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Jean-Louis Cazaux uses elephants in his 10x10 variant SHAKO, which also has Chinese cannons. I believe that this elephant piece first appeared in Courier-Spiel, a 19th century variant of Courier Chess.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Dec 3, 2005 01:50 AM UTC:Thank you for your comments and references, David. This elephant does not show up in the CV piecelopedia, but does in piece descriptions within the rules of both games you mention. How many others, who knows, but it seems to be a logical 'new' piece. This does demonstrate how difficult it is to come up with something truly new in the way of pieces. Hasn't stopped anyone from trying yet, including me. A comprehensive set of rules for shatranj variants is, based on just these variants posted in 2005, very possibly doomed. Boards, pieces, setups and even setup strategy all have expanded considerably. A shatranj piecelopedia and a book on shatranj variants might be the best we could hope for.
hey joe at this site here http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gpjnow/VC-GM.htm#F the 'alfil + fers' is listed under the name 'Ferfil'! there are a lot of interesting piece descriptions at that site.
My 2005-03-30 Comment on the Shatranj page ended with: [Also every Shatranj related ZRF that I have tested will record a 'bare king victory' without giving a chance to make a final move resulting in a 'two bare kings draw'.]
While my Zillions Version 1.3.1e will not run Christine's Zillions (Version 2?) implementation of Modern Shatranj, I have examined the code and suspect that the same problem exists relating to the bare king victory rule. The good news is: Peter Aronson's ZRF for his variant Gothic Isles Chess uses a complicated coding to correctly handle the rule: 'Bare King counts as a win, provided that your King cannot be bared on the very next move.'
Another warning: using (count-condition (total-piece-count 2)) in an attempt to add an 'automatic draw rule' to a ZRF can create serious problems. A sample position is given a Comment to my Zillions of Games file for King's Leap Chess.
Joe: Shatranj (and Makruk) variants are indeed popping faster then we can classify them. I am currently working on an 8x8 variant with Chinese Cannons added. One could also call it a sort of 'mini-Shako' variant, with the Bishops and Queens removed.
i like the rule if you bare the enemy king, you win, even if you can be bared next move, it is more exciting, and makes for less draws he he. i thought this rule used to exist first, but then got changed, is this right? i think i remember reading here on this site someone saying this somewhere.
It seems more likely to me that modern Chess did not evolve from Shatranj in such a straight line of ancestry, but involved a version on a larger board. In particular, the modern Bishop appeared in the medieval game of Courier Chess, where it was called 'Courier' and CO-EXISTED with the Elephant (confusingly called 'Bishop',there) on a 12x8 board. One can thus not say that one piece evolved from the other. When the game was shrunk back to an 8x8 board, one simply dumped the Elephant at the expense of the Bishop. Likewise, one could have dumped the General for the stronger Commoner, which also existed BOTH in Courier Chess. That would simultaneously realize two of the steps you describe. The Couriers could have evolved from the 'Pickets' in Tamerlane Chess, where they also coexisted with Elephants, but which extended an Alfil not by adding the Ferz move, but adding all the MORE distant diagonal moves to it first. For clarity, this theory is not based on historic fact, but purely on common sense.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Feb 17, 2006 04:58 AM UTC:Thanks for the comment. It's nice to know people read this stuff. You make an interesting case for the evolution of the bishop. I don't necessarily agree, but I also don't disagree. I looked at your examples, and you have several good points. I freely admit (and have previously admitted - I also wrote a comment 'shatranj2chess' that I took most of for the MS discussion) that I offered speculation only on the origins of the modern FIDE game. What I did was to take the smallest possible changes from shatranj that moved it directly toward modern chess, and saw 6 of them in piece movement. I consider each one a least change from the previous state. I have little to no idea of the actual history of chess. I was merely trying to put together an easiest possible path in discrete steps from one to the other. As a path of least action, it could not include larger boards and more pieces. Your version is easily as likely to be 'right' as is mine, though I strongly suspect neither is. I also 'strongly suspect' (aka: 'know') there are people here who could give us accurate info. Again, thanks.
It is interesting to observe the simultaneous use of modern Bishops and your Elephants in Courier-Spiel, a more modern variant of Courier Chess, and Shako, a 1990 variant on the 10x10 board. As H.G.Muller points out, Courier-Spiel also has the modern Queen and your General (called a fool or schleich). I am inclined to agree with his theory that the evolution of pieces happens on larger boards, and later on the more successful pieces take over the standard size board. Compare the long history of Japanese experiments in 12x12 Chu Shogi and 15x15 Dai Shogi.
