Comments by GlennNicholls
A reply to Charles Gilman: Whilst I do not intend to go back over ground already covered, it seems that you are wondering about one or two things….. I wrote this game (with reference only to the standard games of Western and Chinese Chess) in its basic form several years before I was aware that this website existed, and the first I was aware of another game/article featuring Forest and Storm pieces was in your comment. I do not know whether you thought of these names before myself and I do not even know in which of your many games/articles they appear. If you are saying, as you seem to be, that Sultan’s Elephant Chess is not a spoof then why should Dragon be so. Or, put another way, if you think Dragon is a spoof then surely you must expect such thinking about Sultan’s Elephant Chess. Presentation is largely about form only and is a matter of individual style and preference. In any case it is always possible to re-write such games in a different format or order.
A reply to Charles Gilman & George Duke: Thanks for the comments which have proved helpful and I can see why words such as satire and theme heavy came about. Obviously nobody wants their page to be awkward to read but there is a reason why the game was written in this manner – let me explain. There are a number of popular novels which feature within them the playing of chess, a chess variation or a complex board game; they are generally science fiction or fantasy and range from the Dune novels to the Harry Potter books. Broadly speaking we therefore have in these novels the playing of a war game within a war story. What I have attempted to do with the game of Dragon is, of sorts, to reverse this by having the story within the game such that the playing of the game enacts out the situation as described by the outline story. In order to do this it is necessary to bring the pieces and the board to life and the so the pieces must be given characters and sufficient descriptions and the board must be given sufficient terrain details and they need to look realistic and be on a large board – standard Staunton pieces or symbolic Chinese Chess discs have to be forgotten here as does the size of and form of their standard boards. These additions to the game, of course, substantially increase the length of the page and may at times cause the reading of the rules to be harder. Probably the easiest way to learn the game is to start with the naval chess side of the game; once the ideas of embarking, passage, boarding, sinking and disembarking are grasped the rest of the game falls into place much easier. The presentation of the game does not have an obvious order, arrangement or format (that I can see) which gives the best way of learning together with all the rules, prelude and details fitted alongside in a tidy way. I am sure anybody with good writing and presentation skills could present the game in a much better and more readable way than I can, but for the time being I will have to give this some more thought.
George, I am told that Bridge, fine game though it is, is also in decline; and a visit to a tournament will often see screens erected in front of players to prevent cheating by the use of signalling – a poor sight indeed. Western Chess may be (slowly) dying but so too will Contract Bridge. G. Nicholls
Hi Joe I'm having trouble with my email so I'm using the comments page instead. The names LancerChess and LeopardChess are just alternate names for the same game as the form for the zrf submission said that LancerChess had already been used though I couldn't see where. If you tell me what to do next I'll try to do it. Thanks Glenn
With regard to the business side of variant chess. Yes, the actual market for chess variants is currently very small, but no, the potential market is very large. Hundreds of millions of people play chess and are very enthusiastic about the game and I am sure a good percentage of these players would find preferred games amongst variant chess; unfortunately most (virtually all?) are not aware of alternative variant games and this, I think, is what is holding back progress. How to solve this problem I do not know, but I think it is necessary to gain the attention of large numbers of players - If, for example, the next edition of the largest selling chess software, Chessmaster, were to include a few good variants properly programmed then this might start some momentum. There are other possibilities but they would require the interest of the right person(s) and this is very difficult to bring about. G. Nicholls
To H.G. Muller - Do you know roughly how many people have installed XBoard, WinBoard or Fairy-Max? G. Nicholls
I was under the impression that Lasker suggested reversing the initial positions of the Knights and Bishops, not Capablanca. Can someone please confirm which of these two suggested this.
