Ratings & Comments
The table in the center of this page has several mistakes in the description column
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I have updated the notice to a warning that says this game is a hoax.
My understanding is that the description of the game is a hoax, but the game itself is not.
I will quote some excerpts from the linked document that suggest it is a hoax:
The precise rules are far too numerous to list here, and the above rules merely introduce some of the unique aspects of SR Chess.
Even the page linked to does not describe the full rules of the game.
A good grasp of the more comprehensive laws that govern legal and winning patterns and sequences is essential for expert play, but these are amply documented and explained in Samuel Worthington's fourth edition of Stanley Random Chess: The Official Player's Guide - Vol. 1, The Rules (Vol. 2, The Players and Vol. 3, Developing Winning Strategy are also worthwhile).
A Google search for this book did not turn up any links to it. It apparently does not exist. All that turned up were the page linked here and copies of it.
Over 535 such variations have been documented by the ISRCA, and the appendix of their 2004 Official Stanley Random Chess Handbook summarizes the 32 more popular international variations.
When I searched Google for "Official Stanley Random Chess Handbook", I did not find any link to this document.
But I did find an Uncyclopedia article on Stanley Random Chess. Uncyclopedia is a parody of Wikipedia, which is full of falsehoods written as humor. Checking who wrote the first version of the Wikipedia article, it is in fact Gregory Topov, the author of this page. I consider this an admission that Stanley Random Chess is a hoax.
Playing Online
This section talks about playing it on schemingmind.com, the very site the article is hosted on, but it does not include a link for actually playing it online.
Given that full documentation for the game exists only in fictional documents, the author of this page wrote an Uncyclopedia article on this game, and I cannot find anyplace to actually play it online despite claims that it can be played online, I conclude that this game is a hoax.
My understanding is that the description of the game is a hoax, but the game itself is not. It's normal chess where, with each move you make, there's a 50% chance of your move being replaced with a move chosen at random from all legal moves.
It's an improvement, but the linked page doesn't contain the rules either - because the "game" is almost certainly a hoax.
I just noticed that this is a link page, and one of the links provided on the page did go to a page with more information. I fixed up the HTML, added a notice to the top, and removed all but one link. Some were Geocities links that no longer worked, and some were general links that didn't go to information on this particular game.
I think it should be removed. As I recall, it was a joke that the author stubbornly insisted was not a joke, making it basically an act of trolling.
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Should I remove this page? The rules section does not describe the rules, and this page does not make it clear how to play this game.
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Saying this is like "Shatranj with elephants raised on a diet of TNT and nitroglycerin" might be understating it. Anyway, if the Mad Elephant is slightly stronger than a Queen, then I might make an appropriate sub-subvariant: Like the subvariant "No Starting Elephants," but the Queen is replaced by a Mad Elephant, so the setup is approximately the same, but Elephants can still come into the game easily and the Queen is slightly stronger. To balance out the stronger Queen, I might use R7 or R6 for the Rook, and if this were added to Chess With Different Armies, I'd call it the Elephant Army.
You have made my day Daniel especially with that final sentence :)! Thanks! I'll try hard!
Kevin // Hi! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و
Ah I understand! Really thanks for telling me!
Hi Daphne
I meant that in the setup the armies are 6 ranks apart from each other in that all ranks in between have nothing but empty squares on them. That is, White's pawns are on rank 2 and Black's pawns are on rank 9, with the six ranks between (ranks 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8) having no pieces or pawns occupying any squares on them in the setup.
In (10x8) Capablanca Chess, in contrast, the armies are seperated by just 4 ranks in that game's setup (by which I mean, again, completely empty ranks of squares).
Kevin // Thank you so much for commenting! But can you tell me what 'Having the armies seperated by 6 ranks' means? Does that mean the maximum rank that can be dropped is the 6th rank?
My feelings about this game are mixed. On the positive side, I like very much the idea that the variant Shako has its own variant. On the critic side, I am not so enthusiast and I keep preferring the standard Shako. In play, I found that diagonals are too much weighting on the game. I had the feeling that Rooks, Cannons and even Queen were sort of squeezed on this diamond-shaped board. It is not because I lost that I'm negative. I lost because I'm not a good player, I'm not focused enough. No, regardless of defeat or victory the fact is I was sometimes kind of "I don't know what to play", if I could, I would have simply passed my turn as I had the feeling that any move would spoil my game. I think that I would have the same impression at Balbo (std) chess. But I appreciated to have tried, it was interesting to see the difference with a square board. Thanks
This is a very good game. Everything fits together well. The random setup provides variety without being completely chaotic. The brouhaha squares are a great way to add more pieces without making the board so big it feels empty. The promotion rule encourages more variety in promotion, which is something I look for particularly; and I like the auxiliary pieces used here. The Mameluk especially is fun.
I think I might slightly prefer the Modern Apothecary game, for it's Dragon and Griffin, which to me are more interesting than the Chancellor and Archbishop, but I like the Siege Elephant and Mameluk as auxiliaries, so it's hard to choose one game over the other. I don't know if I'd agree with the statement that the Joker can't defend well. It seems to me that it's ability to mimic an attacker's move makes it particularly good at defending and more difficult to use aggressively. I'm not great at chess (in any form), though, so I could be wrong about that.
I'm interested to see what the next games in this series will be like!
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Is it the last 3 columns, they don't line up with the piece name first given amazingly ...