande Acedrex itself over 700 years. Bishop, or crocodile, was around already in Courier Chess, but Queen apparently not til about 1480, so a great piece like Gryphon precedes Queen by two hundred years. <p> This Unicorn moves as Bishop only after first move as Knight. <p> Better than 17th c. Carrera's with awkward Knight compounds, and better than all the 18th c. Turkish chesses, Grande Acedrex here happens to have been commented only for a year in 2008, not at all the first 13 years or last 6 years. Gryphon and Rook are the strong pieces, the former of most value, and the interactions of all very diverse p-ts would be dramatic.

Stanley Random Chess A game information page
. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Thu, Dec 24, 2015 04:57 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Stanley Random was first to use "Simpleminded Chess" to describe their stubborn little f.i.d.e. form that will probably stupidly outlast another decade. The original Stanley Random on CVPage was December 2004. Because of some criticism and unclear Rules, the description by Topov is dispersed and not completely in this article, apparently some of it edited by Topov, because for one thing originally there was mention of like 20,000 2 millenniums back origination in the first paragraph. Although it is not clear anyone knew exactly what was going on with Stanley Random: <a href="http://www.chessvariants.com/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=11182">One_of_Dozens</a>. See the other fifty comments.<p>Simpleminded? <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/magnus_carlsen.html">Wit</a>. <a href="http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=gargantua+images&view=detailv2&qpvt=gargantua+images&id=298BAF6D661F82B5A8CE20917BEC282308826415&selectedIndex=12&ccid=JPyPIoWC&simid=608034861624526294&thid=OIP.M24fc8f2285820ca5a1980b9e36fdcd45o0&ajaxhist=0">Excess</a>. <p> <a href="http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=gargantua%ee%80%81+and+%ee%80%80pantagruel&view=detailv2&qpvt=gargantua%ee%80%81+and+%ee%80%80pantagruel&id=FA0ECED71DF0D844EEB5C6B8B5178B5D0F5ABE37&selectedIndex=6&ccid=u1ClGyjy&simid=607987153114042062&thid=OIP.Mbb50a51b28f2b4c3f7749bb61f47d9c1o0&ajaxhist=0">Gargantua</a> -- Rabelais in 1530s wrote excitedly of new mad Queen Chess, not as old as Stanley Random, still played today, and the image from the book represents Chess play. Rabelais' two chapters on a ball, a dance, for Chess, describing actual game moves of all the pieces, two of them brand new in Bishop and Queen, were longer at 12 pages or more even than individual Chess Morality poems of years 1200 to 1500 about the early Shatranj form. <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/magnuscarl484959.html">Quotes</a>.

One King Shogi. Checkmate the neutral king. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Fri, Sep 11, 2015 04:11 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Let's guess that Yulia Latynina of Moscow, The Hundred Squares, was not aware of Parton's Neutral King CV when she wrote science fiction 'The Hundred Squares' positing one King by aliens; and their chagrin at Earthlings' two Kings. As Frolov points out probably she would be aware of Shogi and Xiangqi only not CVs.

Under Latynina's spell rather than Parton's, Frolov then among his 60 CVs, second only to Gilman's, adapts unbeknownst year 1953 Neutral King to Shogi, Neutral_King, and creditably Rules do disambiguate the best way in Shogi how One King behaves.


Move as square says. Game with identical piece, movement depends on location. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Wed, Sep 9, 2015 05:55 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Daniil Frolov among 60 CVs, second only to Gilman's in ones written up for Chess Variant Page, makes here extreme form of Tula Chess. Tula. He found Tula Chess from Tula, Russia, that Dr. Friedlander has made Java form to play. In Tula Chess Pawns and King are unaffected, but Rook, Knight and Bishop all move as Rook files a and h, Knight files b and g, and Bishop files c and f. Then in 2014 "Move as square says" dictates that every square has its own marker how a piece moves. Tula is Tolstoy's city of 'War and Peace' and 'Anna Karenina'.

Crooked Board Chess. Variant on a board of standard size but odd shape. (8x12, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Thu, Aug 27, 2015 03:52 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I just deliberately overrated a Good CV as excellent.  Charles, this C. B. should be kept on board so to speak since it's quite different from Zig Zag, and will look at some others you mention.  What does "super-square" mean? I knew in my first comment here, and have to recheck it to answer the question.  There has been already some detailed editing, for example no longer prohibiting d6xe7.  Why does it say 4 Pawns when there appear to be 8 Pawns?  "One foot in the grave" is actually good description I did not appreciate the first time through the Rules.  There are interesting features: 75% of the Pawns, that is 3 of 4, starting in back of their own file can promote in 3 moves. Things like that, and the lesson that Crooked Bishop itself really needs a strict four-sided board, or that pieces are both inhibited and enhanced by inside corners d4-style.  Also, is there then a chance by one Pawn to promote in 2 moves?

 In Orthodox circles there were two books about Morley's new shape mid-20th C., http://www.chessvariants.org/shape.dir/morley.html, and unusual boards are probably the underutilized sector of 21st C. CVs.  Gilman has many unusual shapes but the smaller the better such as 64-square C.B.


Finally, "not for want of terminology from playing"? That addition to (one of) the rewrite(s)  poses the following question(s). Did you play it and how does it play?

