I just finished entering a variant of my own called Chessembly that is almost identical to this!  It hasn't been posted to this site yet, but probably because Jeff Miller apparently beat me to it by many years.  I was a bit upset to see it already in existence, but then I should have known this type of variant would be invented by now.  In fact, in my version I was thinking of adding certain restrictions that I also see here in Unachess 2 and Parachute.

http://www.chessvariants.com/invention/chessembly

The main difference between my version and this (which would greatly influence the opening of the game) is that a person cannot drop ANY piece past the first four ranks, not just the pawns.  This would make dropping an army on one side of the board the most likely opening for both players (then some movement would start to happen gradually as the overall assembly becomes apparent).  It basically means that each player has their own "drop" territory (on their own side of the board).

holdingsType=1 promoZone=1 maxPromote=2 promoChoice=*N*B*R*Q*C*L*G*W*K graphicsDir=http://www.chessvariants.com/membergraphics/MSelven-chess/ whitePrefix=w blackPrefix=b graphicsType=png startShade=#FFCC00 symmetry=none pawn::fmWfcFifmnD::a2-h2,, hoplit::fmFfcWifmA:lance:,,a7-h7 knight:N:::b1,g1,,:8,0 bishop:B:B::c1,f1,,:8,0 rook::::a1,h1,,:8,0 queen::::d1,,:8,0 captain::WD:tower:,,d8,e8:0,8 lieutenant::FAsmW:elephant:,,a8,h8:0,8 general::RF:crownedrook:,,b8:0,8 warlord::BN:archbishop:,,g8:0,8 king (spartan)::K:king:,,c8,f8 king (persian)::KisO2:king:e1,, Color coding of moves: move or capture (sliding) move or capture (jump) non-capture only initial non-capture (for virgin pieces only) capture only moving into or passing through check

Spartan Chess This game is one of the top favorites of this site. As it also does feature a fair number of unorthodox pieces that makes it deservant of an interactive diagram. Especially since almost all comments on it have been totally garbled by messing up their layout.

Because of the asymmetry of this variant it required some special attention to make sure the diagram would only allow each side to promote to its own pieces. What I did was define the promotion choice with an asterisk before each piece, meaning it can only come from the holdings. Then I stuffed the holdings initially with eight of each eligible piece type (enough to promote all Pawns to it).

Except for the Spartan King, which would only be a valid promotion choice if one of the Kings was captured. So I defined the holdings type such that it would accumulate captured pieces of the original owner. By starting without Kings in hand the Spartans then can only promote to King when one of their Kings is captured.

Castling

Only the Persians can castle, and this forced the Persian and Spartan Kings to be defined as different piece types. (If castling is specified with the aid of an O atom, the diagram assumes it is with a Rook or a corner piece of any type. And we do'nt want the Spartan Kings to castle with their Lieutenants!) This has the dubious effect of the Spartan Kings not being considered royal (as the diagram only considers one piece royal, by default the last one defined). So moves of Spartan Kings into check are not 'grayed out', like they are for the Persian King. But of course this is justifiable, as the Spartan King can actually expose itself to capture (if there still is a second one). So such moves can be legal. The diagram does not understand extinction royalty.

Mage of Maxima is another Gryphon -- before Aurelian Florea's Apothecary.

Here Lavieri claims Guard resists accurate valuation: Piece_Value.

Understand that before Muller we used to do these things in more of a ballpark way.

Hi Zied Haddad!

You pointed out, that you are searching for an alternative to the ordinary F.I.D.E. pawn. Are you still searching? I have an proposal for you. First of all, I think you should change the movement of the pawn. If not, there's not really a big difference between your variant and Seiravan chess.

At first, let's look at some alternatives from other chess variants. The most basic pawn of fairy chess is the Berolina Pawn. While the F.I.D.E. Pawn takes diagonal and moves orthogonal, for the Berolina pawn it's exactly the other way around: It moves diagonal and takes orthogonal.

There is also the Eurasian Pawn. It combines the abilities of the "Western" Pawn and the Chinese Pawn.