Hi Joe Winning by territorial gains seems rather similar to what I wrote a couple of weeks ago under 'TigerMarks'. Regards Glenn Nicholls
Charles Gilman I think we have had some discussion before on presentation and I recall saying then that this is a matter of personal style and preference; nevertheless there is always room for improvement and here are the reasons to answer your points. The page that these CVs derive from is a Word Document which has formatted and coloured headings etc. which obviously make reading the page easier, but all this seems to be lost when loading onto the Chess Variant Pages; if there is a way to keep the colouring and formatting etc. I would appreciate knowing how. In all my variants the names I use are never duplicated for different pieces and are always chosen to suit the particular game they appear in. The reason for the changing of roles for the Royal Couple is as I pointed out years ago in TigerChess i.e. the idea of a medieval King sheltering in a castle whilst his Queen goes into battle is not sensible and also the standard names of some pieces such as Rook and Pawn I simply find out of keeping with the idea of Chess and so I never use such names. The gaps between the diagrams have come about because each diagram uses one page on my Word Document and the text then continues overpage. I would be quite happy to reduce the gaps but the original images have them so as to expand to fit on one page of my Word document.
Charles Gillman Referring back to your original comment that you fully understood the page after three readings, this seems entirely reasonable to me, how long did this take? About an hour or so I would guess and again this seems entirely reasonable: it is not unknown for a player to take this long making a single move in a game. I have had another look at the page and the presentation again seems entirely reasonable bearing in mind that I am not by profession a computer expert. The gaps after the diagrams take a second to scroll through, if that, and the whole page can be scrolled through in twenty seconds. I have tried to reduce the gaps even so but this unaccountably leaves a red line beneath the diagrams and so I am going to leave them as they are. I am puzzled as to what the problem could be that has this second response of yours which also answers another person (Frank) and which veers about from mostly one irrelevance to another, but then (and you seem to be inviting criticism) the same could be said about much of the Man and Beast series.
Charles Gillman The 'Ironic' comment was, as I have already pointed out, made by another person called 'Frank'.
Charles Gilman I have now noted the correct spelling of your name. Thanks for pointing this out. By way of constructive criticism I would suggest you answer comments by separate people separately yourself, this ensures there is no confusion or obfuscation.
I know what you mean but all my games link together and so my pages cannot properly be read in isolation. If you want to make a start the best place to go would be my page titled Games by Groupings. From here there is a heading for a group of games called Springboard which lists the more basic games roughly upwards in order of difficulty. From here go to a page called Summary of Game variations, Clock times.....where each individual game is listed roughly downwards in order of difficulty with basic information and a note on the page in which a full description can be found. Thank you for your interest. Glenn Nicholls
Yes, its a good idea to change this to a reference page as they are clarifications and add-ons. Actually the pages titled "from Stalemate to Checkmate" and also "Summary of Game Variations.........". are also more like reference pages and I wonder if you could change these as well and TigerMarks is actually a Game page not a reference page-is it possible to change this. Also I will add references in TigerPad to the games they relate to. Thanks for your help. Glenn Nicholls
The moves of the Sky-Prince are set out towards the end of my page titled Jewel: A Linked-Series of Games, though these moves are in turn referred to my page titled Dragon and they are chess-like moves. To find out more about the wider aspect (chess is a representative game in my opinion) of the Sky-Prince you would need to read about the "Alternate bonuses" for the Jewel Series which are summarised in a table in the page; but really it would be best to read this entire page. The weaknesses (vulnerabilities) of the Sky-Prince are connected to the wider aspects of him and these are set out in this page (Tiger's-eye Opera) under the section titled "Flash seven: Crystal of Doom - the Emerald Variation".
I have a page nearly ready for posting but it is a word document. How do I keep the formatting when posting it to the Site.
Thanks, I'll give this a try and see what happens.
Is there a problem with uploading images? I have one or two to upload but I can't seem to upload them.
I am still unable to upload images to my pages. Surely somebody must be aware of this problem and others will find the same problem. Someone must know the answer surely.
Best wishes to the Chess Variants site and its Editors
Thanking the hard working editors of CVP and wishing them a happy new year.
