Ratings & Comments

Indeed, I never saw much of a difference between the Knight and the Ferfil, value-wise. The Ferfil is a bit faster, but suffers color binding. (Which, as usual, hardly matters if you have the pair.) It seems likely that a faster piece would suffer less from a larger board than a slower piece.

Thanks for the warm review, Joe. I am especially happy that you think my chosen starting setup works well for the variant. One possible quibble is that H.G., for one, might disagree that, even on 10x8, the elephant piece (i.e. ferfil) in this game is relatively 'weak', at least compared to a knight (i.e. on 10x8), though I myself tentatively estimate a ferfil's value as considerably less than that of a knight's value on 10x8.

My latest laptop broke down last week, and now I have my old one back, apparently in working condition again.

P.S.: I've never yet seen a definition for what a 'Modest Variant' is. I had had the vague idea that it would be one rather close to FIDE chess somehow (even perhaps requiring that such a variant to be on 8x8, with square cells), but I was never sure of all the implications of the term.

This is a very nice-playing modest variant. I've greatly enjoyed my games of it. I can absolutely recommend this game as an excellent variant tournament choice. It gets a lot of mileage out of a pair of fairly simple changes. The initial set-up is excellent; it gives good play. The weak piece is a very nice choice, and provides a nice companion/foil for the bishop and knight.

If there was nothing unprotected in your Palace that was attacked by the Cannon, this is indeed not a chase, and thus a draw. In Asia rules a mate threat (even mate in one) is not considered a chase in itself; you really must threaten to capture something on the subsequent move for that. A frequently occurring case is a King behind a pinned Advisor (e.g. by a Rook or together with Elephant by a Cannon), threatened to be mated on the last rank by a Rook. To prevent the mate the King steps aside, but then a check with that same Rook from the front drives it back behind its Advisor, after which the Rook resumes its original location to threaten the back-rank mate. This counts as 1-check, 1-idle, and thus a draw. Even if the mating square contained an unprotected piece (say the other Elephant), the 1-check + 1-chase is also allowed (under the general rule that alternately chasing different pieces is allowed).

In one game of Chinese Chess I recently finished, afterwards I thought I might have defended better if a certain 3-fold repetition of position was allowed by the rules (and thus considered a draw), if my opponent didn't avoid it, in one particular sequence of moves I'd thought of. Srictly speaking there was no chasing (or checking) involved, but nor was the repetition voluntary on the part of the defender (me) if I was to avoid losing quickly.

The sequence I wrote of can be descibed as: 1) I move a minister (elephant) away from my palace's central line, and thus the opponent's cannon (in his own camp, on the central line) is no longer attacking any points in my palace. To fight this defence, 2) he puts a minister of his own on the central line in front of his cannon, each piece in his own palace, with the result that his cannon is attacking all the points on the central line in front of his own minister, including all those in my palace. To defend against this, 3) I would move my minister back to where it was, on my palace's central line, at which point his cannon no longer attacks the points on the central line behind my minister (in my palace) since my minister and his both occupy the middle line, in front of his cannon. To fight this defence, 4) he moves his minister away from in front of his cannon, and once again his cannon attacks the points behind my minister on the central line (in my palace). At this point a repetition may have already occured once, depending where his minister went to, but if things keep proceeding in this fashion then a 3-fold repetition would eventually occur.

It's my guess, based on what you've written H.G., that this sort of sequence would be (by Asian rules) ruled a draw, though once again the rules used for the Game Courier preset I was using state simply that 'repetition is to be avoided'.

The third thing Sirlin did was make 5 new armies in addition to the classic one, in the vein of Betza's Chess with Different Armies.

This is the part I thought was super cool, as there are some very different armies contained, completely unlike Betza's. I had thought I could just port the armies over against Betza's, but that doesn't completely work, as Sirlin balanced his with the midline invasion and dueling rules.  In addition, the tremendous amount of play they got on the steam game before it was largely abandoned proved a few other holes.  The Reaper army has difficulty winning against Nemisis or Two Kings, but can feel overpowering sometimes against other armies.  Sirlin commented Reaper was very difficult to balance, and it appears it still isn't quite right.

Quoting the rules:

The Six Armies

I) Classic (balanced)
It's regular old Chess. This is the only army that can castle.