M. Winther invented the Scorpion Pawn. This pawn moves like the ordinary pawn with the addition that it also can move like a wide knight forward. So a Scorpion Pawn on d4 can move to d5 or take on c5 and e5 and additionally can go to b5 and f5. By the way my proposal resembles a bit this type of pawn.

When you want to develop a pawn for your chess variant, you at first have to make sure, that it fits to your chessvariant. Every chessvariant has its idea. The idea of Gothic Chess is that there is not only a combination out of Bishop an Rook (the Queen), the combination out of Rook and Knight (the Chancelor) and the combination out of Bishop and Knight (the Arcbishop) are introduced, too. The idea of Wildbeest Chess is, that there is not only a colorbound Rook (the Bishop), but also a colorbound Knight (the Camel). Ecumenical Chess is just a combination out of both ideas.

What is the idea of musketeer chess? I think it should be a variant, where the opening plays like in F.I.D.E. chess, but the midgame and the endgame should differ from that. The result should be, that the game becomes less drawish. I propose to use a pawn, that can move like an ordinary F.I.D.E. Pawn with the addition that it can take like a wide knight backward. Note that at the first move,it can only move like the ordinary F.I.D.E. Pawn.

What is the impact on strategy? Note that, when black has an half open c-file and white has a pawn on c2, it isn't really a backward pawn, when white has still a pawn on e3. An isolated pawn on d4 is not really isolated, when white is able to put a pawn on f5. We have to clarify, if such a pawn can take on the first row. If it is possible a passed pawn on e7 is not really a thread, if black has still a pawn on c7. After e7-e8Q black can simply play c7xe8. If the a file is open and white plays Ra1xRa8 black can play c7xa8. Should a pawn on the first row still have the option of the double step when it moves to the second row? It also could be possible that this pawn has a triple step from the first row.

When the pawn takes like a white knight backward, is it allowed to take en passant? If so, after black has moved a7-a5 a white pawn on c7 can just move c7xa6 e.p.

I think this is a pawn, that fits your variant. But it's just a proposal, you are the inventor, you make the rules. =)

 

Chris

Basic Chess is another placement CV:

Basic.

Another one is Multiple_Formations.

Traditional for Halloween October.

Sounds interesting.  I suppose players could do this on a standard board if marked properly.  I think there are many sub variants that could stem from this.  I would wonder if the squares keep adding to make a bigger square or if there could be a long line of empty squares in one direction.

Here is a CV with two Kings like Muller's example for negative-value piece.  In Anti-King win is by checkmate of regular King or removing check from other's Anti-King.  Two other CVs with two Kings are Two Kings Chess and Double Chess.

Both Aronson's Berolina Pawn version and Anti-King Chess II have strategy to keep the side's Anti-King in check. In AKC-I with Berolina note that Anti-King is initially attacked by four pieces checking, and it will take a while to get them "safely" out of the way. Anti-King Chess II may benefit from changing Anti-King move to Knight move only as subvariant.

How do these relate to negative values? That pieces may want to be removed, if possible, in end game in order to have no forces nearby to attack opponent Anti-King, but their over-all average value would be positive just taking on negative value at end. Player may just settle for checkmating regular King.

Fergus Duniho's insightful strategy for actual game played 13 years ago: Strategy, where few pieces were captured.

Centennial Chess

This is another chess variant that is quite popular on this site. In contains the innovative feature of an asymmetric piece (the Rotating Spearman) that can change its orientation at the end of its turn, deciding how it will be able to move the next time. It also contains several other unorthodox pieces, and thus makes a grateful subject for presentation as interactive diagram:

files=10 ranks=10 promoZone=1 maxPromote=1 promoChoice=QSCLDMNBOR castleFlip=1 graphicsDir=http://www.chessvariants.com/membergraphics/MSelven-chess/ squareSize=35 whitePrefix=w blackPrefix=b graphicsType=png startShade=#639B5E lightShade=#FFFFDC symmetry=mirror pawn::fmWfcFifmnD::a3-j3 steward::mWcFifmnD:archbishop:e2,f2 camel::::b1,i1 spearman (middle):M:fRbmR:lance:b2,i2 spearman (left):L:flBbrmB:shieldL: spearman (right):D:frBblmB:shieldR: knight:N:::c2,h2 bishop::::c1,h1 lion:O:DAcK:cub:d1,g1 rook::::a1,j1 queen::::f1 king::KilO2irO3::e1