I find it very interesting that the most popular pieces for Chess Variants appear to be the very old "Capablanca" compounds.
Perhaps then Capablanca Chess is amongst the most popular of Chess Games (let's drop the word variants - this game is still Chess).Despite it all, it seems to come back to Western Chess, Chinese Chess and Capablanca Chess.
But the Chancellor and the Minister are still the most popular of variant pieces and I would ask why people can all be so wrong?
Thank-you for the reply Mr Duke.
So Mr Muller seems to agree, at least in part. What are bizarre positions in Chess? - some of the most exciting positions I've ever seen in Chess might be considered as strange by some - Anderssen v Kieseritzky has a huge material imbalance for example, towards the end.
Just to add a note to my previous remark on Most popular pieces:
I've just looked at Fergus's Gross Chess and a lot of the pieces do indeed include those of Western Chess, Chinese Chess and Capablanca Chess.
So we come back to these three games and their pieces once again.
Thank-you for your interesting opinions Mr Duke.
But, if I may say, these remarks are mostly your individual opinions and some of these would not, I think, be shared by all, including myself.
The point I am making is that of popularity and I can see no other games or pieces that have made such headway on this site compared to the three games and their pieces I've mentioned. Shogi I have no real knowledge of and so cannot comment on, but it seems (and I may be wrong) that this game is played by a large number of people but not in such a geographically wide area compared to Western or Chinese Chess.
One point I would mention with Capablanca Chess is that the large combined strength of the pieces to commence with is reduced once an exchange of the very strong pieces is made and then reduced still further once another exchange is made, so the game will often "scale down" to something resembling Chess on a larger board (but not greatly larger if 10x8), and if there are different very strong pieces left this could make for very interesting games (IMHO) and perhaps less likelihood of a draw.
Unaesthetic positions are difficult to define since there is a saying I remember from long ago that "One man's meat is another man's poison" and so I would simply look at a position on the board from any of these three games and see what could be made of it from either side. Sometimes there are possibilities in a game that are hard to see and the more unusual the position the more you may be able to cause your opponent to go wrong by playing unexpected moves combined with time pressure, if this can be brought about.
There are three other basic piece compounds I find interesting and I think I first heard these mentioned a number of years ago by one of our editors - Joe Joyce, and they are the Rook, Bishop and Knight each combined with a non-royal King (or Commoner as this piece is sometimes called). Of these the piece I personally like most is the Knight/Commoner compound and I have called this an Earl - a dangerous piece if he can get into the enemy camp; thanks to Joe for mentioning these pieces.
Anyway its past midnight in the UK and I will have to sign off for now.
I, too, have a CVP reference page submission awaiting clearance.
Anatoly Karpov has stated (and he should know given his playing strength and achievments) that he thinks ELO ratings have become subject to inflation and IMHO I think he is right. Bobby Fischer's peak rating was 2785 in July 1972 and this is IMHO the highest anyone has so far in reality achieved. This means, at least in my opinion, that no-one in reality has yet achieved a rating of 2800.
What has happened to the editing of one's pages and the appearance of those already on the site. Things seem to have got into a bit of a mess.
Of course the straightforward capture and loss of a Queen (King in my variants) means a loss of the game almost as certainly as that of the "Prime" Royal-piece - other perhaps than total beginners.
I made this aforesaid comment because an encirclement or trapping and then capture of a Queen (King in my variants) is a rare (at high level Chess) occurance, and one that I find very exciting in a game.
Of course, at the very top level of Chess, the loss of a Rook or even a minor piece is usually decisive.
For Chess-playing ability and hard work, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, and Magnus Carlsen have my respect indeed, and I have no doubt their Chess ability would manifest itself in any sensible Chess-variant given the proper time to learn and study such Game. As I have said before, let's drop the word "Variant" for any sensible Game e.g. Capablanca-chess, since these Games are still Chess. Yes, sensible is subjective, but top Chess-players would, I think, form a consensus of opinion on any particular Game or Set of Games.
