Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Does Freelings claim that Grand Chess is an inherent improvement of FIDE Chess stand up to scrutiny?

Removal of castling

Castling is an artificial but effective rule that serves more than one purpose-the ability to switch an immobile king to prevent lopsided enemy attacks, and increased ease of rook developement. Staggered rooks as an alternative accomplish the latter, a more centralised king on a more spacious board (mostly) negates the former.

Extension of material

The premise in conventional chess variant wisdom seems to be that the choice of the RB compound is arbitrary, and the RN/NB are the natural "missing" extensions. However the FIDE Queen is arguably the most conceptually fundamental piece in the game; its movement on an empty board can be described in 3 words; "it moves straight." The same certainly cannot be said of RN/RB.

K/B/R are restrictions, rather than fundamental building blocks. Similarly the knight is really a special case that subsets the more obscure 2-1 slider. It, and not the "mad Queen" is the true wildcard of FIDE.

Either way, the knight complements the FIDE array perfectly, and gives the ensemble a high degree of balance for such simple pieces - 8 pawns, 4 minor pieces, 2 major pieces, one 1 "master" piece, thats difficult to better, and in my opinion distributing its most obscure movement type in new combinations is not sound grounds for doing so.

In truth, the weakening of the knight move of a 10*10 board aids GC somewhat declustering the pieces and producing a clearer hierarchy, but not enough, and the final ensemble is undeniably lopsided.

I do feel that FIDE is missing a piece (and just one), but I would consider the 2-leaper (a piece so neglected among variants that it barely has a name) to be that piece. Its conceptually simple and bridges the gap between Queen and Rook almost perfectly, being in almost exactly equal power ratio to each.

Aesthetics

FIDE is played on a lower base board (2 vs 10), with perfect 50% piece density.

Pawn promotion

This is where I feel Freeling makes a real mistep. The optional promotion of the 8/9/10th rank is slack and the restriction of promotion to a captured piece is an archaic throwback to precomputerised chess. Freelings defense of the unnecessary complications that arise (pawns on the 9th ranks can give check while immobile) by pointing to the case of pinned pieces in FIDE yet giving check is at best a case of two wrongs not making a right. Why not enforce promotion to the RNB and complete the (R, N, B) power set?

Stalemate, pawn first move and en passant

The primitive stalemate rule of FIDE is left unchanged (piece vs bare king still irrationally given as a draw), and convuluted pawn behaviour is left as it was.

Conclusion

I don't doubt that GC is still an excellent game and most likely the best of its type, but its just not a game that can be considered a clear forward step from FIDE. It extends in an abritrary manner, improves in some areas, loses in others and leaves other chess conventions unchallenged.

Freeling showed an ability to distill the chess paradigm to clear endpoints in Rotary, Shakti and Chad, but ultimately GC can't be considered in that group.

HG Muller,

The KN is indeed underused, although the inclusion of such a compound then requires the RK and KB for a complete set, which no longer work as distinct unions.

One could consider the gryffon and unicorn to be RK/BK compounds, temporal rather than spatial though that may considered a stretch by some...

This is a favorite of mine for the rules and board size, more than being another Capablanca. I am making some sets to give away for Christmas. I am including extra pieces to be a variant basic kit. I will post my changes for my "Grand Chess and Beyond" on the respective pages of each game.

Jason makes some good points concerning 10x10 chess variant design. I prefer placing Cannons on the back ranks, as in Shako and Shatranj Kamil X. Now the White Rooks will either have to share the first rank with the Cannons or position themselves on the second rank.

On BrainKing, Embassy Chess which uses the same setup as Grand, is more
popular and the smaller 10x8 board seems to work better for the 2 added
super pieces. Grand Chess' main distinction is the extra row behind just
for the rooks which is probably not as interesting as the creator thinks it
is. Generally, those rooks just back up stronger pieces in front of them,
or they are exchanged with other rooks on open files.

It's more interesting in normal Chess where a rook tries to get on an open
file by clearing other pieces out of the back rank than it is like this.

In short, the freedom of the rooks and the extra space for the King to move
around lead to less tension in the game which is not a good thing. 10x8
games with those 2 pieces like Janus Chess and Embassy (Bird/Capablanca)
play better on 10x8.

Well, I don't see much reason to assume that the piece values in Grand Chess are very different from the very well established values in Capablanca and other 10x8 variants. It is true the board has two more ranks, but these are basically ranks where you don't want to go.

