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I suppose so, but what would be the advantage? The Pawns are FIDE-like, and in particular do have an initial double-push. One would thing that 4 empty ranks between them would then be the optimal distance. I have never seen a suggestion to shrink orthochess to an 8x7 board. I would expect this would drive up the white advantage too much.

I probably should have emailed you before I posted this. I apologize if so.

Perhaps it wouldn't give any extra advantage to White. Perhaps you're somehow right and it would give White some sort of advantage - that would be interesting. Demonstrate.

Yes of course I assumed the shogi pawns would only move one step at a time.

By giving it nine ranks, we give it the same number of ranks as in a 9 x 9 Shogi game where three lines separate the pawns. There's at least a bit of reason to my madness here...

If, on the other hand, you have four ranks between the pawns then it creates a certain asymmetry in pawn domination of ranks where the second player can not always directly meet the opponent's pawn on its fourth rank. In 9 x 9 Shogi, there is a middle rank that neither side can easily foray into....

Well, it's just a suggestion. I'm sure the 10 x 10 version of Elven Shogi would play out just fine and if that's the one to go with as standard, you're the boss in the matter and I defer to your judgment.

Reviewing the wikipedia Shogi Variants, I see no 10 x 9 Shogi version (and I can't think of any chess variant that is such a shape either but I don't think this apparent absence means that such a shape is inferior in any way to just about any other shape) so you may be right that my suggestion is unique. I do see a contemporary 10 x 10, like yours - Okisaki Shogi but can't easily locate the rules for it and can't see any but the vaguest notion of a setup. Some places they say it has ten pawns and others 11. Apparently, Okisaki means queen and this variant is a western hybrid that, like yours, implements a queen. Yours looks more interesting though.

To be very clear, I'm not here of course talking about Elven Chess but the Elven Shogi you refer to at the bottom of your notes on Elven Chess. I already submitted an Elven Chess preset exactly as you described it. The question is whether to leave Elven Shogi on the 10 x 10 board. When you say the pawns are FIDE like, with an initial double-step, I wonder whether you didn't realize I was talking about Elven Shogi. Are you saying the Elven Shogi pawns have a double-step?

Oh, my mistake, I mis-read that, and thought you were indeed talking about Elven Chess.

Indeed, for Elven Shogi it would make much more sense to make a 9-deep board, to have the usual Pawn separation there.

This discussion, about contracting the FIDE board, helped me recall this morning Ingo Althofer's En Passant Chess which although merely gimmick-y is also fun and I've played it a little. Because it *is* gimmicky, it might not have much depth and might very well give White a forced win which we could discover, as you suggest. The consequence of contracting the board allows the En Passant rule to really come into its own. Most established dogma about what makes cvs playable is entirely arbitrary and can be thrown out the window with a little rule adjustment, I've found...the familiar shouldn't be confused with the truth.

This variant gave me the idea for my Grand Chess and Beyond project. My idea is more inline with the nut shogis. I think the Shishi is to powerful for 10x10 and am going with a KAND Lion, plus it's a bit complex for beginners. I also wanted a Lance type piece on the edges and chose a Flying Stag. For "Grand Chu Shogi" King; F1 & 10. Queen; E2 & 9. Lion; F2 &9. Guard; E1 & 10. Dragon King; D2 & 9, G2 & 9. Dragon Horse; C2 & 9, H2 & 9. Rook; B2 & 9, I2 & 9. Bishop; B1 &10, I1 &10. Knight; D1 & 10, G1 & 10. Flying Stag; A2 & 9, J2 & 9.

Well, the "Lion power" of the Chu-Shogi Lion (i.e. the ability to capture in passing) is all the fun, and my reason for designing Elven Chess was to make it accessible in a less intimidating game. Whether 10x10 is too small for it remains to be seen. I play-tested Mighty-Lion Chess, which has the Lion on an 8x8 board, with a computer, and the games this generated did not look especially problematic. Like in Chu, the Lions tend to seek each other, creating a stand-off, leaving their defensive position only after that has been made 'Lion proof'.

Note that Mighty-Lion and Elven Chess are primarily designed as Chess variants, not Shogi variants. Chains of FIDE Pawns are much more Lion-proof that Shogi Pawns. Because the Pawns have two captures rather than one, Pawns standing shoulder to shoulder cannot be approached by a Lion from ahead. And interlocked Pawn chains, which are not possible with Shogi Pawns but common in FIDE, are also Lion proof. FIDE also is much more 'slider dominated' than Chu Shogi, and in Mighty-Lion one of the Lions usually gets lost in the early end-game because it can no longer hide from slider attack as the board population thins.

In Elven Chess all the non-FIDE pieces have King moves, and thus cannot be approached by a Lion for an igui threat. So they don't have to rely on the Lion being far away for their survival.

Mr Muller, I am aware of your passion for Shogi and the Shishi in particular. My opinion is built on Mr Duniho's piece on designing good chess variants. I am interested in your opinion of my array, whether a Shishi or KAND is used? This is the most original of the the ones I am proposing for GC&B. I do not have the computer skills to create something like this on WinBoard or any of the others and I have not been able to play test it. The Flying Stag does fit into your criteria of crowned pieces.

My first thought is that your array might be a bit 'top heavy': you introduce many new pieces stronger than Rook, but no new minors. IMO orthodox Chess is such a well-balanced game because the number of piecesdoubles for each next-lower class: 1 Queen, 2 Rooks, 4 minors, 8 Pawns. Give or take a Pawn each piece is worth about twice as much as a piece of the next lower class, so you have many interestng 2-for-1 trades. This gives a much more interesting spectrum of material combination then when only trades within a class occur, because the next-lower class is in short supply and most of the pieces there are already traded against each other before the intrinsically rarer 2-for-1 trading opportunities occur.

For this reason I did not only add Strong pieces (Shishi, RF, BW) to the FIDE array, but also the two Dwarfs (K). That gives one extra Rook-class piece (BW) and two extra Knight-class pieces, to preserve the ratio there, and one piece (RF) halfway between Queen and Rook. So roughly speaking you could say the Q:R:minor:P ratio in Elven Chess is 1.5:3.5:6:10, while in your array (similarly 'splitting up' the RF) it is 2:7:4:10. (The Stag should be worth about a Rook, if the King moves alone are already worth a Knight.)

I would not expect a full-powered Shishi to be any problem in your array, because indeed the Stag is also 'Lion-proof'. It was not clear whether you propose this as a Chess or a Shogi variant (i.e. how the Pawns move, and if there is castling). I once tested an ordinary KNAD on 8x8, and it came out about 1.5 Pawn stronger than Q there. Q would benefit from a bigger board, though (more moves), while KNAD would suffer (longer travel times).

Yes, top heaviness is covered in the Rook level Chess thread. I have seen Elven Chess on chess.com and thank you for trying to expose them to something other than 960. Your ratios give me even more of a clue to your goals, and are good guidelines in general. We are both trying to introduce Chu Shogi pieces, but mine is a Grand Chess variant, so no castling. The array in Elven Chess demands castling to develop a Guard/Dwarf. Elven is tactically Chess with a Shishi. I want something that is more tactically Chu, in having a placement of minors behind majors, without the worry of what minors promote to or a horde of one step pieces. The ratio highlights the problem with all Capablancas, but people still keep putting them out there. Cetran 2 has only one minor piece, and I find it to be an enjoyable and balanced game. Minor point: I'm not sure I follow your math with the ratios, I count Elven as 2,4,6,10 and GCS as 2,8,5,10.