As an aside I think that Bobby Fischer's ELO rating of 2785 achieved in July 1972 is, in reality, the highest achieved and that there has been, as former world champion Anatoly Karpov has stated, inflation of ELO ratings.
The layout of pages setup by using MS Word documents has changed and has resulted in something of a mess for my pages. What has happened?. Can this be put right? I would very much appreciate an answer.
This page was posted by using MS Word and took a great deal of time and effort to make reasonably tidy and readable. It is now something of a mess. I would very much appreciate knowing what to do to restore the page.
Thanks for the reply, but I don't have this sort of knowledge and I'm far too busy to sort all this out. The page is readable with effort and so if someone wants to read this page it is down to them to make the effort I'm afraid - the page has been up long enough. If you or anyone else can tidy it up without further confusing the page, fine, otherwise I'll leave it as it is. Nobody should change things that mess up other Persons' pages without letting everyone know first in simple language.
I don't think this page should have been messed up like it has been. Changes should not just be made that do this. What great purpose has been served by the change anyway. Posting in Word was at least straightforward and it worked and was simple. I think someone should put things back to how they were. There are in fact a series of Games on this page, and not merely one, and they often link together, and there are other items connected with Chess and Chess variants that some may find interesting, items that are somewhat of novelty value.
Thanks for the reply. I'll give this a try, but its late here in the UK, so tomorrow maybe, or when there's time.
10 x 10 Variants are IMHO hard indeed to invent, even Capablanca settled on a 10 x 8.
Thank you for trying to help. I do have a complete word document of all that is on this page and I will make efforts to repost it when time permits.
I can't seem to do anything on this site, even sign in.
I can only speak for my own Games on this site here, but this may well apply to some of the thousands? of other variants, and that is, although I have done some testing, I cannot guarantee that every Game I have on this site would "work".....they all seem Plausible, but Plausible is the word, and in any case no Money has been paid me (and none are for sale at all anyway) and so I owe no duty that the Games do in fact "work". BUT they MAY be good.
I don't seem to be able to upload images....they are just the usual JPG images and are under 100k - does anyone know why this is?
Whatever I do the spacing on the text always comes out as one line on this Page - does anyone know why - I would be very obliged for any advice or help on this.
Thanks Fergus.....I think the WYSIWYG mode might sort it out - I'll try it later on.
Sometimes I think it is more important to consider the Plausibility of a piece before other factors.....There is in this page, at the end and with a move diagram, a modified Character (piece) called the (Northern or Sumatran) Tiger-emperor and he is a little bit more powerful than the Character called the (Northern or Sumatran) Tiger-prince that he is a modification of.....But, he is not quite so logical in his moves as the Prince and so I have not included him in any Games here - the Prince appears in the Games of Tiger-strike and Tiger-crossfire.....I think the Emperor is Plausible enough in his moves though, and I think Plausibility needs to be considered with the moving and capturing abilities of Chess Characters, or the Game and its Background and Representational aspects can lose sense - this is of course only my personal opinion.....The Emperor combines the moves of just two Chess pieces i.e. the Rook and Knight.....despite this, he seems to be fractionally more powerful than the well known three-piece compound of Rook, Bishop and Knight (usually called a General, or Amazon or other name).
With reference to my previous comment regarding the moves of the Characters (pieces) called the Tiger-prince and the Tiger-emperor, I ought to add that Tigers do indeed sometimes "hit" their prey with a leap (or pounce) from the side and this can result in a "follow through" of differing angles. Of course, a "Tigerish" Person could perhaps also move and strike like this in a Medieval Battle. There is also a Tiger-princess as well in this page.
Of course, various combinations are possible of these Characters, but only one is mentioned on my pages, and that is the TigerGuard (one word), and he combines the powers of the Tiger-prince and the Tiger-princess - see my page TigerSquares (also one word).
