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Diplomat Chess. Round-board variant with a Diplomat to suborn opponents. (Cells: 43) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anthony Viens wrote on Sun, Nov 11, 2018 08:23 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

So, a couple months ago, I wondered about a circular board that uses the center.

I figured someone must have invented it, and looked through CV.
Apparently my google skills are weak, because I didn't find this or any other.   :-(
So I began working on it.
It took some thinking, but I more or less hammered out the rules on paper.

Today I stumble across this!  It has identical movement rules to what I have come up with!  Brilliant!
Also, this looks to be a nice little variant.

If only I had found Diplomat Chess before I spent that time reinventing the round rules......


Viktor Söderqvist wrote on Sun, Jun 23, 2013 01:20 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Nine years(!) later I came back to this page. I still play this exellent game occationally, mostly because it's quick and because I happen to have the nice wooken board lying around that I made (on the backside of a Tree-player chess board which I also made at the time). I must say this is one of my all time favorite games and *the* favorite chess variant.

I decided to do something to promote this game, so I created a Wikipedia article for this game today, where you can also see a photo of my homemade plywood board. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomat_chess

Many thanks for this game Carlos!

[Edit] I also found an error in the initial position of the pieces: The outer circle is line 1 (a1-n1), not line 3 (a3-n3).

Jonathan wrote on Sat, Dec 8, 2007 01:41 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I continue to find that my brilliant ideas have already been brilliantly used. I feel that most circular chess games don't take advantage of a truly circular board, but you succeed at this by incorporating the inner cell. I actually found this by researching what others have done, while designing a similar game myself--one that incorporates the inner cell in a similar manner. Kudos to you for doing it first. I suppose I'll continue with my plans without too much deterance. I just thought I had the idea first. So for sharing my brilliance ;) well done!

Robert Potter wrote on Mon, Nov 28, 2005 07:01 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
It's a great game! Most circular boards are really just rectangular with a wraparound thing, but yours is truly circular!

Anonymous wrote on Sun, Feb 27, 2005 01:20 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This game is truly great! Yes, I know I have not played this game yet, but I love it anyway! I find it very embarassing to point this out now, but I must, the Horses are too powerful as they can control up to 28 cells, which is more than 2/3 of a 43-cell board, but this problem can be solved easily, all you have to do is enlarge the board and the problem vanishes.

Viktor Söderqvist wrote on Sun, Jun 6, 2004 09:53 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Great game! I have played it a lot with my brother on a home made board. We usually play it with the following rule: A diplomat is not allowed to take back a piece immediately after it has been overtaken by the opponent's diplomat. (I call it the 'ko' rule, since it is similar to the ko rule in Go). I find this rule better than the '3 times repitition rule' since it favors the defender while the latter favors the attacker. <p>Consider the following scenario (a quite frequent one): <p>Both players keep their diplomats on a square next to the center, 'guarding' it. Let's say it is white's turn. If playing with the '3 times repitition' rule, white can walk through the center with a pawn or put another piece in the center with great advantage, since the 3rd time black can not overtake it. If playing with the 'ko' rule, the center is blocked and the focus of the game moves away from the center. <p>This is good because the importance of the center sometimes feels too dominating. If you don't agree, at least this rule makes an important difference in strategy.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Apr 27, 2003 11:04 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Small variants are supposed to be quick, and the centre square does overcome the problem of having only one of an otherwise colourbound piece. Mind you, the diplomat also does that in an entirekly different way. Perhaps that could inspire two new variants, one with the Diplomat but no centre square (in which case Pawns must move circularly) and one vice versa.

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