Ratings & Comments

I have not understood if the name of this game is Makpong or Simplified Makpong. If it is Simplified M., what is Makpong?

Also, I am not sure to well understand the most important rule:

The King may capture an attacking piece if in range, but cannot capture out of double check.

what means "if in range"? Does that just means that the King may capture an attacking piece? If the attacking piece is not 1-square away from the King I don't see how the K would have been able to capture it anyway.

and what means "capture out of double check". Here I understand that if 2 pieces are attacking the K, he cannot capture both of them. But that is trivial too, no?

So I guess that the important rule is that when a K is under check he can capture the attacking piece but it is forbidden to move the K out of check, to interpose a piece between the K and the attacking piece, or to take the attacking piece with another piece than the K. Is it correct? Or to say that when a K is under check, the only authorized move is if the K can capture the attacking piece.

Would it be possible to re-write this with no ambiguity?

Thank you

I first learned about "Makpong" on Github from this pull request:

https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess/pull/626

The only real problem I have with this is that it still has the counting rule from Makruk. It's a little confusing and I can't describe it very well so I hope this wiki article describes it well enough for you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makruk

With my proposed simplification the counting rule gets removed. The 50 move rule and 3-fold repetition we all know and love takes its place instead.

what means "if in range"? Does that just means that the King may capture an attacking piece? If the attacking piece is not 1-square away from the King I don't see how the K would have been able to capture it anyway.

You're right. The K may only move out of a check if it can capture its (singular) attacker.

If the attacking piece is more than 1 square away, it obviously can't.

and what means "capture out of double check". Here I understand that if 2 pieces are attacking the K, he cannot capture both of them. But that is trivial too, no?

It means that if the K is double checked, it is not allowed to move out of the double check. Not even by capturing one of the attackers.

So I guess that the important rule is that when a K is under check he can capture the attacking piece but it is forbidden to move the K out of check, to interpose a piece between the K and the attacking piece, or to take the attacking piece with another piece than the K. Is it correct? Or to say that when a K is under check, the only authorized move is if the K can capture the attacking piece.

I'll rewrite it to be more clear.

The important rule is that K can't move out of a check, except when it can capture its (singular) attacker. Other pieces are free to move, provided they're legal moves.

interpose a piece between the K and the attacking piece

This is legal.

take the attacking piece with another piece than the K

Also legal.

Thank you. So, I see that I had not understood everything right.

Hi, Greg. No, I just noticed the piece descriptions for them were missing from the rules page. Then I got 404 errors while trying to see the alfaerie expansion sets 3, 4, and 5. So I grabbed a copy from Opulent Lemurian Shatranj (one of the very best chess variants "period!") Back when the 3 of us were kicking around ideas, David commented that the name "bent hero" might convey a little more than intended. He obviously "softened the name" by putting the "bent" part in parentheses after the piece name. And the move is still either or both of a step and a leap. The hero and shaman are powerful enough already. The necessity of taking 2 steps to go 3 squares is about the only real limitation on the pieces' ability to attack almost half the squares within 3 squares.

A promoted colorbound piece may not be placed on the same color as the promoting player's remaining piece of that specific type.

Can we please remove this rule?  It needlessly complicates the game needlessly IMO.  (Similar to recent discussion on Great Shatranj.)

"Are those now the ‘default’ versions of the Hero and Shaman then?" - Bn Em

Actually, the bent versions were the original design for those 2 pieces. They are made as literally half of the pieces I put in Atlantean Barroom Shatranj, but are about three quarters as effective. At that point I hadn't realized the knight was unnecessary in Lemurian because the hero did the knight's job. I'd put the heroes in the rook's positions and still had the knights in their positions, but they were too weak, and I was kinda stuck. Then the Muse granted me an inspiration.

I am more wargamer than chess enthusiast, and old enough to have been there at the beginning of the wargaming hobby. One thing those early games did was compare themselves to chess, and that idea of military chess stuck in my head for decades before I took a side track by considering the limited or linear (good naming choice!) hero and shaman, and Chieftain shatranj popped into my head. Since I still hadn't gotten Lemurian right, I wrote up and posted Chieftain Chess (it sounds better than Chieftain Shatranj) before Lemurian, thus making the linear versions of hero and shaman appear to have been designed first.

So, yes, courtesy of better naming and actual precedence, the "bent" versions are the default, and the linear versions are the "derived" pieces.

Greg Strong wrote on 2021-04-12 EDT

A promoted colorbound piece may not be placed on the same color as the promoting player's remaining piece of that specific type.

Can we please remove this rule? It needlessly complicates the game needlessly IMO. (Similar to recent discussion on Great Shatranj.)

No problem. While I was looking over the rules yesterday, I saw that and considered removing it, but got called away from the keyboard and never did it.

Thanks, Joe!

The next release of ChessV will have "Bent" removed from the names and the updated promotion rule.

Thank you, Greg!

Ok, this change has been made.