This would mean your values suffer from a gross uderestimation of the value of the Cardinal (BN), which in Capablanca is practically equivalent to the Marshall (RN). That there is logic in your system can be considered a drawback, as so far any logic in the practical values of pieces has been sigularly absent (or perhaps just not understood).

If I would have to guess in which direction the Capablanca values should be corrected for Grand Chess, the major factor I would take into account is the fact that the promotion zone is 3 deep, effectively cutting 1 rank off the board. This makes that you are more in a hurry with lateral movements to stop passers, which disadvantages pieces that cannot slide along ranks.

 FIDE 10x8  Grand(?)
N 325 300 -> 275
B 325 350 -> 325 (+50 B-pair bonus)
R 500 500
C     875 -> 850
M     900
Q 950 950

I've been dabbling with Grand Chess for a few years, and offer my analysis
of the piece values 'the way I see it':

P -- 1
N -- 3
B -- 4 -- I add 1 to each vector piece given the longer vectors on 10x10
R -- 6
C -- 8 -- I also add 1 for the combined power effect, like Q = R + B + 1 in
classic chess
M -- 10
Q -- 11

I've used these values for every game of GC that I've ever played, and
they've never failed me yet when calculating exchanges.

The method is consistent and logical -- for example, the Marshal is 10
because M = (R + 1) + N + 1.  (1 is added to the R for the longer vectors
and another 1 is also added for the combined power effect.)

T.

- Sam

Perhaps you can make a link on it and we do one on your site.

Christian Freeling's game is potentially excellent, but I feel it would benefit from two tweaks:

1) The initial array for the white major pieces should be Cardinal-D2, Queen-E2, King-F2, and Marshall-G2. (Of course the black pieces should be rearranged accordingly.) This setup does have the potential disadvantage of having the KBP on both sides initially unguarded, but the capture of either pawn would take several tempi and might lead to some interesting gambit play.

2) The king should be allowed a once-a-game safety leap of three squares either to the right or left. this would be in essence castling without the rook and would be subject to the same rules as castling, i.e. no prior king move and no moving over squares attacked by the enemy.

In any event the foremost requirement of viability for any chess variant is that the winning percentage for white be no higher than that experienced in ordinary chess.

Let's at least pretend you are talking mechanically. Betza argues that on an 8 x 8 board, RN is equivalent to RB such that one could replace the one with the other to create equivalent armies, as he does in Sort of Almost Chess where he even says the following: 'Both kinds of Queen have exactly the same strength, so it is an even game, even for masters.' But I suppose on larger boards, the queen becomes more powerful, just as the bishop becomes more powerful than the knight. What sort of added powers would one have to give to the RN to allow it to keep up with the queen as the board gets larger?

What would one have to add to a BN to make it equivalent to a queen? I'd like to know about different possibilities. One possibility is to make the knight a nightrider. I created this variant to explore this, but one also explores it in Lions and Unicorns and Pocket Mutation Chess, two inspirations for me in creating the former practice variant.

After posting my previous comment on Grand Chess, I received an email from Michael Howe [Nova Chess and others], who has been working on the pawn promotion/movement problem in his work. With permission, I present the relevant body of the text: 
[A pawn] 'can move to the back rank even when no previously captured piece is available, and while there it moves like a nonroyal king (commoner).  If it moves out of the promotion zone it reverts to pawn.  If it moves within the promotion zone it gets another chance to promote.  A player can also move into or within the promotion zone and choose the commoner option instead of a piece promotion even if a piece is available: for example, in a situation when a commoner would mate but a cardinal or marshal would not.  No in-situ promotion.  I think this works better than a sideways-moving pawn because it is more threatening, although I doubt that this situation will come up much'.

As I use the scheme I proposed in both Grand Shatranj and Atlantean Barroom Shatranj, I am adding this option to both games.

The editors received the following message by e-mail from Namig Aliyev:

Dear sir!
I would like send to You some comments about Grand Chess.
 
