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Comments by michaeljay
How many Alice Chess games have been played at the ChessVariants Courier Play by e-mail system? Any favorites from the players here?
I would like to correct myself in terms of the knight tour for Alice--the bishops can move forward and backward past the 'goal square' -- like parallel parking a car- -- and thereby hit any square on both boards. But the knights are a bit more trouble mentally, to hit a square on either board. It seems like the piece, on a tour, having hit every other square in the tour once, could shift the pathway and set about coming back to the target mirror squares. If a note from George Jelliss at the website http://www.borderschess.org/KTfeedback.htm is used in reference to an algorithm for normal 64 square chessboards--
--'It is in fact possible to devise rules that will produce an exact tour, without deviation from the rule at any point, and without backtracking. In Chessics #22 (1985) I gave four examples of such 'Synthetic Tours'. They use Warnsdorff's rule ('Play the knight to a square where it commands the fewest squares not yet used') in conjunction with either the Obtuse rule ('Play the knight at as obtuse an angle as possible to the previous move - straight if possible') or the Acute rule ('Play the knight at as acute an angle as possible to the previous move'). The second rule either takes over when Warnsdorff's rule breaks down (I write these rules WO and WA), or the second rule is applied to the choice of moves suggested by the first rule (I write these rules W/O and W/A). The four combination rules all work if the tour is started a1-b3'--
then perhaps the idea could be extrapolated to the Alice boards. I have not yet done so today, but I aim to try. That would mean that the square is a WHOLE TOUR at most from that mirror square, and so would be useless for most short games, but something to consider. (Most games are so far much shorter than a corresponding 'FIDE Standard' game counterpart.) Or again, now that I am sitting still thinking about it, perhaps you are right.
Again, thanks to all for their contributions.
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Would a 10x10 board help lessen the cramped space?
Many thanks, gentlemen, for putting attention back onto the Recognized Variants. Good choices, and interesting perspectives.
Thanks for this, chessfriends. I will try to make good use of it here.
Great idea. Is this still going on? If so, I would like to participate.
I would like that. I went and took a look at hyperchess. Maybe we could play one of yours and one of mine. I posted Sentinel Chess a while back, and I would like to trade a game with you. Thanks for your quick response.
It is good to see the contributions from a true chessfan and one who is ready to give an honest critique of the games invented and offered here. I enjoy the possibility of the game, and the division of powers given to the pieces in this style of gameplay. Thanks, Charles, for your participation.
Impressive. This seems like it would catch the eye of many a chessfan/historian, and would be a good segway into history of culture, as gameplay is so important to a cultural understanding. (Big bag of chess pieces to carry around, though.) :o)
I'd be interested in trying this game over-the-board. Or correspondence. In the process of learning the game and its development, I have many youth who could benefit from being able to earn new power on the board so as to learn to respect that power and use it wisely.
Thank you for your contributions. It is my hope that many more people discover the playability of your game, and your pieces. It contributes to the decimal board's viability. The dasapada is more navigable with this Wizard and its leaper partner, the Champion.
Are there any gamescores of some particularly interesting games from the tournaments available?
This game makes for great over-the-board play. Thanks, Ed, for placing this game here for experimentation. Great job.
I am very pleased this variant has been exposed here at ChessVariants.org--I wish that other sites were aware of and had provisions to play this very playable and entertaining (and difficult) variant. The possibilities for two players of varying strengths to have a challenging game together are strong, and (having tried the game out with players above, below, and around my strength in reference to our standard games) in any event, it is an exciting proposition. Kudos to John Leslie for the opportunity to create a bridge between eastern and western chess styles. In the 2005 Game Courier tournament, I would be excited to see this game offered as an option to play!
It is a fantastic site. There is a good sense of community there, and the players are either a healthy challenge or chessfriends with a great passion for the game. Standard, Alice, Chess960, Kriegspiel, Dark Chess, Shatranj, and other chess games of interest. Run by a fan of the game, it is a welcoming place. It has a well-conceived server design. Support it with word and finance!
IN the texts of Vernon Rylands Parton, he also mentions a linear chess--it is available onsite; check out 'Curiouser and Curiouser' by Parton, who also invented Alice Chess and Medusa (Demigorgon) Chess. Fun games all.
This game is wild! To play live would take a patient opponent, a few sets, and some scoresheets, but it would make the folks at the local coffeehouse sit up and take notice! They would say I was crazy, but chess history should make the people smile, and open their eyes to something new.
Has anyone had experience playing this game live? Any gamescores of such?
That your mind would allow such flexibility lets me know that you might be a great opponent for any of the variants!
It is good to test myself with this program; I am using it to practice my Shogi gamescore notation, so I am playing through with no time control. Thanks, Ed, for the opportunity.
