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Game Reviews by GregoryStrong

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Capablanca Random Chess. Randomized setup for Capablanca chess. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Apr 26, 2005 12:03 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
The Beta of SMIRF is quite nice! Good user interface, nice set of features, and intelligent play. It would be nice if you would consider making it open-source.

Golem Chess. Variant where the Queen is replaced by the Golem, a piece that must be captured twice to remove it from play. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Apr 24, 2005 11:25 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Very interesting!

Half-golem capturing adjacent half-golem:  It says 'If a piece other than
a Golem captures a Golem, the capturing piece is removed from play, and the
Golem is replaced by a Half-Golem of the same ownership as the Golem.' 
But it also says 'A Golem or Half-Golem may always capture an adjacent
Golem or Half-Golem.'

What happens here?  And likewise, if a half-golem captures an adjacent
full-golem, is the capturing piece also removed?

Grand Chess. Christian Freeling's popular large chess variant on 10 by 10 board. Rules and links. (10x10, Cells: 100) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
📝Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Mar 25, 2005 09:55 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
A fantastic variant, and my favorite variant on a decimal board. I think placing the pawns on the third rank, rather than the second, is important for decimal variants to get the game moving and interesting before dozens of moves have past. Even giving second-rank pawns a triple-space initial move still doesn't seem to accomplish the this. Omega Chess games, for example, seem to take forever to develop to a level with noticeable tension. Grand Chess also allows pawns to promote on the 8th rank, as in Mecklenbeck Chess, and this provides additional tension without making the game so dynamic that it hard to visualize. Finally, giving the back rank to the Rooks reduces or eliminates the need for castling, and I consider this a very good thing, too.

Chess with Different Armies. Betza's classic variant where white and black play with different sets of pieces. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Mar 11, 2005 03:01 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Looking back, I noticed that I had not rated this game, so I now correct
this oversight with an 'Excellent' rating for my personal favorite
variant.

I hope that Ralph re-emerges soon, because I am concerned that his
inventions might become overlooked without his continued input.  But I
will continue to do what I can to promote CWDA, though, such as voting for
it's inclusion in Game Courier tournaments, and providing the best
possible CWDA support to ChessV, for analysis of different army match-ups.
 Sometime in the not-too-distant future I will provide a great deal of
information here on what I have learned from computer analysis of the
major CWDA armies.

Regarding the Pawn promotion rule:  I would recommend a change to this
rule.  The current rule says a pawn may promote to any piece in either
army at the start of the game.  Here's the problem:  What about the
match-up of Nutty Knights vs. Nutty Knights?  Since no piece in that
entire army may move backward faster than one square at a time, even if a
pawn promotes to a (very powerful) Colonel, it still probably can't move
back into the frey quickly enough, seriously decreasing the value of pawn
promotion.  I would suggest the alternate rule:  A pawn may promote to any
piece (other than Pawn or King) in the player's army at the start of the
game, or in the standard Orthodox Chess army (Fabulous FIDEs).  This
always provides the option of promotion to Queen.

Falcon Chess. Game on an 8x10 board with a new piece: The Falcon. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Mar 4, 2005 01:51 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
I have not played Falcon Chess yet, but the Falcon is a very clever piece, and I look forward to seeing how it plays. Unfortunately, with GC Tournament #2 starting soon, I need to focus on those games for now, but I will definitely try FC sometime reasonably soon. I am glad it has a GC preset! I am (personally) ambivalent about ZoG support, but I'm not sure I see what can be gained by not providing a ZRF.

Capablanca Random Chess. Randomized setup for Capablanca chess. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Feb 24, 2005 04:49 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Very nice! The author has done an excellent job of defining a Fischer randomization system for Capablanca's Chess (actually this piece mix goes back to the 1600s with D. Pietro Carrera -- see Carrera's Chess.) It is obvious to me that the design has been carefully considered from both a game-designer's perspective and a software developer's perspective.

I'm not sure I like the idea of renaming the pieces, though. There are already too many different names for these pieces, and I think the goal should be to standardize the names, and I believe Capablanca's names of Archbishop and Chancellor are probably the best choices.


Pocket Mutation Chess. Take one of your pieces off the board, maybe change it, keep it in reserve, and drop it on the board later. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Feb 22, 2005 09:57 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

This is a very interesting game. I look forward to playing it in GCT #2.

Below is a list of mobility values for all the pieces in Pocket Mutation, as well as a few Chess-With-Different-Armies pieces at the bottom for comparison. The 'average mobility' column is a Betza Mobility Calculation with a magic number of 0.7. This is probably the best estimation of the value of the piece. The second column is the average number of checks this piece delivers on an empty board without being counter-attacked. The third column is the average number of different 'directions' in which this piece attacks. The fourth column is the average number of squares attacked on an empty board.