Piece overview (click on the piece name to display its moves)

Spearman orientation

The main challenge here of course was to implement the re-orietation of the Spearmen. This required some extra scripting, through one of the standard 'hooks' of the basic diagram script, providing the (optional) function 'WeirdPromotion'. Because the re-orietation of the Spearmen is treated as promotion of one piece type to another, where Middle,Left and Right Spearman are defined as three different piece types.

To make this work satisfactorily, the basic JavaScript powering the diagram had to be enhanced a bit, because it was necessary to make WeirdPromotion invoke the promotion procedure normally used in wester Chess variants, where you can select the promotion piece from the table by clicking there. Before this WeirdPromotion wasonly used in Shogi variants, where there is no choice other than to promote or not. The was solved by making the choice of the (normally non-existent) piece number 1022 indicated by WeirdPromotion be interpreted as a wildcard, allowing the user to select the actual piece from the table. Since WeirdPromotion (when supplied) is called after every move, it just has to test whether the moved piece is one of the Spearmen orientations, and if it is, wait for the user to select the new orientation.

To make this selection of new Spearman orientation easier, the table of pieces is printed next to the board permanently, rather than in the default way as an initially collapsed table under the board. Placement of the table anywhere in the page can be achieved by defining a HTML element <table id="pieceTable"></table> in the desired location.

Castling

Castling was also a bit problematic in this variant, because the King moves a different number of squares on the King side and Queen side. While the setup is such that what is left for white is right for black. So using Betza l and r modifiers would need a different description for white and black King. A new feature was added to the basic diagram script to handle this situation in a more convenient way: a new parameter 'castleFlip', when set to '1' in the diagram definition, will cause the meaning of left and right to be reversed when interpreting the XBetza description of castling for a black piece.

files=11 ranks=11 promoZone=3 maxPromote=1 promoChoice=QF graphicsDir=http://www.chessvariants.com/membergraphics/MSelven-chess/ whitePrefix=w blackPrefix=b graphicsType=png lightShade=#FFFFE0 startShade=#808080 symmetry=mirror succession=1 prince:F:K:man:e2,g2 pawn::fmWfceFifmnD::a3-k3 camel::::c1,i1 cannon:O:::e1,g1 elephant::FA::a1,k1 knight:N:::b2,j2 bishop::::c2,i2 rook::::a2,k2 ship::[F?fqR]::d2,h2 gryphon::[F?fsR]:griffon: queen:::: king::KdU::f2

Tamerlane II This variant was a submission for the large-variant contest. It is the subject of this weeks interactive diagram.

This variant has some funny rules that required special attention. One was promotion: not only Pawns promote, but a Prince reaching last rank can optionally promote to Queen too. And a Ship can promote to Griffon in the last-rank corners. This was handled by defining Prince as first piece, and specifying only one promoting piece, with as only choices Prince and Queen. This invokes the normal promotion procedure for Princes, letting the user select from the legend table.

Pawn and Ship make use of the user-supplied JavaScript function WeirdPromotion. This automatically promotes these pieces when they reach their respective zones, as in this cases there is no promotion choice.

Another unusual feature of this variant is that, when checkmated, Kings can swapped with Princes,wherever these are located. To make the diagram indicate this possibility, the King was equipped with a universal-leaper move U. The modality 'x', which was already introduced on non-final legs of multi-leg moves to indicate relaying of powers, is now used for indicating such a piece swap with a friendly piece on final (or only) legs.