1.'Fool mat' in classic chess is 
1.f4 -e6
2.g4 -Qh4x -2 moves
 
2.In Capablanca chess for opening set up like this (Optimal set up,all
pawns protekted,force line of pieces very good
balanced)-R-N-B-A-C-K-Q-B-N-R, 'fool mat' is
1.c3 -h5
2.Ac2 -f6
3.Ag6x -3 moves
 
3.In Grand Chess for opening set up -3rd row pawns,2nd row from square b2
-N-B-A-C-K-Q-B-N, 1st row Ra1 and Rj1 (this variant more
preferable,because white king snand up in dark square and vice versa)
'fool mat 'is 
1.c4 -Rjg10
2.Ac3 -Rae10
3.Cf4 -Af10
4.Nh4 -h7
5.Ag7x -5 moves
 These examples shows us in Grand Chess a king is more safety position
then in Capablanca or Classic Chess.
 
P.S.I think all rules in Grand Chess is very interesting and good. But if
we make one exceptoin it will be better.
Rule:A pawn can be promoted when it reaches 9th row. The promotion is
optional on these rows.
In this case I think many chess fun and players will be joined to this
beatiful game.
With best regards, FIDE Master,FIDE Trainer Namik

I've suggested in the forum that the Games Courier might implement a 'The
World Against ...' system, whereby a champion at some variant would play
White and everyone else plays Black. 'The World' can use a public forum
to discus possible lines of play and could vote (in a strict time-span) on
which move to make. 

Grand Chess would be a good game to investigate this way, because
Mindsports Arena has held tournaments some years back, so it has
recognized champions: Wayne Schmittberger and John Vehre. Either 'The
World Against Vehre' or 'The World Against Schmittberger' would be
great fun, I think, if either party could be enlisted for it.

Grand Chess design analysis:
# squares: 100
# piece types: 8
Piece-type density: 8%
Est. piece values: P1, K2, N3, B3, R5, C8, M9, Q10
Initial piece density: 40%
Long diagonal: a1-j10
Power density: 1.22
Exchange gradient: 0.450; (1-G) = 0.550
Ave. game length:  M =  3.5*100*0.08/1.22*0.55 = 42 Moves
Features:  All the B-N-R two-fold compounds appear
Comments: Great exchange potential and relatively few types of pieces
keep
a decimal variant under 45-move average.

I guess I should have looked at this sooner since there were two quick
follow up comments.  For Mark the King's leap is in fact a one time
option like Castling and subject to similar restrictions.  You can not
leap out of check nor can the king cross any squares attacked by enemy
pieces.  My interpretation of the leap has been to used it to simply make
a jump left or right along the 2nd rank. My suggested array would be in
fact RCNBQKBNMR with the rooks still being on the 1st rank and the rest on
the 2nd rank as in standard Grand Chess.  The advantage of the new array
is the minor pieces are more centrally located and can better attack the
center.  The Marshall and Cardinal are decentralized but they can more
easily get into the fight again than the bishop and particularly the
knight can in the standard array for Grand Chess.
   For Ed my email is now [email protected], and I will see if I can drop
you an email again.  Gothic Chess is also very interesting and the Duniho
option is worth exploring here as well, and can be played with the
Zillions Engine for those interested.

John Vehre? Where did you disappear to? Waaaaaaay back when we were playing
a friendly Gothic Chess match via email, you had me on the ropes, then one
fine day your email bounced!

I am at [email protected] now, FYI. Hope to chat with you later.

--Ed

I have played in two Grand Chess competitions and can highly recommend
both the game and the organizers at mindsports.net who now have held three
cyber world championship events.  Grand Chess combines good ideas from
both east and west.  It is fast paced like classical chess and the long
range pieces have considerable striking power. The promotion rules and set
up remind one more of Shogi and these same promotion rules tend to reduce
the number of draws.  If you could reach such an endgame almost all basic
pawn up king and pawn vs. king endgames are wins unless the weaker side
can capture the pawn and even the notoriously tough Rook and pawn endings 
should also be easier for the stronger side. Of course saving a bad
position is much tougher!
   Classical chess playing skills also translate well in this variant and
a good chess player most likely also will quickly become a good Grand
Chess player. The mindsports site provides boards to play the game with on
their server and postal chess players tired of computer interference in
their games ought to give this variant serious consideration.
    The only criticism I have of the game is that perhaps a piece
arrangement more like Duninho's (spelling?) variation of Capablanca's
Chess
with the Cardinal on b2, the minor pieces Queen and King moved in towards
the center and with the Marshall placed on i2 might be a more efficient
piece arrangement.  I have also experimented at the Dayton Ohio Chess Club
with some friends with adding a king's leap of three squares which seems
to work well with this alternate piece arrangement.  Maybe an addition
that might be considered for the Zillions engine?