I agree. I had to go back by section '240-270 days ago' to find the link--it is worthy of being in the 'Crafts' section along with board construction. Well done, Bernard.
Similar in play to Chess II, represented onsite, the idea for the non-royal king-movement 'guards' make for nice play. On the 10 x 10 board, it gives the queen to be the powerful piece that it is, and allows a different understanding of the strength of the modified pieces (queen from fers, bishop from alfil) and why the game was sped up during the adolescence in the game during its movement from continent to continent.
Note: Are the rooks supposed to move? I have noticed after a couple of games that the rooks on either side do not move. I have castled, and thereby activated the castled rook, -- but only that rook.
Intriguing. How does it play as you have described it? Any gamescores you can share?
Well said, Glenn. This continues to be a fantastic site, a meaningful contribution to chess culture, and a wonderful addition to our history.
Intriguing idea, George. I have faced you on the board at Brainking.com in Gothic Chess, seen your ideas in the forums on the Royal Game. I also now get to appreciate your good board vision in this incarnation as well. Thank you for this contribution. In order to use this Mamra on the standard 8x8 board, maybe a variant rule could be added in OTB play so that it is dropped like the 'Pocket Knight' variant stylementioned onsite--that is to say, at some point in the game, the Mamra can be 'parachuted' into play, and moves proceed normally. The extra two squares are not a deterrent, though; I know that the king (or some other piece) can utilize the extra long diagonal (i1-b8 or b1-i8). Bishop or queen may take advantage of these, although it may discourage queenside castling. I would like to see some gamescores from some games.
Great concept, solid gameplay; it is important to remember that the Demigorgons, or Medusas, cannot protect other pieces, but as Immobilizers, will petrify anyone who moves into their space, captures and thereby comes into direct line of sight of them, or sits adjacent to them. Calculations of strategy must therefore be modified during play--sections of the board may be closed up by frozen pieces, and that makes the whole game exciting and tense. That same 'closed board' may fly open in the later stages of the game. Thanks, Ed--job well done! Skeptical?--try one over the board with a chessfriend! See for yourself.
Thanks for posting this, Fergus. It allows a humble chessplayer like myself to learn some of what contributes to the makings of the chess sites on which I play, enjoy myself, and from which I learn.
Thanks for the information! Manabu Terao, thank you also for the link. I have never heard of the Invisible Ink Composition, the moves of which for the shape of a letter or ideogram. Wonderful idea. That is one reason why investigation of chess variants is good for the mind. New ideas, different cultures, change of perspective. Thank you.
Look in Japanese Chess for the Shogi program. It helped me get a grasp on the book Shogi: Japan's Game of Strategy by Trevor Leggett by allowing me to play through the examples. The program itself does what it was intended to do. Ed, thank you much for your continued ambassadorship of variants and giving the chess variant-appreciative public an opportunity to learn these games.
Intriguing. I have to try it. I am not sure how many opponents I can get to play over-the-board--but I will ask a good one. I am not too fond of the riders, but the fusion idea is pleasant. How do you (collectively) think it would play if the more advanced player (e.g., by more than 200 points) took standard FIDE pieces, and the novice took the Pocket Mutation pieces--or in another vein, that the more advanced player could only choose a more limited number of mutations, decided before gameplay begins.
If I were trying to start a game of Omega Chess, how would I go about it?
Fergus Duniho speaks about Alice Chess and en passant.
'Jellis mentions some details about en passant that I also thought of while working on my own Zillions Rules File for Alice Chess. First is the question of whether the capturing Pawn has to be on the first or second board. As I understand en passant, it allows a Pawn to capture a Pawn it could have captured if that Pawn had made a one-step move instead of a double move. Thus, the Pawn that can take another by en passant must be the one that could have taken the Pawn if it had moved only one space. This means a Pawn on the second board. When a Pawn makes a double move, it will switch boards, and if it lands beside an enemy Pawn on the other board, that Pawn will normally be able to take it by en passant. But Alice Chess does introduce one situation in which the rule of en passant becomes ambiguous. When a Pawn makes a double move, it may pass over a space whose corresponding space on the other board is occupied. Thus, the space the enemy Pawn would have to go to for an en passant capture will be occupied.'
I was reading an article from Alessandro Nizzola on 'Passar Battaglia' (http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles222.pdf) wherein the double move was used to pass the battle by, and in the Italian rules, the opponent could not recapture. So perhaps Alice allows conditions where en passant and passar battaglia co-exist. Does the community feel there is a need for either one or the other, or, in the spirit of Alice, that both are interwoven? Fergus' analysis is sound, but there are loopholes, not because of his argument, but because of Alice's mirror world. Discernment is tough with the board shifts, and adhering to the few extra rules brings about so many new possibilities. Arguments in either direction are possible, and perhaps that is why Parton offered up the statement on en passant, 'it is usual to forgo it.'