This is really bad as purported new invention. Anyone else putting up such earnest, humourless longwinded, namedropping pittance of change to classic Shatranj would be lampooned. Poor, because of pretension that 'Modern Shatranj' adds anything but Ferz to Elephant and Wazir to General. This is justifiable Preset as Shatranj plain and simple. It is no invention at all really, moreover Betza did it before. 'Modern Shatranj' is worse than Shatranj anyway because of damage to Knight by powerful Elephant. Joyce's instincts run opposite of correct, always towards worsening not betterment of an established CV. There is no variant within either of 'Alice Modern Shatranj' as Joyce states. Why would an 'Alice Shatranj' play well, versus 'Alice version' of 3000 other CVPage games? The point is that we never heard of 'Modern Shatranj' until reading today. No one beyond clique of 10 CVPage insiders would know it either. That is why Joyce's Comments, not recognizing any context, commonly insult readers. Joyce should practice addressing more general OrthoChess-savvy audience, newcomers, for the general good of the CVPage. Nothing evident to justify write-up here in theme or interesting Mutator. Having rated several hundred CVs now, we acknowledge bias for elementary, unique creative Mutator or two embedded within new Rules-set -- a la Lavieri, Gilman, Winther, Gifford, Fourriere, Aronson, DHowe, Betza, ''91.5 Trillion...'' The alternative is practical copycats, and even plagiarisms, in bland new combination(s) of known pieces, as here. References Joyce admits adding after the fact, following our recorded surveys in 2007, actually invalidate dates of invention. Joyce, not being without potential for interest in subject matter, has slight opportunity for making something worthwhile, finally, in relatively uncrowded art surrounding Alice Chess. Hey, far-more-creative, intelligent Charles Gilman established AltOrthHex on over the 100th posted try, closing the book on hexagons.
This statement by Mr. Duke does not seem logical: Quote:
'Modern Shatranj' is worse than Shatranj anyway because of damage to Knight by powerful Elephant. [end quote]
If the statement is true, then it would follow that Chess, Xianqi, and Shogi are all lesser games than Shatranj... why? Because the knights have less relative value than they do in Shatranj. The Duke premise is that a weeker knight factor makes a game worse. Let us look at Fide Chess... We have Bishops and a Queen - these make the Knights even weeker than do Joyce's Elephants. But who would argue that Chess is worse than Modern Shatranj, which in turn is worse than Shatranj?
On another note, Joyces' Modern Shatranj made it into CV Tournament 3. How could this happen if it were a bad game? It had to be voted on. It obviously got enough votes. It is true that there are some similar games that already existed. But that does not make MS a bad game.
I also believe the idea of making a Short Range Alice Chess has much merit.
Keep up the great work Mr. Joyce. You are a very good game designer in my opinion. You recent critic's comments don't hold up to a logical review.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Jan 23, 2008 06:28 PM UTC:To my recent anonymous defender: thank you. I really do appreciate hearing that people like a game of mine. As for Alice shatranj, Christine Bagley-Jones created zrfs for several variants, including Modern Shatranj. These [and other games] can be found at Zillions in The ShortRange Project. Also, Abdul-Rahman Sibahi and I played a game - not very well, but useful for illustration - here:
George, many criticisms here contradict others you've been leveling at me recently. Where I haven't, as you maintain, properly attributed ideas or documented origins in other games, here I have, and for this I am a namedropper. Other games have been criticised for being too sketchy in their descriptions; here, where there is a discussion, I'm longwinded. Chieftain is too far from the FIDE standard, this is too close to the shatranj standard. Lol, George, if I were sensitive, I might begin to think your criticisms were more from ideology and even animosity than from a true consideration of the qualities of my games. I might even think you were trying to provoke a reaction from me! Fortunately, I'm not that sensitive. :-D Enjoy! Joe
(Now note please that I give Lemurian Shat. ''preeminente'' for the way-fun two Bent pieces and appreciate Joyce's recent overtures to Falcon starting array. He is very welcome for the one now named after himself there BRNKF...) I am looking at this again for 5 or 10 minutes, since I have a consistent point of view, and determine that I won't change my rating of 17.January.2008 two years ago. This is too much like Shatranj. If everybody did this we would have 1000 Shatranjs written up. A comment or Mutator in a thread would suffice, despite of course huge ramifications. Sometimes it's a fine line. This Modern Shatranj adds Ferz to Alfil and Wazir to General/Queen. Well, it says that, sort of, so no need to call attention to the past rating specifically, but Joe knows what the score is. In the opening paragraph Joyce writes, ''This page is an adaptation of the original Shatranj page on the Chess Variant Page. All else is the historic game,'' writing succinctly like he used to talk. Okay so what else is new? This M.S. could be explained in two sentences. If neat Bent Hero and Bent Shaman by Joyce's approach fully-realized would take two millennia, another two would be needed for many Shatranjs. Joyce has a point, if there are so many credits for so relatively minor change, there is no invention. Also, there is slight error that off and on there really was two-step, so that is error of CVPage original Shatranj (that I just relearned myself): mediaeval two-step was very occasional. Also annoying is before the list of 6 near the end he refers to M.S. as ''Chess,'' and other spots toward end of the write-up are confusing, for example, M.S. itself only uses 1 and 2 of the 6. Good grief, it's like looking into someone's unpolished notebook.