The Tiger-emperor could, of course, and perhaps better so, be called the Tiger-king, but I have decided on Emperor due to his strength - but he may be too strong to bring into a Game - the Tiger-prince and Tiger-princess are strong enough.
The Eagle's move (is this the Griffon's move?) could be reversed here so that instead a Rook's single move is then followed by a Bishop's unrestricted slide - I did use similar pieces in my game of Citadel, but I kept both Rook and Bishop unrestricted slides in both pieces ( I called them Tiger-riders); they seemed about as strong as the Chess Queen - I had the original idea from the Giraffe of Tamerlane Chess and based Citadel very loosly on this Game.
to H.G. Muller.....thanks for the reply.
Yes, Zillions does have the Tiger-riders of Citadel as a bit stronger than Queens, but more rays are blockable on their first move than Queens and this perhaps seems to knock their value down, at least on Zillions.
Yes, I agree that the text of Citadel could be tedious, in parts, with regard to describing its piece moves and rules (I find that few games aren't, at least in parts), but this was in the days when I tried to make absolutely sure that there would be no misunderstanding of the piece moves and rules to my games (I still do - it is very easy for the inexperienced to misunderstand such things unfortunately).....I try to counter-balance the mundane matter of learning piece moves and rules with a short background story to my games that hopefully some might find interesting.
What matters of course, though subjective, is how interesting and well Games and/or Pieces actually play.
The recent comments regarding hyphenation of words and English Grammar are interesting. I think these days there is scope for some subjectivity in the use of Grammar and Punctuation and I have in fact used some subjectivity in my pages here, e.g. my page and game of TigerChess is one word.....also in my first name(s) of Shaye-Alexander the hyphen does not actually denote only a single joined name but two possible stand-alone first names as well. In this comment I have deliberately used subjective punctuation and so forth. However, I think the term Chess Variants is best put as two seperate words for a Site Heading and used with capitals, though the capitals may not always be "correct" when writing about. An alternative might be Chess-variants (capital C, small v) to emphasize that Chess is the primary noun of a joint description, if this is required - but 100% theoretically correct written English would require the attention of a Professor or expert in such, I would think.
To H.G.M.
Yes, it all depends, Chess-variant (capital C small v) might be used as in Chess-variant pages, this looks neat, I think, when the subject is used in writing about, but may not be striking enough as a Site Heading where a Person's eye wants to be drawn towards.....writing is somewhat like music, at least for me, and for example my own punctuation of five dots (.....) I use as a "drift" (this generally denotes slow movement) to a linked sentence, or even a linked paragraph, rather than a full stop (. I generally use to denote stop and start, or stop).
I'm quite happy to let others decide on a new logo, But, I hope there is something of Chinese Chess in this - there seems to be a Cannon and Elephant at the moment.....most interestingly the website Ancient Chess.com states that this game is probably played by more people than any other board game in the world, including Western Chess (though I would think probably not played so geographically as widespread as Western Chess) - those of us, or some, of the Chess Variants site might want to keep this in mind.
I'm curious - are you happy representationally with the East-West positioning of the images in the top left logo?
I'm not too bothered on this point - as you say a logo is not a map, and yet.....although I live in the UK and my individual perspective of East-West is different in any case, so far as I know the arbritary deciding of East-West is by the Prime Meridian and this passes through the UK and perhaps this should over-ride other considerations.
I'm not too bothered on this point - as you say a logo is not a map, and yet.....although I live in the UK and my individual perspective of East-West is different in any case, so far as I know the arbritary deciding of East-West is by the Prime Meridian and this passes through the UK and perhaps this should over-ride other considerations.
I'm still curious - are the board and pieces of Xiang Qi (Chinese Chess) going to permanently stay as an image on the home page, or will this revolve with images of the other mentioned games such as Chess, Shogi etc. I hasten to add that I don't mind some of the things as they currently are (or recently were) and I am still quite happy for others to eventually decide on these things.
On Games - I suppose the popularity of Chinese Chess raises the question of whether it is really a variant at all and not simply a major Game in its own right, like Western Chess.
