Comments by nuno
I like this combination pieces! :) This one is also known as a 'Phoenix' in Chu Sogi and Caliph (as I mentioned some years ago on the first comment of this page).
I forgot to give the link for the page where I saw this names. It is: http://www.ktn.freeuk.com/9a.htm
I prefer this set up for Omega chess than the official one. It is a regular board without odd citadels - althoug I myself created a 'citaldeled' chess variant (Shutur) - and on the more than natural 'Great Chess' board, the 10x10. With this setup you have exactly the same opening lines of chess, because the pieces of FIDE chess are as if on their usual 8x8 positions and distancies; so Knights don't have minor powers and it wouldnt be needed the 'Templar Knigt' patch.. But don't get me wrong. I like Omega chess and even have one of the 'first' boards they produced (nr. 816 I believe). It is a good game (probably the finest way to put and combine Tamerlane weak pieces on a functional, atractive and facinating good game.
In Ralph Betza funny notation this would be a WAD? :D Or we could name it Alibazir (Wazir+Alibaba) :P
But I'm confused.. What is the name for Elephant in Arabic? since the piece represented just that! 'Al' is the article ok.. ist it Fil? Or did the name just made sense in Persian (Pil?)and the Arabs did the same thing Spanish did in keeping the name without any mining? (well.. in reality Alfil IS the Spanish word for Bishop, so it has a mining). Any native Arabic please want's to comment? Curious.. if my country (Portugal) and Spain have a lot in common on it's evolution, why do We call also Bishop to the bishop? :P
Mr. Duke, can you please tell me the link to the page about triples of Mr. Betza? I wanted to see the other no knight triples.. I' trying to find the page but failed. Many thanks
Thanks for your feedback! Your comments are very useful. Speaking of the 68 squared board with camel 'citadels', I've got one more thing I would like to be discussed: Wouldn't be an improvement if those citadels had 3 squares? One behind and another on the side of the rook? I saw somewhere on the net a board like that and it could maybe be a good idea for avoiding stalemates. For example for endgames with rooks.. Because in this game the extra piece Camel doesent add any value to the endgame (most probably it 'goes down' in the middle game..) Which means in the endgame it would be pretty much be normal chess, but with citadels the risk of draw would be bigger!!! Unless the stalemate rules were changed.. Thanks once again! :)
It seems that in India there was a bit of differences from one region to another. That is not surprising. Today we are living in a world that always want to 'standardize' things... but when there where now papers, TV, telephone or any means of communication but the spreaded word or the occasional manuscript, things tended to get local 'colors'. Chess was not different. Only with Islam it first appeared a standard version of chess (in the west of course..) On the same page of Murray where this account is given it also appears the movement of the Burmese (or silver general) piece but referig to the Punjab in India. There is now doubt that it was the ancestor of the moves on this local varieties. The quest for the discovery of the first version of chess is becoming so much more intriguing... and fascinating. :-)
Take a look at this: http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/distant-armies/screenshots Nice. And old.... (1988) :)
(Note: This commment those not belong to a page?) Very interesting because it really seems that that was the purpose of the 'inventor' of chess. Rook, Alfil and Knight to be like the three types of pieces that complemented each other... Historically the first record we have of this (0,2) piece is the Camel in a Decimal chess of Baghdad supremacie era... and also comes convergent to John Ayer theories! It seems logical. We are just missing the proofs. :)
about the size of the elephants... make sure their ears are small. We are talking about Indian elephants (Chaturanga) not African ones! : D
Can you please help... I would like to post some pics on a comment. How can I do that? Many thanks! Nuno
I took a look at his post. I can see that it is an http link. That requires me to upload the pictures to a site first. I do not have one, only blogs :( I was hoping I could upload directly to the comment. Thanks Nuno Cruz
The camel is like my piece 'fetiche'. OK OK.. it is lame.. awkward, weak.. it doesn't even worth two pawns(?!).. etc, but it still feels like one of the most logical fairy pieces to add to a game, and in this particular, to a decimal game.
Hope you like the pics. they are poor quality because were made with a cheep mobile phone.
In this picture we can see the Camel compared to the Bishop and a pawn.
The book they are standing on is the 'Classified Encyclopedia of chess variants'
The paint cane said it was good for ALMOST all plastics..
the link for this site is: en.grinningbit.com
I was just browsing the pdf of Falkener Book (available on line for download) and I noticed that for Tamerlane chess he modified some piece names for people of the west (Americans in this case but also true for Europeans) to better understand them. Some names that he gave to pieces were precisely the ones given in this variant. Most probably the inventor was familiarized with Falkere's book.
(Forbes, page 141)
Is this true? I had the idea that, even colorbound, the Ferz was slightly more valuable..
This game adds in an ingenious way the movements of several pieces of Tamerlane chess, which is the 'grandfather' variant of all these XX and XXI century 'chess variants boom': We have the camels, dabbaba, ferz, alfil and wazir. What if they were mixed on the other form? Substitute wazir by ferz (so the champion is now colorbound) and the ferz by wazir (so now the wizard is not colorbound). Anyone can try this at home without breaking copyright. I think... But my idea is not that. Just to say that is is interesting to try to see if the game becomes more complex or not, more interesting or not.
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