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Shatranj. The widely played Arabian predecessor of modern chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Wed, Aug 5, 2009 04:10 PM UTC:
These comments are appropriate for Shatranj because its inventors are dead for over 1000 years and cannot complain about our superimposition of Shatranj Shuffle2880. To diehards Shatranj Shuffle can be the game for the ages with its liberal modifications. Alexandre appears to have invented random chess in the 1820s. The 1920s saw international tournaments for basically the same idea as Free Chess of Brunner. Chessplayer Fischer forced King to castle at c1 and g1 and called random chess revived for the 1990s Chess960. It's still being played, so let's compare chess960 with old Shatranj2880 from the last two comments here. Now 2880=3x960. How so? Square-colour-requirements of Shatranj Alfil and OrthoChess Bishop are comparable. No difference there. Likewise 2 Rooks and 2 Knights are pairwise indistinguishable both cases of 960 and 2880. Chess960 requires King between two Rooks, and 2880 does not, the only remaining difference with Shatranj2880. How does that make for the factor of 3x? This chart shows Rook combinations and # allowable King placements each case in Chess 960: ab 0__bc 0__cd 0__de 0__ef 0__fg 0_ac 1__bd 1__ce 1__df 1__eg 1__fh 1__ad 2__be 2__cf 2__dg 2__eh 2__gh 0__ae 3__bf 3__cg 3__dh 3__af 4__bg 4__ch 4__ag 5__bh 5__ah 6. There are 28 combinations for Rook. If there were no exclusions invalidating King placement, there would be remaining 6 squares for the King each case of Rooks. 6x28=168. Allowance of 56 of the 168 seen in the list, 1/3 of them, is precisely the Chess960 Fischer-agonized methodology. And shows why 960 times 3 equals the 2880, where there are no castling and restriction of K in the same game (Shatranj and OrthoChess being basically the same in the sense of 6-piece and 64 squares).