Kevin Pacey wrote on Fri, Mar 31, 2017 06:11 PM UTC:
Hi Fergus
One thing that's dissatisfied me a bit about a (small?) number of variants that I've invented is that I've discovered that the first player to move can threaten a checkmate (or alternatively, the second player's queen-like piece) immediately, while in at least one case (involving a variant with many pieces) a series of piece exchanges can be initiated immediately (apparently not favouring the first player, objectively). In the former instance this is due to a camel-like move on a 10x10 board (as a consolation to me, I've seen at least one other variant that has this 'flaw', but it actually happens to be a relatively popular game). This is not due to a pawn being unprotected in either side's camp in the setup, such as in the original setup for 10x8 Capablanca Chess, which is something your article does allude to.
Speaking of Capablanca Chess, just a reminder that I encountered a bug in the preset for that variant in a game with Carlos - see my somewhat dated Kibbitz Comment.
Hi Fergus
One thing that's dissatisfied me a bit about a (small?) number of variants that I've invented is that I've discovered that the first player to move can threaten a checkmate (or alternatively, the second player's queen-like piece) immediately, while in at least one case (involving a variant with many pieces) a series of piece exchanges can be initiated immediately (apparently not favouring the first player, objectively). In the former instance this is due to a camel-like move on a 10x10 board (as a consolation to me, I've seen at least one other variant that has this 'flaw', but it actually happens to be a relatively popular game). This is not due to a pawn being unprotected in either side's camp in the setup, such as in the original setup for 10x8 Capablanca Chess, which is something your article does allude to.
Speaking of Capablanca Chess, just a reminder that I encountered a bug in the preset for that variant in a game with Carlos - see my somewhat dated Kibbitz Comment.