Switch-Side Chain-Chess. Optionally swap sides with your opponent upon completing a "chain". (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Fri, Apr 17, 2015 03:37 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
When I judged Excellent one year ago, there were unmentioned reasons why.  One, it's a good original Mutator.  So far I have not found something like new checkmate condition in other CV of three-in-a-line, or other geometric pattern, which would be reminiscent of a Chain, some other designer did.  Anyway Chain is not a win condition as in those few CVs to achieve a line-up of pieces for checkmate. So Chaining is quite original.

Two, Chains themselves are flexible in that they can be legally added to up to a point, and do have clarity.  The combination of Moves to get ongoing Chains lacks the clarity. Here also lack of clarity, stated with irony in the article:

 "If the ticks are even on each side, the players have their starting colors. Otherwise they control the opponent's army at the time."

Having to think whose turn it is that way makes it a fantasy CV, not serious AI experiment or replacement candidate.  Three, the write-up is excellent in detail -- heh like one by Knappen or by Paulowich -- having real move examples, partial scores, constructed positions, to back points up.  

The majority of CVs have somewhat too strong pieces over-all, and Chain as option would put to good use the piece-types in the shadows in subvariants of CVs with Rose, Carreran Centaur (bn) and Champion (rn), or Unicorn (that is hundreds of existing CVs).  http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/unicorn.html -- there Switch Side Chain Unicorn Chess would be challenging CV, damping the long-range pieces, because low value pieces including Pawns are equally part of Chain(s). But circular Rose itself should be the favorite for Switch Side Chain because blockable, not like unaesthetic all-spots leaper, it can close and form a chain from all the way around to the backside.

Fifty-fifty chess. Mating is allowed after having taken eight pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Wed, Apr 15, 2015 04:02 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Why is this called Fifty-fifty?  Because half the pieces have to be captured before checkmate is permitted.  Probably Dutch the standard form is that the appearance of checkmate and plain check is allowed along the way, and the King just cannot be legally captured til 50% of pieces are gone. There then could be a retroactive question that needs clarification.

Or in a stretch just to be witty, mis-spell it Fifty-five, and then the King is the "fifty-fifth," working backwards from 64 (squares), as though notionally every square has or represents a piece, less the other King's space.

A CV subvariant generalizes Fifty-fifty, to draw out of a hat how many pieces have to be captured before checkmate, any number from 6 to 15.  Then further subvariant of that one is to "philidor" it and make it an odds game, one side has to capture 6 and the other 10 before permitting mate/checkmate.   

The same Breughem made a specific target of 21, http://www.chessvariants.org/winning.dir/blackjack.html.
This CV  like the others of the mid-nineties, Falcon, Centennial, Hostage,  is about 20 years old now.

Many Rules in One Game. List chess and variants.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Sat, Jan 24, 2015 07:53 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
There are pictorial checkmate and functional checkmate obviously.  But if it is just a pictorial check do you have to move out of it? Usually no apparently, because the rules will have changed by your required turn. Both kinds of checkmate lose, but unlike pictorial check, the player does have to move out of functional check on his immediate next turn.

What would be interesting and challenging is to play Many Rules with different armies, or even with traditional polypieces: http://www.chessvariants.org/diffmove.dir/polypiece.html.

That could make for important subvariants of Many Rules with Different Polypiece Armies preferably on enabling 8x10.

Shatranj al-Sultan. Normal Chess + Alibaba , with a Sultanic flavour . (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Tue, Jul 8, 2014 05:27 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Sibahi's SaS here should not least be related to Parton's Dabbabante, written up by Aronson: http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/dabbabante-chess.html, besides all the following.

This is Abdul-Rahman Sibahi's last CV of sixteen produced.  There are a couple 2006, twelve 2007 and two 2008 -- not being facetious, a typical design trajectory over time, just reaching a prolificist over-15. Shatranj al-Sultan adds compound (Alfil + Dabbabah) paired to standard RNBKQP.  As Sibahi's summary points out, there are the four bindings, and positioned naturally in the deliberate 8x10 array the four Alibabas never can meet for strategically interesting set-offs.

It has been common theme what one piece-type to add to the orthodox pairs Rook, Knight and Bishop.  In Capablanca's copying of Carrera, brought forward yet again without pre-positioning by unimaginative Seirawan, the Centaur BN and Champion RN are as one conceptually -- like a left Schizzy and right Schizzy of that named CV are of the same cloth but have individual capability.  

Other choices to add two same pieces have included Janus Chess contrarian disregard of Champion in just having one style of piece-type (BN) out of the Carreran completion.  Others of one type in consideration include Shogi variant Lion, Cetina's 1980s Sissa, even Chess Cafe Harding's Transcendental Prelate, and as well plural-path slider Falcon.  (Some of these get tested on 8x8 but paired to match Rook, Bishop and Knight, they all seem to work best on 8x10, not either Capa's original idea of 10x10.) Actually, Sibahi's Alibaba used this way is much like Winther's Mastodon (http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MPmastodonchess) on 8x10, having that one's same reach without versatility.  Several CVs by Fourriere, who enunciated the guiding principle to keep the Orthodox standard as base,

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=5623,

 also add one new piece-type to vanilla RNBKQP.  
 
Shatranj al-Sultan is a good jumping-off point and perhaps Sibahi will eventually have follow-ups using Fool or Querquisite from his other CVs.

  Another Sibahi CV from main year 2007, http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSfalconhexagona adapts Falcon to hexagonal of Glinski orientation.

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