II) Nemesis (favors pawns)
The queen is replaced with a new piece: the nemesis. The nemesis piece moves as a queen, but cannot capture or be captured except by the enemy king. (It can check and checkmate a king, and a king can capture it.)

Your pawns can move as normal pawns, or alternatively they can make a nemesis move, which is a move one space toward the enemy king. (Imagine a box drawn around your pawn and the enemy king; moving inside that box is a nemesis move. That move can be toward your back row if the enemy king is behind your pawn). Nemesis pawns can only capture pieces (or threaten a king) the same way normal pawns can: diagonally forward. Your pawns cannot move two spaces at the start of the game.

Despite what the rules say, Nemisis is not really about the pawns.  This army is focused on the Nemisis.  You can run the Nemisis right into the thick of things, unworried about loosing it.  It's quite a good army.  The ability to move your pawns out of the way of your rooks to develop them early also changes things in interesting ways.

Betza calls the whole class of pieces that cannot capture except the king nemisis pieces, from the first piece of that type he came across. 

I'm not sure how easy this is to integrate with Betza's Chess with Different Armies. It might be close.

III) Empowered (favors knights/bishops/rooks)
While a knight, bishop, or rook is adjacent (diagonals do not count) to another knight, bishop, or rook on your team, each piece gains the movement powers of its neighbor in addition to its regular movement powers. (King, queen, and pawns cannot gain movement properties.) To compensate for this power, the queen can only move as a king. Example: if knight, bishop, rook are in a line, adjacent to one another, then knight can move as knight+bishop. Bishop can move as knight+bishop+rook. Rook can move as rook +bishop. The knight does NOT gain rook movement in this example, nor does the rook gain knight movement.

Sirlin doesn't acknowledge any influences for Chess2, but this is almost exactly like one of Betza's ideas.  I can't find the page right now, but Betza had the powers relayed when pieces were within the movement range.  (A rook that was a knight's move away from a friendly knight would also be able to move as a knight.)  This becomes especially apparent when you read the forums on the Sirlin games website--David Sirlin posts there he had to reduce their empowerment range to only orthogonally adjacent pieces; playtest proved that anything more was too powerful.

In my opinion, this army could be made a standard part of Betza's Chess with Different Armies.  It is not too much affected by the midline invasion or the dueling rules, and it has gone through a considrable amount of playtesting and balancing. 

IV) Reaper (favors queen)

The queen is called a reaper. It can teleport and capture anywhere on the board except the enemy's back row. The reaper cannot capture a king.

Also, the rooks are ghosts that can teleport to any open square on the board. The ghosts cannot capture or be captured.

The Reaper army is really awesome—it plays very very different than anything else. Unfortunately, it is balanced with midline invasion and dueling. Dueling keeps the Reaper from running amok....the player needs to worry about what he takes. And the Reaper army really needs midline invasion to win-- they only have bishops and knights to create checkmate.

Betza talks about teleporting pieces lower down in the same article about the nemisis right here.

If midline invasion was allowed for only this team, it might be transportable to Betza's Chess with Different Armies without too much modification.

V) Two Kings (favors kings)

You have no queen, but instead have two kings called warrior kings. If either one is checkmated, you lose. To win by the Midline Invasion method, BOTH warrior kings must cross the midline of the board into enemy territory.

A warrior king can move and capture the same way as a regular king, though it also has the option of doing a Whirlwind attack. For this, the warrior king stays in place and destroys all adjacent pieces—friendly and enemy—including diagonally adjacent pieces. You cannot Whirlwind if your other warrior king is adjacent.

After each of your turns, you may (optionally) take a special king-turn where you only move a warrior king. On your normal turn, there are no special restrictions. You can move either warrior king, or some other piece, whatever you want. During your king-turn, you may ONLY move a warrior king or perform Whirlwind with a warrior king. It doesn’t matter if you moved that warrior king or not during your normal turn.

You can’t move into check on your normal-turn or your king-turn.

Helpful hint: whenever you choose to skip this extra king-turn, it would be helpful if you tap one of your warrior kings as a signal to your opponent that he can take his turn.

Two Kings is also very different. The whirlwind attack is very powerful, but it requires you moving your king/s out in front. The delicate balance between attacking with and keeping your kings alive is a very different and fun experience!

I don't recall hearing anything like this in any of Betza's articles.