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Aug 26, 2009 08:08 PM UTC:Thanks for the comments, George. This is the third variant I posted, and the first one anybody played. It is a modest shatranj variant, and because it had a decent reception, it changed my area of interest from 4D games to shatranj variants. And I agree that it is very modest, but it does exactly what it advertises; it plays halfway between historic shatranj and modern chess. But rather than weakened chess, it is high-performance shatranj. The larger point is playability. A game can be good, and a game can be successful, but these are 2 different things. This is a decent game that is very playable. It is extremely easy to learn, and can be played with standard equipment. It corrects the major flaw of shatranj, that stilted awkwardness and lack of flexibility, with minimal change to the historic game. It gives the game flow. But it makes the game slow. Given that 99.9+% of people that play variants learned chess first, a game with a 2-square bishop, even if it is jumping like a knight now, and a 1-square queen, is just too slow for modern sensibilities. Would'a kicked butt 1000 years ago. But time has marched on, and shatranj bit the dust way before buggywhips. Still, for anyone looking for an easy way into variants, this game is one. Even if it is weakened FIDE. ;-)
I finally connected with this mentally before your comment, Joe. It should be a reference. Look at CVP reference logos, then it would be okie-dokie. What the author is doing here is what Betza had to do back in 1972 or 1968, or Duke's thought processes in 1992. It's not a game, not a CV, but an exercise. Namely, just comprehend the change and transition from PastPastChess to PastChess, ahistorically, and with total indifference for audience, if any. I get it now. I can talk Joycean about it, just see the sentences 3 and 4 back. It's just in the wrong directory. Keep the old forms in conscious memory with modicum of respect, that every grand-master vows to forget forever more and totally dis-respect and dis-regard.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 12:55 AM UTC:George, the scary part is that you are actually right. In a very real sense, Two Large Shatranj Variants, which uses MS as inspiration, springboard, and prelude, was an exercise in evolving shatranj, an alternate history for the game of chess. I was trying to comprehend the change from older shatranj to newer shatranj as it grew ever more powerful and 'modern', but stayed shatranj. In that sense, and it was one of the ways I was designing, all I did was look at one game, shatranj, from 5 or 6 different points of view. Shatranj, as itself, could not and did not survive. The fossilized remnants are preserved on this site and a few others. But of all the games played today with 'shatranj' in the name, very few are the historical version. All the others are games with a little more 'oomph', a bit of power to make them palatable to moderns.
It occurred to me that in shrinking Shatranj al-Kamil v.1 back onto an 8x8 board it would have been cleverer to combine the dabbabahs and alfils into alibabas, and possibly upgrade the ferz to move one square in any direction.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Sep 18, 2009 03:15 AM UTC:John, that's very likely. If we speculate a bit, it's not hard to see exactly that happening in one or more places. And for the ancients [in chess, anyhow] the alibaba would be a great piece, doubling the range of the alfil. I believe you've found an intermediate variant, and one that's very likely to have been played somewhere, certainly far moreso than Modern Shatranj itself, I believe. MS is a 'modern thinking' game; what you described is an 'ancient thinking' game. Lol, you win!
Seems that the simplest modifications to make to the ancient game of Shatranj is to make just two slight changes based on steps one and two in the progression from Shatranj to Modern Chess: the General (Counselor) could combine his original move with the Elephant and King, and the Elephant could be allowed the option of a single step diagonal move in addition to his two-step jump. Retain the option of transposition for a stalemated King. This should retain the sensibility of the original while "modernising" it somewhat.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Mar 21, 2013 07:47 AM UTC:Thank you for the comment, Orleanian. (Which one, btw, old or New?) That is a nice little intermediate step, with a piece I didn't think of. A minute's consideration shows the logic of the piece, and it certainly does fit neatly after Step 2. Hm, if I recall correctly, Jeremy Good made an icon for that piece, an elephant with an 8-pointed star on its side, that can be found in the Alfaerie: Many piece set.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Mar 24, 2013 09:08 AM UTC:Allowing promotion to powerful pieces like Rook completely changes the character of the game. It really doesn't have a Shatranj flavor anymore. The strategic objective becomes promoting Pawns, like in FIDE Chess. While in Shatranj promoting usually gets you nowhere. Upgrading the Queen from Ferz to Commoner might already have this effect, if the Pawns now promote to this type of Queen.
