💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Sun, Dec 13, 2020 02:44 AM UTC:
I did have a discussion in this thread a few years back, with another gentleman, on the topic of having two Qs and only one Amazon, rather than the other way around.
My original theme in inventing the game was to crown or knight two of every piece in the FIDE army per side (aside from pawns and K), and so two Amazons happened to result - plus I faithfully kept the FIDE array as much as I could, on the second row.
One advantage of not having an Amazon on the second row, in a usual mirror symmetric setup, is that there is no possibility both sides will develop their sole Amazon opposite each other's, when an immediate trade of said ladies might happen. I also did not want to have Chancellors on the second row for the same reason. Perhaps I worried too much about eager trading, when trying to chase such a big piece with little ones might be possible, but I was a very inexperienced inventor then and gave that little weight.
There is 14x8 Alekhine Chess, invented by another person, which happens to have 2 Queens and 1 Amazon, though I don't like the game because arranging castling is too hard for one thing, and when I first saw the game I happened to also think that a Queen is the traditional sole wife of a K, at least at the start of FIDE Chess. However, I did remain haunted by having a sole Q in Sac Chess, when it's inferior in all ways to an Amazon. That was until I noticed the odd game like Courier chess, where a clearly weaker ferz is the K's wife apparently, while a (sole) guard is stronger in every way, but apparently not the wife. Courier Chess is quaint that way, and so I comforted myself with the idea that Sac Chess could also be considered similarly quaint.
Sac Chess has been played for a few years now on this website, and has proven fairly popular on Game Courier (in the top 30 currently out of over 1200), so I'd be more inclined that a seperate CV be invented, by anyone, to experiment with using 2 Queens and a sole Amazon in a Sac Chess-like 10x10 game, rather than my changing Sac Chess at this point. I may have suggested years back that anyone could replace the sole Q with an Amazon, and the two Amazons with two Qs, for each side, if they wished to try playing it. I think I even suggested a name for it (on this site or another), but I forget exactly what it was.
I did have a discussion in this thread a few years back, with another gentleman, on the topic of having two Qs and only one Amazon, rather than the other way around.
My original theme in inventing the game was to crown or knight two of every piece in the FIDE army per side (aside from pawns and K), and so two Amazons happened to result - plus I faithfully kept the FIDE array as much as I could, on the second row.
One advantage of not having an Amazon on the second row, in a usual mirror symmetric setup, is that there is no possibility both sides will develop their sole Amazon opposite each other's, when an immediate trade of said ladies might happen. I also did not want to have Chancellors on the second row for the same reason. Perhaps I worried too much about eager trading, when trying to chase such a big piece with little ones might be possible, but I was a very inexperienced inventor then and gave that little weight.
There is 14x8 Alekhine Chess, invented by another person, which happens to have 2 Queens and 1 Amazon, though I don't like the game because arranging castling is too hard for one thing, and when I first saw the game I happened to also think that a Queen is the traditional sole wife of a K, at least at the start of FIDE Chess. However, I did remain haunted by having a sole Q in Sac Chess, when it's inferior in all ways to an Amazon. That was until I noticed the odd game like Courier chess, where a clearly weaker ferz is the K's wife apparently, while a (sole) guard is stronger in every way, but apparently not the wife. Courier Chess is quaint that way, and so I comforted myself with the idea that Sac Chess could also be considered similarly quaint.
Sac Chess has been played for a few years now on this website, and has proven fairly popular on Game Courier (in the top 30 currently out of over 1200), so I'd be more inclined that a seperate CV be invented, by anyone, to experiment with using 2 Queens and a sole Amazon in a Sac Chess-like 10x10 game, rather than my changing Sac Chess at this point. I may have suggested years back that anyone could replace the sole Q with an Amazon, and the two Amazons with two Qs, for each side, if they wished to try playing it. I think I even suggested a name for it (on this site or another), but I forget exactly what it was.