Thanks, Fergus. I appreciate the clarification.
Thanks for the best advice on how to play--examples of the games themselves. This game is very exciting. Thanks for your contribution.
Just cut the cross away from the standard king, and sand the top flat. This idea of a crown prince (save that it cannot be captured) is given in 'Chess II', made for an 8x10 board, by another author on this site. For the record, the twin goals of 'promoting' the prince or checkmating the king, works VERY well for that board.
Jesse Obligacion's 'Chess II' also has a prince; it was authored on
December 2000, and the goal of that game was to checkmate or to usher the
king to the other side. The presentation differs in that the prince could
be captured, and the board is 10x8.
Nevertheless, the game must be intriguing. Good ideas seem to come to
several folks at the same time. That's fine by me.
see link http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/chess_ii.html
When I submit my moves today, I get this message, even though the move is sent: Warning: copy(/home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbmlogs/(...)/(omitted)-cvgameroom-2005-32-111.bak): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbm/write_log.php on line 9 Warning: Failed to copy /home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbmlogs/(...)chess/(omitted)-cvgameroom-2005-32-111.php to /home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbmlogs/(...)/(omitted)-cvgameroom-2005-32-111.bak Warning: chmod(): Operation not permitted in /home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbm/write_log.php on line 52 Warning: touch(): Utime failed: Permission denied in /home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbm/write_log.php on line 53 *** Is there some work being done on the log?
In game log -- michaeljay-cvgameroom-2005-32-111 -- the system is showing that it is my move, but when I click onto the link to the game, there is a short message showing that 'my opponent cannot move a pawn from f8 to f6'. Is there a way to correct the move so that I can continue the game?
Also, when I tried to look at some finished games, the logs do not pull up. I am sure that something positive is being done to fix it.
I also was having difficulty offering invitations.
I am very thankful that this team has been so diligent in bringing the chess variant community the continued opportunity to play and experiment with these great games. Much of your work goes unrecognized, and I want to be one to offer my gratitude. Good job, folks.
I am just getting familiarized with Shogi, and the separation of powers on the Japanese Chessboard is pleasing to my novice eye. Thanks, Charles, for your focus on the powers of the generals, and their adaptation to respective games.
Fergus, thanks for writing this treatise. I work with young chess players, and for the other coaches who may initially not see the value of variants as a teaching tool, or something to change the normal tension of the game (which allows transition from some of their tournament games to something that continues the training, but in a fresh way), this article might allow them to see variants in a different, perhaps more positive, light.
Awesome idea. I have to go and clear my schedule--I have always wanted to see something like this. Give me a chance to determine my availability. Thanks for creating this tourney.
I wanted to check on the status of the tournament being played here with Shogi, Western Chess, and XiangQi--is there a link to games played, and tournament status? It began February 18th.
Awesome and innovative idea. Now, THAT is a battle I'd like to see!
I am really enjoying the tournament; the mental flexibility that it requires is energizing. I work with young kids who love chess, and I have shown them the positions in my games. Some had not before heard of XiangQi or Shogi, and those who had were really excited to talk about their parents (some of whom grew up playing one of the Eastern standards) and the parents were pleased to hear they were also learning about these games as well--it was validating to hear praises of the game sung by someone else. Thanks for offering the tourney. I hope after this one, we have another.
If two players agree upon a draw, how does one indicate that on a gameboard?
In my game with Jeremy Good -- Hostage Chess game /play/pbm/play.php?game=Hostage+Chess&log=michaeljay-cvgameroom-2006-93-166 I am having some difficulty transferring freed pieces during exchanges from the grey prison area to free blue area. The system will allow the player on move to drop a piece, but the opponent's freed piece will not move to the blue area, even when attempted manually. As a result, pieces do not appear available to the opponent, even when the potentially-droppable piece is free.
I really enjoyed the 'chess trifecta', and I hope we can hold a tourney like that again next quarter. Thanks to all the players -- and there were some great games here!
Thanks, Fergus, for the modification in Hostage Chess and the clarification for my opponent and me. I had in the past played with the
preset which required the full coordinate notation, which worked
fine--this one you have replaced it with is more like the notation
suggested by the author of the game--very helpful, easy to understand.
Thank you for easing the play of one of my favorite games.
Well done, and it is appreciated.
This game looks to be well thought out. I am pleased to see the re-unification of the game as it is perceived through both eastern and western eyes. Each stands to gain something from the other. I am glad it was submitted to the 3rd Courier tournament. Thanks also to Hans B. for the translation from the French.
Intriguing. It seems to be a very original game, with opportunities for novice and more masterful chess players. I look forward to seeing some finished games.
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