I think Muller is correct; still, in this game at least you promote only to lost pieces (or you can promote to General). Maybe make promoting to lost piece only if you have lost both, might be one possible subvariant, too?
I'm one of the few 0.01% (or less) who arrived here not knowing modern orthodox chess previously. In fact, I never played chess, and my interest on the subject was just recently ignited by a friend who is a chess enthusiast. I began searching for the basics, the rules, the pieces, their moves, etc., and I was quickly drawn to the historical origins and developments of the game(s). From there to the modern variants it was a quick step. I can tell you that, from a neophyte point of view, Chaturanga and Shatranj are easier to understand, but their weaknesses are evident. Modern chess, on the other side -- or "madwoman chess", as it was pejoratively called by conservative players five centuries ago, when the queen became a bishop-rook --, though more agile and powerfull, is more difficult for beginners to grasp. It appears to me that one needs to be always conscious of the disposition of every pieces on the board, even the ones distant to the piece one intends to move next, simply because, at any moment, a queen or a bishop or a rook can come across from the other side of the board and totally wrecks one's intended strategy. Using the war analogies in which the games were originally inspired, the wide movements of modern pieces are like missiles, whereas the ancient battles modelled by Chaturanga and Shatranj were fought body to body -- except for the archers. (And isn't weird the absence of "archers" among the Chaturanga/Shatranj pieces?). The most mobile subsets of any army in Antiquity were the (mounted) cavalry and the chariots (dragged by horses). So, it is logical that the most mobile pieces on Chaturanga/Shatranj were the "horses" (knights) and the "chariots" (rooks). But even the wide range movements of the rooks, crossing several squares at once (potentially an entire row), as recorded in (or infered by) the oldest known historical Shatranj descriptions, probably were already an early improvement in the game. It's not reasonable to suppose that any piece in the game was originally more far-reaching than the horse/knight. I think the greateast virtue of the Modern Shatranj -- specially the "D" version, with one dabbabah-wazir in the place of the traditional rook -- is to restore (and put a limit to) the short-range movements of the pieces, according to the metaphore that inspired the original game. There was nothing or nobody in any army that could cross an entire battlefield at once in Antiquity, hence no piece should be able to cross the entire board in Chaturanga/Shatranj in one move. Thus, the player doesn't need to worry with distant pieces in the board, because only the ones close to the piece he intends to moved can pose an immediate threat to it. The other great virtue of Modern Shatranj is that, by augmenting the mobility of the counselor/general and the elephants (but without expanding too much their reach), it not only turns these pieces more "powerfull", but it also introduces a beautifull *simetry* to the overall dynamics of the game -- and here, again, the "D" version is superior to the "R" version. Now each "army" on the "battlefield" has: - two elements that can move only one square orthogonally or diagonally, the king and the general; - two elements that can move one or jump two squares diagonally, the elephants; - two elements that can move one or jump two squares orthogonally, the chariots; - two elements that can jump three squares "orthodiagonally", the horses. We can easy visualize this perfect simmetry by picturing the movement diagrams of these four kinds of pieces superimposed: if it were possible to put all four pieces in one same square, this would be the center of a set with 4x4 squares, and each one of these 16 squares would be reachable via a single movement of at least one of the four pieces put in the center! That would not be any "falted" square, one that could not be reached by at least one kind of piece put in the center of any 4x4 set of squares. This doesn't happen in the original Shatranj game. Thus, the Modern Shatranj D allow the players to charge *full power* in the "battle front" of the game, not worrying about any "missile" coming from beyond the horizon. It seems to be the perfect balance between mobility and elegance, dynamics and aesthetics, power and race in a Shatranj-like game!
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Shatranj Kamil (64) is my recent attempt at providing a comprehensive set of rules for Shatranj variants.
Consider the endgame position White: King (c1), Knight (a6) Black: King (a1), Pawn (a3). White can force checkmate with 1.Nb4 a2 2.Nc2, or stalemate with 2.Kc2.
If White choses to play 2.Na6 instead, then, under the variant rule that Pritchard cites, the Black king can escape stalemate by transposing with the Black Pawn. Question: under the rules of Nilakantha's Intellectual Game (web page by John Ayer) can Black 'slay the piece of the enemy in his vicinity which imprisons him'? That piece is the White King!