Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Latest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Later Reverse Order Earlier
Ganeshan Chess. Introducing a new Elephant piece known as (the) Ganapati. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Simon Jepps wrote on Mon, Aug 31, 2009 04:24 PM UTC:
Considering that I have found it hard to gain traffic to my website, mainly for lack of marketting skill, and considering Ganeshan Chess can be a mouthful at a first glance, I have decided to discontinue the website for now... but will instead be writing a book about the game and which will include example positions, useful tactics and indeed the first opening studies. It will be an in depth introduction to the game.

Hopefully published next year sometime.

John Smith wrote on Tue, May 12, 2009 02:26 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Oh, you are correct. It is quite confusing having two games played on a 10x10 board with pieces called Elephants.

💡📝Simon Jepps wrote on Sun, May 10, 2009 09:43 PM UTC:
I did have problems with one game, Sovereign Chess, but not this or any other game. I think you are getting confused between two games using elephants. With this game I merely took it down temporarily to revise it.

But heh, I'll let you off.

John Smith wrote on Sun, May 10, 2009 09:34 PM UTC:
It was a joke. You do change the rules quite often, you know.

💡📝Simon Jepps wrote on Sat, May 9, 2009 03:46 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
John,

I don't see why I need to change the rules(?). This game has been throroughly revised and also extensively tested with a friend of mine.

The game is finished now, complete, dusted... published...

John Smith wrote on Sat, May 9, 2009 04:12 AM UTC:
I have an idea, Simon. How about the Elephant moves however you feel like, at the moment? Perhaps have a page where you can check up on the Elephant's move? Its move would be constantly changing throughout the game.

💡📝Simon Jepps wrote on Wed, Dec 10, 2008 06:42 PM UTC:
The Fool move has now been depricated (not removed), to just the following:

'Ganapati can only move like a Fool if otherwise stranded and with no other move available.'

Regards, Simon.

💡📝Simon Jepps wrote on Wed, Nov 5, 2008 11:50 AM UTC:
'...' Please remove this comment.

Peter Boddy wrote on Thu, Oct 2, 2008 03:33 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
The Fool is a perfect name for someone wise and of great intellect. For the fool was anything but in ancient and medieval times. You had to jest in such a way as to not lose your head when insulting someone in court. Fools also had more freedom of speech than most anyone else, able to speak on controversial issues in such a way that lesser folk would be punished for... the fool, AKA joker or jester, had to walk a fine line indeed.

The fool could certainly be a facet of Ganesh.

So I don't understand the push from some people to change the name from Fool to Joker.

💡📝Simon Jepps wrote on Sun, Sep 21, 2008 02:24 PM UTC:
It is also therein named because Ganesha is representative of ourselves. Together in life a true counterpart will always be remembered for the Friend he was and at other times the Fool we laughed and played with. Ganesha is a mystical character, and not absolute, and so in this game he merely represents that. He is the 'ideology' of people, and how they are interpreted. Meaning, in the hustle and bustle of life, where being rightious is of the utmost importance, being silly every now and then isn't terribly wrong and in fact, recreation is a vital refreshment. His playful presence represents that pardon, but as I said earlier, in a good way. In Hinduism, Ganesha is the one children first recognise themselves with most because of his strange and entertaining appearance. What you are forgetting is that Ganesha is a God on the board, and so in this instance he merely signifies an authority over such psychology; where Ganesha also moves like a Fool, that move is in fact a statement saying 'So you like to be a Fool eh? Well I know all about Fools.' Which indeed, a God would.

How to trick a Fool? Befriend him.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Sep 21, 2008 06:34 AM UTC:
Hm, I'm beginning to be won over. Perhaps the playful elephant is at least a 'Joker' - but some might judge the 'Fool' to be the person standing close enough to get squirted! Changing Fool to Joker (the name given in Piececlopedia) would be enough to rate a Good from me.

💡📝Simon Jepps wrote on Mon, Sep 15, 2008 03:12 PM UTC:
Hi Charles, you say:

I am slightly puzzled about how the piece relates to him. It seems odd that a deity

'of Intellect and Wisdom'


should have moves including

'Like a Fool'


The move is not so much the character of Ganesha himself, more of the Elephant itself. If you think of an Elephant, it is a 'Friend', in that it is wise, strong and helpful, and on the other hand it is like a 'Fool' because it likes to play around, squirt water at you and pinch your bum! However, it is Ganesha, the Lord of Intellect and Wisdom which acts as the authority over how this piece is interpreted like a Friend and Fool.. in that it should only be known as such in a good way.

And of course, it is the intellect and wisdom which adds the desired additional inspiration to the game.

Ganesha is commonly a piece of great interest and as per his character, great mysticism also. Ganesha can be on the one hand useless, and on the other devastatingly powerful. But coincidentally, Ganesha, the Hindu God of Intellect and Wisdom has four hands, and in Ganeshan Chess this proves true, because additionally, Ganesha can also be of equal strength within the army, and on the other, completely unpredictable ~ yet at the same time intriguingly useful.

Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Sep 15, 2008 06:28 AM UTC:
As someone with a special affection for Ganesh as a character (hence my references in pages 2,3, and 6 of my Armies of Faith series), I am delighted to see him given such prominence here, but I am slightly puzzled about how the piece relates to him. It seems odd that a deity
'of Intellect and Wisdom'

should have moves including
'Like a Fool'

. Admittedly the piece described is more widely known as a Joker (perhaps to distainguish from the Bishop whose French and Greek names mean a fool), but even that name is more suggestive of a trickster deity, which I am not aware of Ganesh being. The Joker is not even the natural counterpart of the Friend: that rôle falls to the Orphan, which moves as any piece attacking it (including to capture such pieces). Did you know of the Orphan? My instinct is to rate this variant as Average but I have deferred rating and will gladly rate higher if there are reasons for the selected combination of moves that I have overlooked. Incidentally, a tip for using Seirawan sets: you can use Hawks for the extra Pawns.

Where I am on safer ground is in reporting that undeed

'apart from the King (and Ganesha) these values are actually FIDE official.'

but only on the FIDE board. On a 10x10 board Bishops outperform Knights (the reverse would be true on 6x6). You cite the shape of Seirawan Chess pieces as an inspiration, but that variant has an 8x8 board precisely because
'the size of the board affects the relative value of the pieces, the most obvious example being that a larger board decreases the power of the short-range knight and king relative to the other pieces'

Oddly enough, the thought of a Ganesh piece has given me an idea for pieces having a special power alluding to his 'remover of obstacles' aspect. This would be the power allowing a piece of the same army, and normally blocked by intervening pieces, to pass over both it and any other pieces in its line. Thus in

the White Rook cannot Check the Black King or capture anything, but in

where the elephant represents any 'remover of obstacles', the White Rook can Check the Black King by passing over every capturable piece (but capturing none), or capture any one Black piece by passing over everything in between.


13 comments displayed

Later Reverse Order Earlier

Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.