I'm not sure how much Two Kings relies on the midline invasion rule to be balanced. I don't think it matters much and can be directly ported over to Betza's Chess with Different Armies. But I might be very wrong on that!

VI) Animals (wild card)

Knight -> Wild Horse. Moves as a knight, but can capture its own pieces.

Bishop -> Tiger. Can only move up to 2 squares diagonally, but does not move when it captures (immediately jumps back to the square it attacked from).

Rook -> Elephant. Can only move up to 3 squares orthogonally. It can capture both friendly and enemy pieces, even multiple pieces in one move. If it captures a piece, the elephant rampages and must move its maximum distance, capturing everything in its path. Also, the elephant cannot be captured by a piece more than 2 squares away. (Draw a 5x5 box with Elephant in the center. It can't be captured by pieces outside the box.)

Queen -> Jungle Queen. Can move as a rook or as a knight.

This is a really delightful army, it takes a little bit to develop but is powerful. I really like both the Elephant and the Tiger—they push the envelope differently than Betza's pieces.

In my opinion, this can be moved over to Betza's Chess with Different Armies as-is. The pieces are about as strong as their FIDE counterparts one-on-one, so it should slide seamlessly in.

And I have a few more quotes from the official rulebook on miscellaneous stuff:

Choosing Your Army
Players choose their armies in a simultaneous, double-blind fashion at the start of each match. It’s permitted for both players to choose the same army. Though players will likely specialize in playing only one army, in a multiple-game match, the loser of a game may switch to any army for the next game. The winner of the previous game may not switch.

Promoting Pawns
When one of your pawns reaches the last row, you must promote it (not optional). You can promote to any piece that’s part of your army other than a pawn or a king (or a Warrior King). For example, a pawn on the Animals team could promote to a Tiger piece, but an Empowered pawn can’t promote to a Tiger because Tiger is not part of its army. When you promote a pawn, your opponent does not get a stone.

Dueling Ranks
For purposes determining if you have to pay 1 stone to initiate a duel against a higher ranked piece, the only possible ranks are 1) pawn, 2) knight/bishop, 3) rook, and 4) queen. In other words, all special queens count as queens, even though the Empowered queen is rather weak. Elephants count as rooks. The wild horse and the tiger count as a knight/bishop. Nemesis pawns count as pawns.

Draws
There are no stalemates in Chess 2. The other types of draws from Chess 1 still apply here, though they are much more unlikely because of the Midline Invasion rule. The types of draws are: threefold repetition (when the same position occurs three times), the fifty-move rule (when the last fifty successive moves made by both players contain no capture or pawn move), and impossible checkmate (when neither player has sufficient material to checkmate, and Midline Invasion is not possible).

Other Notes

All pawns on all teams have the ability to en passant.

Pieces cannot pass through the Reaper army’s ghost rooks or occupy the same square as a ghost rook.

A warrior king’s Whirlwind cannot destroy a ghost rook.

Even the reaper cannot take an elephant if its more than 2 squares away

I've played a fair bit of Sirlin's Chess2, so I'm going to make a bunch of posts to move the rules onto CV website, in case the game is ever abandoned by Sirlin games.  I will also comment on the game in general.
Sirlin's Chess2 is quite balanced, and has clearly gone through a lot of playtesting.  Being developed by a modern boardgame company owner clearly shows here!

First, Sirlin's Chess2 adds 3 things:

1)win by centerline invasion
2)dueling stones; possible loss of an attacking piece
3)different armies.

Quote from offical rules:

New Win Condition: Midline Invasion
You can still win by checkmate, but you also win if your king crosses the midline of the board. Each move has added significance, because you must weigh how much it helps or hurts each player’s chances of winning by king crossing the midline in addition to the usual considerations of furthering a checkmate.
Just like in Chess 1, it’s illegal to move into check, so to win by Midline Invasion, your King must land on the 5th rank without being in check. Unlike Chess 1 though, there are no stalemates. If you have no legal moves, you lose the game.  While stalemates are common in Chess 1, they aren’t needed in Chess 2 because the Midline Invasion rule provides an even stronger option that a player can aim for when he’s down on material.

