[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]
Rated Comments for a Single Item
Gast's Chess. Large 1969 variant using the Cardinal (Guard) and the Chancellor (Archer). (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Apr 10, 2004 03:47 AM EDT:Good ★★★★The castling rules seem particularly sensible: a range of ways to do it over a long rank depending on which pieces are unmoved, and involving those pieces with Rook moves not already adjacent to the King.
'GHI,LargeCV': Looking like a Turkish Great Chess, Gast's is really recent CV with some novelty in Knight and Pawn making a more or less average game. (By ten ranks, something has to help the Pawns and this is a try.) N is (N+Camel+Tripper), Tr. as (3,3); the leaping logic extended for 12x12. 'Archers'(R+N) have that same compound-N power. After its start Pawn goes 1 or 2 forward non-capturing, 1 or 2 diagonal capturing; initial 1,2,3,4. A size like this needs win condition short of checkmate, because any interest is localized interactions in the middle game. In the 14x14 version of Gast, 'Pope' is Amazon(enhanced-Knight-wise).
Having played it once, I really like this variant, but the Guard (Bishop plus enhanced knight) gets a raw deal compared to the Archer (Rook plus enhanced knight) since the Guard can move to the opposite end of a 3 x 3 rectangle (square) anyway by virtue of being a bishop! I think the Guard should be allowed a different alternate jump, perhaps like a zebra as well to compensate (the Gast Queen or 'pope' or 'enhanced Amazon would share this extra leaping move). I'd like to know precisely what the layout of the other Gast's Chess is and what the source of the information about Gast's Chess is and whether Mr. Gast left behind an archive of chess information and where it can be accessed. I'd very much like to play the 12 x 14 version with my own extra rule added.
In Cavalry Chess (Frank Maus, 1921) the Knight is replaced by a Knight-Camel-Zebra compound. Maus attempts to balance this piece by using a much stronger king, but does not succeed, according to Fergus Duniho's essay on the same page.
Gast's Chess has an ordinary King (with more castling options) facing Knight-Camel-Alfil compounds, plus Archers and Guards. That gives your opponent six pieces that can checkmate by capturing your undefended j-file Pawn.
Sorry, meant to add a re-rating - and it's not one that's available on editing existing comments!
5 comments displayed
Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.