Game Reviews by jean-louiscazaux

I had never seen that the chessvariants.com had pages in French. Nice! I
appreciate very much Hans'effort. Just few comments, no offense meant,
just because everything can always be improved:
* the accents (é,è,ê,à) are integral part of our language and they should
be used, including for capital letters (even though many Frenchmen wrongly
believe that accented capital letters are not correct)
* more important for Chess players : the Queen is normally called the
'Dame'. 'Reine' can be understood and is sometimes used, but 'Dame'
is really the 'official' one.
* I never heard 'Évêque' for the 'Bishop' when talking about Chess.
'Évêque' is the correct translation when talking about church. When
talking about Chess, only 'Fou' is correct.
Hope this will help.

Hello. I've made a page dedicated to Hiashatar on my web site (and another
one for Shatar). Considering the great emphasis given to Horse both in
Shatar and in Mongolian nomadic way of life, I guess that the Horse is
simply not affected by the Bodyguard power. That's why there is no
specific rule.
Also, remember that it is forbidden to mate the King with the Horse in
Shatar. All this is consistent.
See : http://www.chez.com/cazaux/hiashatar.htm

See a compilation of those wonderful Mongolian Shatar sets on :
http://www.chez.com/cazaux/shatar.htm

Viktor is right, twice. The Chinese name of the game is Dou Shou Qi meaning
'Game of fighting animals'.
And, true, there is a mistake in the given rules : a trap does not affect
at all a friendly piece. It only affects enemy pieces.

Why it takes so long to describe all this? Too much redundancy in this page, sorry.

This game is nothing but original. The so-called Falcon is just Camel+Zebra from fairy chess. I used a similar Buffalo (Camel+Zebra+Knight) in my CVs and many inventors did in these pages on this website.

Also good to know is that a certain Karl Schulz from Austria invented a Falcon-Hunter Chess in 1943 where the Falcon is moving fw like a Bishop and bw like a Rook. This variant is reported in many CV books like Parton's, Boyer's or closer to us, DB Pritchard's. Basically, I think that patenting a CV is a very bad idea because you just encourage players to go away. What is the goal of the inventor, what does he want to protect really ? And if the patent is unavoidable it should be preceded by a serious anteriority research. This patent has no serious claim, it's flawed.

Thanks for the compliment about my website.
To be honnest I should say that the photograph is not mine. I borrowed it
on a Japanese site I can't find again.
Also, I am not the author of this current page on www.chessvariants.org, I
think I would remember. Someone is using my name, ah ah, Sherlock, who is
he ?
Jean-Louis Cazaux

I strongly disagree with the anonymous reader who rated this page:
'poor'.
Curiously, he is making History going the wrong way, against the time
direction. Murray wrote in 1913 and his book is an impressive work, even
today. If few points are now outdated, he can not be outdated neither by
Forbes writing in 1860 nor Cox writing in 1801. The Cox-Forbes theory has
never been confirmed and nodody gives credit to it in 2005 ! It is against
all evidence, even though several mis-informed authors do continue to copy
each other and repeat the mistake saying this game was the ancestor of
Chess. But you can believe what you want, maybe Martians or Venusians did
invent 4Handed Chaturanga and brought it to India, maybe Cullen was a
Venusian too as I do not know any Cullen. I know a Stewart Culin, who was
a great ethnologist in the begining of the XX c., who wrote a lot about
games, but Chess was not his speciality at all. 
This page is Good.
Jean-Louis Cazaux
http://history.chess.free.fr/chaturanga.htm

May we have more precise information about History:
1) 'Chess arrived in Burma in the 8th century via the kingdoms of Arakan
and Mon which had the closest links with the motherland of chess,
India.'
Is there any elements, sources, to prove that fact ?
2) 'In the 9th century specific rules - different from Chaturanga[1]-
were established and, as Pali texts confirm, Burmese chess became quite
fashionable as a court game during the Pagan period (1044-1287)'
What are those texts ? Any title, name of author, estimated writing date
?
3) 'In the 17th century, a Dutch traveler reported about a unique variety
of chess widely played in Burma.' 
Who was this man? Which year that happened?

If all this information is not available, what was the source used to
write these very interesting lines about Sittuyin History ?
Thanks very much by advance.