On Pieces - the somewhat popularity and awareness of the Capablanca pieces, and possibly other "variant" pieces, may hopefully perhaps eventually reach a level nearer to those of the well known Chess pieces e.g. the Western Chess Queen, Rook, Knight etc., but this, I think, is unfortunately a long way off.
To F.D.
Thank-you for your response.
Yes, of course this good site can determine its own definition of what is a Chess-variant and what is not, but then numbers of players of Chinese Chess might disagree that the Game is but a variant of.....what?.....what game on the site is not some sort of Chess-variant.....Western Chess it seems. Can you let me know please what game is the Cornerstone of Chess on the site such that variants are determined to be so, or are there several, or many.
I would not object to the site using the name of one of my Games in the logo or somewhere, this being Kaleidoscope.....the site might then have "The Chess Kaleidoscope" or similar, such as "A Kaleidoscope of Chess".....But I am still quite happy for others to decide on such matters, as long as Kaleidoscope was used in a reasonable way, as I'm sure it would be.
To H.G.M.
Yes, I think what you have said is as good a definition of the classic or traditional Chess idea as is likely within a few lines of text.....I did know that neither the current Western game nor the current Chinese game is in its original form.
When I look at my list of authored items they are showing "Missing description"
How do I amend this?
to Fergus
Yes I will add some descriptions at least
But where do I go to do this?
Thanks, I'll come back and perhaps add some when I can
It doesn't matter too much as I write descriptions within the page anyway
Thanks for the answer
to Fergus
Is it simple and straightforward to use the link description
I don't kow how to use it - perhaps someone could tell me
Whilst Western chess and Chinese chess would seem to be the most popular of all Chess games (or variants if you like) I remember a comment on this fine site long years ago that there were many (hundreds of ?) games invented and posted here that were based on Capablanca chess and so by this measure perhaps Capablanca chess is right up there (so to speak).....and did I not read somewhere that there was talk of Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov playing Chess that involved extra pieces - what could this be I wonder.....
To HG Muller
This is very intriguing - a forbidden word with regard to a Chess game - extraordinary, but I'll let this be, at least I seem to be right that there was talk of something.....
.....I always say Capablanca chess although I do know there were earler similar games like it, but thanks for letting me know this anyway.....
.....I agree It does seem to be an exaggeration that there are hundreds of Capablanca type games on the site, but although I am stating this from memory I'm sure that was what someone said, though years ago; I wonder how many games there are in total on the site now - does this run into thousands.....
.....Chess 960: I think randomisation is a technique rather than really being seperate games and this technique could probably be applied to numerous Chess games - I don't really use it on any of my own games though.....
To G. Strong
Thank-you for an interesting reply - I do in fact rather like the game, but more to the point is that Capablanca himself thought it much better than Western chess and of course his opinion as a world champion must carry weight, though no doubt he had a little bias towards his own game.....
.....I can only hazard a guess that Capablanca liked the great tactical scope that the game seems to give whilst also having the possibility after (if) exchanges of some or all of the very strong pieces of simplifying into something akin to Western chess, so then you don't lose Western chess altogether with it - two games for the price of one ? - indeed this is why I like it.....
.....of course it is all opinion on games on this site and only Western and Chinese chess (perhaps Shogi as well) are popular on a really huge scale, but I personally would put Capablanca chess high up on the ranking of games, not that I've tried out all the thousands (?) of games here - who has.
Though piece value studies are not to the interest of everyone they can, I find, be fascinating at times and anyone can overlook properties of pieces and their situations - even of their own ideas, and I for one am appreciative that someone like HGM and one or two others do such in depth analysis of this.
Some have called Western chess "Mad Queen chess" (derogatorily so?) but the move QH6 played by Magnus Carlsen in the decisive game in the world 2016 championship shows the level of excitement that a piece like this can produce - a fantastic finish to win a world championship with.
