Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Latest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Later Reverse Order Earlier
10 Minute Melee. Score as many points during 10 minutes of time with regular chessset. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Flowerman wrote on Sun, Feb 21, 2010 05:00 PM UTC:
I read somewhere what non-royal king is stronger than bishop and knight... Nevermind. Why not leave king king royal pieces, checkmating will give 30 points and game will end?

Rich Hutnik wrote on Fri, Oct 23, 2009 02:54 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Another, more mild, variant that comes to mind would be that the capture piece goes back to its start space (only one pawn per column) instead of anywhere.

Jeremy Good wrote on Thu, Oct 22, 2009 08:47 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Well, ideal for OTB play would be an electronic board that is connected to the clock and can tell exactly when one moves and tally how long it takes. Such technology will be commonplace soon. Do Fischer clocks have a control to tally time expended on each move? This aspect [of 10 Minute Melee] must be tested before evaluating. The mandate to move quickly each turn makes the variant even more sporting than the mandate to make all the moves within ten minutes. I rate this variant as excellent because I consider it groundbreaking in the area of temporal variant work.

Nicholas Wolff wrote on Thu, Oct 22, 2009 04:30 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
10 Minute Melee
---	

I have so many thoughts regarding 10 Minute Melee, that it may be hard to get it all down.  I want to start out by saying that this game may be a hard one to play in this day and age, or at least it seems this way for me.  I think it may be because there are hardly any chess players to play OTB in the military and even fewer that go deeper into the variants side of the game.  This being said, I have not played this OTB and probably will never have a chance to do so.  So what I say in review of this game is *mainly* intended to outline the few games that I have played online of this.

Yes, I have played this online.  With the programming knowledge of Antoine Fourriere, Jeremy Good has created a nice looking preset which was modified from a Crazyhouse preset with rule enforcements.  I think if they modify the preset to only allow drops onto their correct spaces, then it will be complete.  Now, playing this online proved to be rather difficult and provided us several obstacles to overcome.  

First there was a question of time.  We had to have a countdown that neither player could see.  We ended up having one player keep time  and notifying the other when it is up.  Trust was a big key here, so if you are playing someone for the first time in this game, then you need to go back to the drawing board on methods.  I have played Jeremy many times, so trust was not an issue.  The best fix we found for this was to utilize a site called http://www.online-stopwatch.com/.  This provided a nice little countdown timer that buzzed when it ended.  We started it and then minimized the window. 

The second issue we ran into was a matter of the 15 second/move rule.  We didn't really come up with any solution for this, we just played as quickly as possible.  With this being said, we did not utilize the one-time move extension and the points for going over time, which was beneficial for us because of the time delay in not only receiving the move, but sending it off to include entering in your password each time.  This did not only impact our game as mentioned, but resulted in games with a low move count which lead to low scoring.  Our first game was 14 moves and our second game was 16 moves.   I feel if it we were to play OTB, the stakes would have been higher, as exemplified below in the comment on 13 June 2006.   

I think with this internet age on the rise (as it has been for years), if someone could program a nice protocoled game with a timer and LAN/Internet Access, it would eliminate all of the hassle involved with this game and may receive better reviews that what is listed below.  It needs something that encompasses all of its requirements easily, because the players have little time to do anything but play.

I believe one of the only problems with playing it in real life is score tracking.  The best way that I have thought to do this would be to completely annotate the game, which is often difficult in a blitz type game and then score based on that annotation.  Another minor issue is that you would have to have the necessary equipment available.  An audible timer shouldn't be too hard to come by, you would need an extra set of chess pieces for double the colors (which might pose a problem of sorting through all of the pieces while you play, but a little organization can help with that), a chess board (not hard to get), and a move clock, which I don't know of many people that have one, though I imagine if you want to drop the money for a clock, you can get it pretty easily online.  Please note the specifics of a move clock that is annotated by the author in the rules:

'For the MOVE CLOCKS, a standard chess clock can be used, as long as you are able to set the chess clock to record the time on each move, not record the total amount of time the player has used so far'

I also understand the time limit was set for 10 minutes due to the contest.  I agree with the previous comments that a longer time limit should make it much more interesting and an easy modification to make to the rules, as well, though Mason has yet to make that modification as promised in his below comment.  
  
