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One idea I have, is making a Disciple can only promote to pieces that you have lost and only one of: Monkey, Panther, Crab, Snake, Tiger, Crane, Dragon, Mantis.
I also have idea of single-letters notations for pieces:
- I = Disciple
- N = Monkey
- P = Panther
- R = Crab
- S = Snake
- T = Tiger
- C = Crane
- D = Dragon
- M = Mantis
- Q = Ng Mui
- X = Wing Chun
- L = Bruce Lee
- Z = Super Wing Chun
- F = Super Bruce Lee
- K = Shaolin Master
And then make up a Chinese notation of pieces as well, based on the Chinese kung fu. So that you can even use a flat Chinese pieces but with marks of the name of these pieces in Chinese instead. (I know the game is not Chinese but I still prefer flat pieces for chess variants in general)
I think that most of old Shogi variants have alike idea: pieces, wich reprecents how different animals moves.
'JKL,LargeCV': Bostick's Insect Chess is recommended and was conscientiously reviewed here, no small task for many of these. This one is NR because of the format's difficulty even finding out what the pieces are. Yet putative 'Zillions of Games' values are all over the place: Dragon 6.75, which is the Marshall; Monkey 2.25, which is the Knight... Stop there, because guaranteed that that differential(6.75 minus 2.25) is off by at least 1.5 pts. when P(1.0). Wing Chun(10.25), diagonal equivalent of Gryphon, is called Wasp in the superior Insect Chess. RNBKQP are all in there, Disciple being the ordinary Pawn. Ng Mui (9.5 pts.) is conventional Amazon. Insect has better theme and more coherence.
I finally remembered some old material related to the Bruce Lee and Wing Chun pieces. Mark Hedden's Io Chess (1999) contains the Griffin and its promoted form - the Hippogriff. He also has the Spider (the diagonal equivalent of the Griffin) and its promoted form - the Tarantula. See the Piececlopedia article on the 'Duke' for more background material.
'Three pieces can checkmate the Shaolin Master by themselves: the Praying Mantis, Ng Mui, and the promoted Bruce Lee.' Of course, there are many combinations of Shaolin Master and a single piece which can force mate against a lone Shaolin Master. The (unpromoted) Bruce Lee will do the job, as it is identical to the centuries-old Griffon (see the Griffon entry in the Piececlopedia). The companion piece, Wing Chun, does not occur in any chess variant that I know of. Eric Greenwood's 'Duke' is the only piece that even comes close.
I don't know whether my Kung Fu Chess is older than the simultaneous movement Kung Fu Chess game or not, but I could accept renaming my variant 'Shaolin Chess.' Tim Bostick
KungfuChess.com has moved to www.shizmoo.com I suggest you check it out and rethink the name of yours :D
There is another 'Kung-Fu' chess that is quite interesting in my opinion. It's a variant of chess, with very few modifications to the rules, which can only be played on a computer.<p>
Check:<p>
<a href=http://www.kungfuchess.com>http://www.kungfuchess.com</a><p>
Salutaciones,<br>
JCAB
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Currently of Florea's new CV Apothecary are the classic Gryphon of Grande Acedrex and complementary Aanca. Here are another pair of them from 2001 Bostick's Kung Fu Chess: Wing Chun moving like Aanca and Bruce Lee moving like Gryphon.