Hans, you made two mistakes in drawing those diagrams. According to Murray
(your source I guess, p 340), we should have:
Diagram 2: Black K on b16 (not c16)
Diagram 3: White and Black K on column b (not c)
I know this page is not new, but I just noticed that.
Best regards, Jean-Louis

The regretted Gollon has made me discover CV long time ago, so I owe his
soul a lot of respect. Unfortunately, I discovered his source, Murray,
years later and I hate to say that Gollon made a lot of mistakes, and me
too on my first book (Guide des échecs exotiques et insolites) because I
followed Gollon. Apologies to my French readers.
1) These 2 variants are nowhere called 'Kamil'.
2) Setup 2 is done by al-Masudi who said that it was invented by al-Khalil
ibn Ahmad (718-71). The Camels are at the sides of the board but their move
was not recorded. So our rule here is a pure speculation.
3) Setup 1 is found in Firdawsi's Shâhnâma. Gollon made a mistake: the
Camels are between Faras (Knights) and Fils (Elephants), check Murray,
p341.
The move that Murray gives p341 is cleary a speculation too as pointed out
by Sanvito and Panaino. Firdawsi's text is given on Murray p214. There we
learn that the Shutur (Persian for Camel) 'ran through 3 squares',
which, yes, means that they moved 2 square (ancient were counting the
starting square in), probably jumping (same thing is said of the
Elephant), but nowhere it is said that it was horizontally or vertically.
I agree that this speculation is believable, but it is good to know that
it remains a speculation.

If you have more elements in contradiction, please post them.

I put 'poor' only because this old page would deserve a serious remake. Murray, as usual, as given many details not reported here. Such as:
* the diagram is wrong, king's aile of one player should face firzan's aisle of the other
* the game is only known from Muslim sources and is not attested in the Byzantium Empire. Its name of Byzantine round was given by Arabic authors who liked to say that the 'square' Shatranj was coming from East, India, and the round Shatranj was coming from West, Constantinople.
At that time Baghdad was the cultural center of the World!
This chess variant has been first mentioned by the great historian al-Mas'udî (947) and then by al-Âmulî (dead 1352). Which makes, at least, 400 years of longevity. Not so bad.

I regret the chosen options to represent the pieces:
The Gazelle (that's the original name) moves like what we call a Camel. Why chosing a Giraffe to represent it?
The Great Ferz moves like the Giraffe in Tamerlane Chess. Why chosing a Chancellor, represented by Rook+Knight, to represent it?
These are unfortunate choices, adding confusion. I'd like to see them changed  one day.

By the way, this is the only variation which can be considered as Turkish. It appeared in 1805-06 in a Turkish Encyclopedia authored by Muhammad Hafid.
All other variants are not Turkish but Indians. See Murray for details.
(Gollon copied Murray but did a big mistake here. Pritchard pointed Gollon's mistake as well.). Too bad that those mistakes are continued here.

A good illustrated diagram (apparently coming from von Möellendorff, 1876, who was the source used by Murray) is reproduced in David Li's 'The Genealogy of Chess', p273. 
It shows all characters used on all pieces. 
Beware, there is a big mistake here: this game is not The Game of Three Friends, it is The Game of the Three Kingdom, Sanguo Xiangqi !!!

There is a big mistake, coming from Stephen Leary's Xiangqi FAQ which was confused on that point: this game is not The Game of Three Kingdoms.
It is the Game of Three Friends, Sanyou Qi.

I wonder why the name of the game in this page is not corrected as stated by many comments. It can be verified. Correct name is Doushouqi.
Shou dou qi is incorrect!

Many many thanks for that image, and all your comments.
I've sent a private mail to you to pursue this conversation further.
Thanks too to chessvariants.org for permitting such encounters!

Answer to Charles Gilman: Yes, me, I tried. See Echexs for 3, or 6, players with McCooey's arrangement.

About Vao: maybe Dawson gave that name because it was phonetically from the same family than Pao, and the V because this letter is made of diagonal strokes. Maybe it is not that, but it can be used as a mnemotecnic mean. Remark, it could have used Xao as well, that would have been looking more Chinese.

Very good information! What is not clear for me at the moment if that Asakura shogi is a reconstruction of a possible step in the evolution of shogi, or if that form of game is really asserted and supported by historical proofs. I may ask a specialist that   I know. Thank you again.

Thanks a lot. I didn't know about Lioness, very good.

Thank you very much. I have been able to upload all diagrams and the process was very lean. 

Yesterday, it was my mistake for the size limit. Instead of uploading the jpg diagrams I have made for my own website, I uploaded instead the source images coming from the board painting tool, which are much heavier. Thank you for your help.

I have 2 questions about the brouhaha squares:

1) What is the advantage of allowing a capture on a brouhaha square? Spontaneously, I find this strange: I understood that such a square hosts a piece until it is activated and enter into play, then the square disapears. Then, this square is not part of the play area really. So, I wouldn't have allowed a capture on it at all. Maybe there is something I don't see.

2) Why this name of "brouhaha" square? At least in French a brouhaha is a surrounding noise. Those squares are more like a fog, brouillard in French. Brouhaha/brouillard, is there a linguistic confusion there? 

The table in the center of this page has several mistakes in the description column