I applaud the creator of the game in the fact that he chooses to keep the timer hidden during play.  Though, it may make for a little more strategic play involved if you can see the clock, this would make play dull.  There would arise situations of purposely stalling for the last minute if you were ahead by a nice sum of points or stalling on time if you can capture their queen at the last second to put you in the lead.  There is no rule stating that there is any other penalty besides giving points to the opponent..  I would suggest making the time penalties a little more painful and maybe doing 2-3 points per offense, not just if the timer was visible, but regularly anyways.  It would stress the importance of keeping on time more.  

A problem that I believe that will be ran into in this game, especially at GM level if there is such a thing for this game, is that evenly matched players will, in my opinion, almost always come down to either a move at the last second for a win or drawing and going into sudden death mode, not really emphasizing a victory for the stronger player.  This means that it would be very hard to have a tournament for the World's Best 10 Minute Melee player.  I firmly believe the best player would be too hard to determine.

The need for sacrifices is diminished in this game because there is no royalty, thus nullifying the need for positional advantage.  Also, since pieces can only be dropped in the places where they started, I don't think that feature would be utilized too much.  In both of our games, only one piece was dropped, that being by Jeremy, and I never once considered it myself.  More often than not, it will cause a loss of tempo and give advantage to the opponent.  It might be useful during an endgame situation, if a game could even get that far.  

Here are my playing tips and strategies for this game:
-Play conservatively.  Positional advantage has no relevance to this game, so make sure every piece is defended.  
-If you feel like the time is getting close, you may want to start an all out offensive.  Make sure you are the one who takes first so your opponent is down on points 50% of the time.  Its not an exact science, but if you have a good sense of time, it could bring the lead to you at that second the alarm goes off.  
-Use your king!  Don't forget that he is not royal.  He is worth 2 points and a serves as a great block and and a great offensive piece.  
-Play to draw.  Take a piece for a piece.  There is no positional advantage since your only objective is to score points.  Utilize tip 2 if you can at the end. 
-Obviously, your queen is the major player here.  Make sure her starting square is always uncovered in case of a trade or a lucky queen capture and always look for the forks she can give.
  
This variant definitely has potential.  With longer time controls (still hasn't been added to the rules, Mason), a sure-fire way to keep track of time fairly, and organization that allows the outside mechanics of the game to be executed quickly and efficiently, it could be definitely be in a league of its own.  Ultimately, a computer program would be optimum for this game, but it is doable OTB.  I rate this game, on Nick's personal scale out of 10, a 5.5.  The concept is there and it looks obtainable, there are just some kinks and play testing is needed to iron them out.

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Dec 24, 2007 05:06 AM UTC:
That is why you should play by computer instead.

Anonymous wrote on Tue, Jun 13, 2006 05:59 PM UTC:
Question: At what point in the move is the move considered to be completed? This applies especially to captures.
I ask this because I was recently playing a game of 10-Minute Melee where, trailing 36-34 going into the move, I took my opponent's Rook and removed my hand AT THE EXACT MOMENT that the game ended. If the move counted, then I would have won by a score of 39-36, but if it didn't, then my opponent would have won 36-34.

Sam Trenholme wrote on Fri, Apr 29, 2005 08:25 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Very innovative idea. May be hard to keep score while the game is playing (without a referee), but this would make an excellent networking game played with computers.

💡📝Mason Green wrote on Sun, Mar 6, 2005 05:58 PM UTC:
Roberto,

Yes, the reason why I decided on ten minutes is that this is a '10'
game. When this contest is over, I'm going to update the page to allow an
arbitrary length of time to be selected.

Like More10, this game is mostly experimental. It is, after all, one of my
first chess variants, since I'm a newcomer here.

-Mason

Roberto Lavieri wrote on Sun, Mar 6, 2005 11:57 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Really nice!, the only objection is about the TEN minutes rule (well, I know this is a 'ten' game for the contest), because this game should be better allowing a bit more amount of time, say 30 minutes at least. I`ll play a quick test this morning to see, I suppose it is going to be funny.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Mar 6, 2005 07:50 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Anyone with a standard set and a three-hand timepiece (and of course a knowledge of Chess rules) can play this. Given the lack of (a) royal restrictions and (b) Queens by promotion a further alternative would be to have two array Queens, with the physical King representing the second one if you have a set without spare Queens.

10 comments displayed

Later Reverse Order Earlier

Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.