Adding a plain xU to the King moves would allow it to be swapped with any friendly piece, however. To single out the Princes, we declared the board to be zonal by providing a JavaScript function BadZone. This function tests the the target location for containing a piece of the same color as the mover, and declares the to-square invalid if a non-Prince if found.

Hi Joerg,

 

inventing chessvariants is silver (computer-aided) playtesting is gold ;) If I don‘t err the Essential Knight Rider is your creation and the problem, that occurs for this army is as old as the piece itself => already in the starting position, it has impact on the enemy‘s camp. When I discovered the chessvariants-site in 2002 your article Nachmahr was my favorite entry for a long time. I never played that game, but I examined it, because it offers a nice overview of several Knight Riders. In those days I saw already the problem that the Essential Knight Rider on g1 can take the Narrow Diagonal Crooked Knight on c8, the pawns on the third rank don‘t prevent that.

 

It‘s funny that this kind of crooked Knight Rider was invented last, it actually is the most logic Knight Rider. It is a strong piece, but not too strong, so you can combine it with pieces like the Rook or – like in this game – with the bishop. I‘m currently working on a chessvariant with crooked pieces and I plan to use combination of Boyscout an Essential Knight Rider as promoting piece. The funny thing is that the second Essential Knight Rider move and the third Boyscout move „overlap“.

 

There is another chessvariant that has to deal with a powerful Knight Rider, it‘s Ubi Ubi Chess. The solution Bodlaender found, was to shift the opponents f-pawn and the d-pawn one square ahead. You can probably introduce that special rule to save your brilliant idea.

 

The idea is really beautiful, the theme of this army is in my point of view, that the minor pieces are weakened. I like the introduction of the Knave, which was a topical piece in those days. The choice of the rook could be a bit more creative. You actually can weaken the rook and put an amazon on d1.

 

You pointed out, that the player has to make the decision, if he should develop the Knave or the Diamond on the natural knight development squares. One possibility to solve that problem could be, to place the Diamonds on one Wing and the Knaves on the other. I prefer the Knaves on the kings wing, because they can attack the opponents pawns in an e4-game. Otherwise the Knaves will almost always placed on c3 and f3 and the Diamonds have to evade to d2 and e2. On those squares they can‘t attack the opponents pawn, but they can at least protect the own pawns.

 

Greetings Chris ;D

Hi Zied!

Any update on when we might see alternate pawn pieces? Any chance they'll be available in the the first quarter of 2017?

In Ralph Betza's Pied Color Chess, all the pieces except Pawns are changed in their movement by the piing, unless they happen to have normal dark and light (eight)-square surrounding. In the Example the Rook on b1 starting to c2 can stop there or continue -b3-c4-d5-e6-f7-g8. In the coloration exampled there are no, zero, "normal" squares so far as adjacencies let alone two away and beyond. Watch what's beneath you!

I'd tentatively estimate the relative piece values in Modern Shatranj (current version) as: Pawn=1, Knight=3.5, Rook=5.5, King's fighting value (noting it cannot be traded)=4, General=4 (noting it can be traded or put what be 'in check', unlike a K, but I've judged their value in action to be similar enough), with the Elephant=3.125.

Kevin, you raise a good point about book sales, etc., but as for the "one year per setup" idea, I think Fischer's original plan was to avoid the opening theory discussion altogether.  If everyone studied one particular random setup for a year, I'll bet White's advantage would be exploited even moreso than it is in the standard setup.

With a random setup, determined just before the game starts, you can just look at a random position between two players and enjoy the actual battle of minds in that moment.  The match would be 100% performance-based, instead of being so preparation-based.

Since the 1820s backranks have been altered to thwart opening theory. Fischer was just as ignorant of chess history as Seirawan in the latter's re-introducing compounds of RN and BN to whatever he calls them in Seirawan Chess. Fischer's re-invention in the recent nineties of up to 960 set-ups led to also variants Slide-Shuffle and Deployment and Free Placement. Randomization of array is Mutator applicable to any CV. Instead at the same time of FRC, Ralph Betza proposed changing connectivity of the once-sancrosanct little 64-board. Besides Betza's two-ranks displacement, here are some other board possibilities: http://www.chessvariants.com/d.betza/chessvar/quake/quake.html.