Average # Directions Attacked Average Empty Board Mobility
Average Mobility Average # Safe Checks
Class Piece
Class 2
Knight 5.25 5.25 5.25 5.25
Bishop 5.93 5.69 3.06 8.75
Class 3
Rook 8.1 10.5 3.5 14
Nightrider 7.96 9.5 5.25 9.5
Super Bishop 9.43 5.69 6.56 12.25
Class 4
Cardinal 11.18 10.94 8.31 14
Super Rook 11.16 10.5 6.56 17.06
Class 5
Queen 14.03 16.19 6.56 22.75
Chancellor 13.35 15.75 8.75 19.25
Cardinal Rider 13.89 15.19 8.31 18.25
Super Cardinal 14.68 10.94 11.81 17.5
Class 6
Chancellor Rider 16.06 20 8.75 23.5
Super Chancellor 16.41 15.75 11.81 22.31
Super Cardinal Rider 17.39 15.19 11.81 21.75
Class 7
Amazon 19.28 21.44 11.81 28
Super Chancellor Rider 19.12 20 11.81 26.56
Class 8
Amazon Rider 21.99 25.69 11.81 32.25
Misc
Fibnif 5.69 2.63 5.69 5.69
Waffle 5.75 2.25 5.75 5.75
Woody Rook 6.5 3 6.5 6.5
Charging Knight 6.78 2.63 6.78 6.78
Short Rook 7.51 7.5 3.5 11
FAD (colorbound) 8.31 5.25 8.31 8.31
Charging Rook 8.48 7.88 5.03 12.91
Half-Duck 8.56 5.5 8.56 8.56
Bede (colorbound) 8.93 8.69 6.06 11.75
Fourfer (FR4) 10.57 7.5 6.56 14.06
Colonel 12.64 10.5 9.19 17.06
N2R4 14.86 15.75 8.75 19.25


Courier 'de la Dama'. Courier Chess with a Modern Queen and Crooked Bishops. (12x8, Cells: 96) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Feb 8, 2005 12:41 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
I had not noticed this page until George Duke's recent post.  I like the
alterations made here (at least in the first game.)  I will add it to
ChessV shortly, because it already supports Courier Chess, and this is an
easy addition.

I also like the 12x8 board, and suspect that it may be a great board for
CVs that has not been adequately explored.

As for the second game, I have not played a game with a crooked bishop, so
I can't speak to playability.  I can say, though, that I am not sure at
all how to program such a piece into ChessV in any 'good' way.  For what
I mean by good ways vs. bad ways, I will need to get into some detail about
ChessV architecture.  I will start this (complex) discussion on the ChessV
thread sometime in the future.

Archchess. Large chess variant from 17th century Italy. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Feb 8, 2005 12:02 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
I have played this game many times now, and consider it to be very good. It would rate 'Excellent' compaired to other CVs of its era (I like it better than Carrera's Game.) I think Archchess would be even better, though, on a 10x8 board.

Double Chess 16 x 8. On 16 by 8 board. (16x8, Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 22, 2004 09:48 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Noticing that I haven't previously commented on this, I must also give this an 'Excellent.' This varient is much more fun that I expected; the openings seem tame because the board is so large, but due the large amount of material, things become deadly in short order.

Kristensen's Game. A conscious attempt to restructure Chess from 1948. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Oct 2, 2004 04:30 PM UTC:Poor ★
I haven't given a game a 'poor' rating yet, but I really can't give
this game anything else.  The first thing I think when I look at this is
'Isn't there ANYTHING about the game of Chess that was ok as-is?'  He
changed the number of files, the number of ranks; changed the move of the
Rook, the Bishop, the Pawns (no enpassant) ...  He re-arranged the pawns! 
He doubled the number of Queens!!!  And then there's the barrier pawn,
which might make center-play more interesting, but boy is it nothing like
a 'normal' Chess piece.  And no resigning?!?  I won't even comment on
that one.

On the up-side, yes, he did add symmetry, but I just can't see giving it
a 'good' rating.  It just looks like an extreme over-reach that wasn't
all that well thought-out.  Of course, I must admit that I haven't played
it (yet) ...  It is possible that my opinion would improve.

Mainzer Schach. Large variant with Janus, Marshall, and different setup. (11x8, Cells: 88) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Aug 17, 2004 08:32 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

I would like to second David's comments, particularly regarding the pawn promotion. You have created a new piece combining all moves which can only be attained by pawn promotion; I see little reason to offer under-promotion. You already have to have an Amazon piece in the set, so you shouldn't need the option to promote to weaker pieces for that reason. Also, the more promotion options you allow, the slower computer programs which play the game become. The more promotion options there are, the more legal moves there are, and the larger the search tree becomes.

I do think this game looks interesting, though. I like the starting array, especially the symmetry. I'll post a Game Courier invitation shortly, and give it a try...


Twenty-First Century Chess. An updating of Chess for the video game generation, on a 10x8 board with Barons and Jesters. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Aug 5, 2004 10:07 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

This is, indeed, a very interesting game! I did just notice, however, another game with this name on George Jelliss' A Guide to Variant Chess site. The site indicates that this game was published in Variant Chess in 1991. I don't know if this is a problem or not, but I thought I would point it out.

Please understand, though, that I do not mean to diminish the creativity of this game in any way. The Jester is a particularly good innovation, and helps to diminish the value of opening books in a big way!


Switching Chess. In addition to normal moves, switch with an adjacent friendly piece. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jul 15, 2004 09:26 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This is a really neat one! I wonder, though, how this changes the value of the pieces!?! A bishop can now change color. Maybe that makes the bishop better than the knight. But then again, one of the problems with the knight is that it must change color when it moves; I guess that is no longer true, either. And the pawns had the least mobility to begin with, so they benefit most, yes? And that brings down the value of all the other pieces, since they are all relative to the pawn...

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