In practice, against reasonablely competent players, the majority of games will end by midline invasion.  For one thing, whoever is winning can typically move his king up before he checkmate's his opponent.  The big change, however, is when a player starts to loose, he will usually make a quick attempt at midline invasion win.  This makes the transition between the mid- and end-game very chaotic.
Most non-chess boardgame players will find this a very exciting change; instead of a long slow grind as one player increases his advantage, the the game ends in an explosion of desperate dashes-for-the-midline.  While the player who is in a better position will still usually win, there is more hope for the loosing player.  Having more on the line, it is more exciting for both players, despite the fact that the game still usually ends as expected.
This also esentially eliminates the chess endgame--which most casual players consider the most boring.  Once a player has a significant advantage, chess tends to grind toward an inevitable conclusion.  This is why experienced chess players will conceed when the game gets past a certain point--going through the motions is just a waste of time.
As a side affect, Sirlin's Chess2 games tend to be shorter.  Modern boardgames (not chess variants) tend toward shorter is better, so non-chess enthusasts would generally consider this a good thing.

This is where Sirlin's modern boardgaming design experience is showing....he has designed a change that appeals to the masses (more exciting desperate chance of a win) and eliminated the masses least favorite part of chess (the grinding endgame) and shortened the game in one simple rule.

There is just one problem.
MOST CHESS PLAYERS DON'T LIKE IT.
I don't like it either!!!
Effectively getting rid of checkmate just feels WRONG.

Sum it up=theoretically a good change that appeals to casual players, but chess enthusists won't like it at all.

Dueling
Quote from offical rulebook:

Dueling

Dueling allows you to spend a new resource called stones to threaten to destroy a piece that takes one of your pieces. Try to trick the opponent into wasting his stones because if he runs out first, you automatically win any further duels.

You start with 3 stones and gain 1 stone each time you capture an enemy pawn, up to a maximum of 6 stones.

Whenever you would capture any piece, the defender can initiate a duel. If your piece is higher rank than his (ranks: pawn -> knight/bishop -> rook -> queen), he must pay 1 stone to initiate a duel. To duel, you each put 0, 1, or 2 stones in your closed fists, then simultaneously reveal them. All stones revealed are destroyed. The winner of the duel is the one who showed more stones--ties go to the attacker.

If the attacker wins a duel, he takes the piece in question as in normal Chess. If the defender wins, he still loses his piece, but the attacker ALSO loses the piece he attacked with.

Initiating a duel and bidding 0 is a bluff to make the opponent waste stones. The attacker calls your bluff by bidding 0 himself. He wins because attacker always wins on a tie and in addition, the attacker can choose to gain 1 stone or cause the defender to lose 1 stone. (A player can't have more than 6 stones.)

Kings cannot be involved in duels because they have "Diplomatic Immunity." (They can't initiate a duel or be dueled.)

Players with 0 stones cannot initiate duels, but they can be dueled against. When you duel against a player with 0 stones, you must bid 1 and you automatically win the duel. If you lose a pawn in a duel, your opponent does gain a stone.

Dueling is another change designed to switch the game up.  Normal chess has a very mathmatical quality to it--good players can predict moves very far in advance.  The farther forward you can think, the bigger your advantage.

Dueling changes this.  Now, sometimes you won't keep a victorious piece.  Consequently, there is only so far out it is practical to predict moves, leveling the playing field a little bit.
Dueling accomplishes this WITHOUT resorting to chance.  The number of stones each player has is public knowledge, and he who correctly reads the importance of the current board position and his opponent will win the duel.  (And the attacker has the advantage, so ties in skill will result in the same board state as if no duel occured.)  However, this requires a very different set of skills than chess.

Consequently, it is possible for someone who is really really good at typical chess to be beaten by a player who is better at reading his opponent and bidding accordingly.  Someone who is bad at bidding may be winning--until they run out of stones.  This gives the othe player a big advantage.

By broadening the useful/necessary skills to win AND lowering the ability to look ahead, a larger variety of player types can be effective players.  Plus each duel is a mini-game, which gives flashes of excitement in the middle of the game.

Again, Sirlin's skill at designing modern boardgames shows.  This is a rule that should appeal to the masses and create some excitement, while lowering the necessity of mapping out future moves.

There is just one problem.
MOST CHESS PLAYERS DON'T LIKE IT.
I don't like it either!!!
Effectively making it uncertain if you are keeping a piece just feels WRONG.

Sum it up=theoretically a good change that appeals to casual players, but chess enthusists won't like it at all.