And I would perhaps add that because computers take into account their opponent's replies they do not seem, to me at any rate, to build towards this sort of possibility and also in my opinion computers have proved no more with chess than did pocket calculators with calculations with regard to "intellectual" abilities.
Further to my previous comment regarding the move 50. Qh6+ by Magnus Carlsen to win the 2016 world chess championship.
This move reminds me somewhat of the "The Golden move" (as it has been called, supposedly because gold coins were showered onto the board by spectators after it was played) of 23... Qg3 played by Frank Marshall against Stepan Levitsky in 1912 - but this move, though played in a tournament, was not in a world championship never mind the decisive game in such and so in my opinion Magnus Carlsen's move, played on his 26th birthday, against Sergey Karjakin can fairly be considered "The Platinum move" and I would like to so name it. How about having "The Silver move" - my choice would be 19. e5 played by Adolf Anderssen against Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851 - a fantastic and most famous game, but not a tournament one - this move involved cutting off the defensive line of the opposing Queen. Mention could, I think, also be made of the young teenage, at the time, Bobby Fischer's Queen sacrificing move of 17... Be6 played in a tournament against Donald Byrne in 1956 - "The Bronze Move" ? - perhaps, if we include one; and we must not forget Paul Morphy's famous Queen sacrifice 16. Qb8+ played in the informal "Opera House Game" in 1858 against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, but here the players were not of comparable playing strength - Paul Morphy was the world's strongest player at the time.
Can Chinese chess then, that has no piece stronger than the rook of Western chess, produce something of its own form of excitement - well, in Terence Donnelly's 1974 book Hsiang Ch'i there is a game given where black (who moved first here) delivers checkmate on his 24th move that is the 10th check in succession and the source of this game is given as Chin tai hsiang ch'i ming chu hsuan (Selected famous modern games of Chinese chess), Shanghai, 1958.
And then there is one of the best known of Chess "variants" (not my choice of words - that would simply be Chess games) namely the much more modern game of Capablanca chess where the increased scope for tactics can no doubt lead to very sharp and double edged games and the inventor, Jose Raul Capablanca, apparently played and tested this game many times against Edward Lasker who noted that games rarely went beyond 20 or 25 moves, but I can find no record of these or indeed any game of this played by Jose Raul Capablanca.
But what of those who prefer a more tranquil but no less subtle game - well, there is Arabian chess that Western chess evolved from and this was widely played for over a thousand years and in The Oxford Companion to Chess 1984 by David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld and under the heading Mansuba there are a number of studies that show the interesting subtleties and potential excitement that are within this game.
It is, in my opinion, difficult indeed to directly improve upon any of these above four basic Chess games in any significant way and I say directly because "improvements" in one aspect of the game can very easily be more greatly detrimental in another aspect of it and may lose too much of the essential features of the game whilst not gaining a sufficient increase in new features to outweigh the loss - difficult to achieve indeed and, I think, requires careful and thoughtful work.
Since my original comment is not under the subject of the World chess championship 2016 I repeat it below:
Some have called Western chess "Mad Queen chess" (derogatorily so ?) but the move 50. Qh6+ played by Magnus Carlsen in the decisive game in the world 2016 championship shows the level of excitement that a piece like this can produce - a fantastic finish to win a world championship with.
And I would perhaps add that because computers take into account their opponent's replies they do not seem, to me at any rate, to build towards this sort of possibility and also in my opinion computers have proved no more with chess than did pocket calculators with calculations with regard to "intellectual" abilities.
Shaye Nicholls pp Glenn Nicholls
I am most puzzled - pages seem to have "Missing description" noted against them but I can see no way to enter a desription for a page's game - surely this is straightforward to do - I would like to add one or two to mine.
Also, how does one post a reference item ?