There are also things like Transcendental, T_Chess where the two sides' initial positions do not have to match, and Chaos Chess in which pieces start dropped to other than only the nearest rank.

Altair is CV where "piece values are not a good indicator of one side's advantage in chess" to use V's current words, because most of the pieces for a move can also be dropped to empty square in rank nearby of the same color. Also they most of them can slide along their rank unimpeded. So if coming up with guide-values for stronger Mage and Lion and Diamond around 7, 5 and 4 respectively, good use of the board itself makes all the pieces closer to heuristic 3.8-4.2 each with only Pawns in some 2.x range.

Muller wrote up problem theme 3Q v. 7N in "Charge of Light Brigade." If you keep 8 Pawns, the 3 Queens versus 7 Knights may go to 3Q by already 8x10 any array, certainly by 10x10. Board used and Rules interact piece values, and cannot really be safely generalized even as to '<' or '>' for all cases; with special rules (or board) we can think of CV where even N>Q one on one!

For ex., make narrow stair step where Q can only occasionally go 3 or 2, but N leaps cross empty space and get values maybe N4 Q3 as convenient.

The game plays very well. The Minister and High Priestess both provide very interesting forks.

I thought the Bishops were placed oddly, though I know they were set to mimic Capablanca Chess. For such a large board, neither mine nor my opponent's were in play much (or at all). Potentially switching the Bishops and the High Priestess/Minister in the opening setup might fix this, as well as protect every pawn in the opening array and prevent white from procuring too strong of a center.

I favorited this game. Very inspiring short range piece combos and combat.

This game has a lot of great potential. I think the inventor had almost hit gold with the addition of the Mamra. In my opinion, the Mamra is just a little too powerful. Never have I, in good practice, opened up a game with 1. h3 or 1. h4. The fact that both myself and my opponent had opened up with pawn movements on the h file in order to free our Mamras is testament to the Mamra's power.

Play is balanced between advancing your Mamra towards the enemy King, maintaining your pawn line, and sac'ing every major piece you have in order to open up the enemy pawn line.

I think even a small change such as the prohibiting the Mamra to capture pawns would dynamically change the game for a much better play. Otherwise, White seems to have a huge advantage with such a powerful piece on the move.

This game looks very interesting and well thought. The idea of developping positional and strategy game by limiting the men scope to local action is a nice one. I'll surely try the ZOG file.

It would be good to add a typical game example that would show the interest.

Stephane Burkhart

Hello, vickalan,

I'm glad you brought this topic (infinite boards) on this website again. Infinity is something I fancy and there is reason to include it one way or the other in my own games. Anyway this is a difficult  concept to work with. I haven't properly understood the game but it seems to me that 2 experienced players will still do a a lot of draws. Also, why do the hawks start so much behind? Is there some justification related to the bishop move?  The game doesn't propose any innovative ideas besides of the infinite board, as the fairy pieces here are fairly well-known. There is an exception to that I do like a lot - the idea of the huygens. This piece is interesting lifting my first rating I post on this website to good.

Good luck, vickalan

On a standard 8x8 board, the knight and bishop are already very close in material value, so I'm not sure that this new rule would be welcomed by many players.  Perhaps the uncertainty of its value would make the game interesting to some.  Somewhere on the level of a rook or close to it?

I will add, however, that a "squire knight" would probably work very well on some of the large board variants to give knights more power and purpose.

White is going north and Black south as usual in the CV Upside Down Chess.

For OrthoChess problem by Lord Dunsany, solve this:

White is to play and mate in four moves. The position is one that could occur in actual play of F.I.D.E. Chess.

There is a fairy piece called the "Dragon", combining the movements of  the Knight and the Pawn. However the Pawn movements are in a forward direction only. If it has not moved yet, the Dragon gets a two-step forward movement possibility (with an associated vulnerability to an en passant capture).