Shaye Nicholls pp Glenn Nicholls
To Ben Reiniger
Thank you for your reply regarding Missing descriptions
I would much appreciate four being added - they are very straightforward descriptions but three of the games are not yet posted as they are awaiting review by a site editor - the games are:
LancerChess (this game has been posted) - can you add the description - a basic Western chess game
QiPlacements (this is awaiting review) - can you add the description - a basic Chinese chess game
Arabella (this is awaiting review) - can you add the description - a basic Arabian chess game
Storm (this is awaiting review) - can you add the description - a basic Capablanca chess game
Thank you for your help
Shaye Nicholls pp Glenn Nicholls
There are messages when I sign in:
"For citational purposes, we keep records on anyone who contributes content to this site. Since Glenn Nicholls has contributed content to this site, our database listing on GlennNicholls needs to stay up. But if this person is dead or no longer interested in remaining active on this site, let us know, and this account can be made inactive".
This messsage seems to be because my email has changed to [email protected] but I cannot seem to edit my existing no longer used (and by now probably dormant or deleted) email to change it to this current and live one.
I would then ask that one of the editors kindly updates my email link address and is aware that I am certainly interested in remaining active on this site - indeed I have been keeping up with comments in the past few days and my latest contribution was this year.
Thank you for the help I am sure you will give.
SAE Nicholls
Thank you for your quick reply
I have tried what you say but this did not seem to work - I'll try again though
I can only say I did not receive any confirmation email and I've used the 'Change Email' link now and no confirmation email is coming through.
There is no way for me to know why the site is not sending an automatic confirmation email or, if it is, why I am not receiving it since I have other emails sent here without any problem.
The link in the email says a confirmation email will be sent and so does not report a problem.
I've just tried again and here is what it says:
"Mail was sent from [email protected] to [email protected].
A confirmation request has been sent to [email protected], the email address you wish to change to. When you get the message, click on the link, make sure you're signed in, then click on the Confirm button."
But no email has been received by me and this is at least the third time I've tried this.
Fergus
It's late in the UK now where I live so I'll turn in.
Perhaps the easiest way is for yourself, as an editor, to simply change this email link (if this is possible for an editor) on the basis of the comments I've made and without needing any other confirmation.
I've whitelisted the change email address from the CVP.
Thank-you
SAE Nicholls
OK, I've tried again with a different email address (still a hotmail one though) with the CVP address whitelisted. I'll wait a while and see if anything is received.
SAE Nicholls
The new email address seems to have worked and I would much appreciate the following messages be taken off when I sign in:
"Since this person's email address has been returning email, it has been marked as dead in the database to prevent more email from being sent to it. It may still work, but if you want to continue receiving email from us, you should change the email you have on record with us."
"For citational purposes, we keep records on anyone who contributes content to this site. Since Glenn Nicholls has contributed content to this site, our database listing on GlennNicholls needs to stay up. But if this person is dead or no longer interested in remaining active on this site, let us know, and this account can be made inactive."
Thank-you for your help
SAE Nicholls
Sorry to persist but I'm puzzled here - I've signed out and then back in but the former message is still showing even though the new email address has received mail from the CVP.
The message shows under person information.
George
This other paragraph seems to appear on everyone's person information page, even editors it seems - it's just a way of making sure what persons are or are not active I suppose.
Shaye (pp Glenn) Nicholls
I think there is a fair chance that Chess in its various forms is the world's most popular board game, or thereabouts, but if FIDE claim 600 million adults play Chess (and presumably they mean play Western chess regularly) they are claiming perhaps one in eight of the world's adult population do so - a big claim indeed.
Shaye Nicholls (pp Glenn Nicholls)
It seems there may not have been a backup for a week - has this been forgotten?
It seems a member trying to change his email address might not work - I've tried to change mine but have not received the necessary email to the new address with a link needed for confirmation.
Could somebody check this, and also a backup hasn't been done for some days now.
If somebody could kindly sort these two things out - thanks.
SAE Nicholls
Thanks for the quick response.
I can't see anything - can one of the site's editors simply change it to the new address if I give them this?
Regards
SAE Nicholls
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