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Venomous. New system of chess on 10x10 board with new pieces: the Sorcerer Snake and the even more venomous Sissa. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Carlos Cetina wrote on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 07:29 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I cannot less than celebrate, Charles, your choice of including the sissa in one of your game designs. Excellent!

Certainly, this piece has not been adequately explored in other chess systems. I have had the oportunity of seeing some of its peculiarities on an 8x8 board starting from the randomly positions of my Cetina Random Chess and Cetran Chess 2 proposals.

'Instead of boring the player with arcane references to complex, convoluted, and contrived theoretical jargon,...', as you just say, I would like to show here some samples of THE SISSA IN ACTION!

At the following position White to move:

White moves Sc1+ [moving path: d1-c2-c1 or d1-d2-c1 / checking path: c1-h1-c6]:

At the same time the sissa is menacing the rook by c1-c2-b3 or c1-b2-b3. Obviously if Blue moves his king, would lose his rook. Fortunately Blue has salvation by moving Rf3 that obstructs the h1-c6 diagonal, interrupting, cutting the check:

At the following position Blue to move:

In the real game Blue moved Kd5, but what would happen if he moves c4?...

... White would make Sa5+...

... moving path: b3-a4-a5 / checking path: a5-b5-c6. Notice that the sissa covers both b5 (a5-a6-b5 or a5-a4-b5) and d5 (a5-a8-d5). Blue is losing his pawn on c4, so Kc5 is unique...

But now White makes the surprising and spectacular movement Se5+!

Moving path: a5-a1-e5 / Checking path: e5-c7-c5 or e5-e7-c5 or e5-e3-c5.

The sissa covers
b5 by e5-e8-b5;
c6 by e5-d5-c6 or e5-d6-c6 and
d5 by e5-d6-d5 or e5-d4-d5 or e5-e6-d5 or e5-e4-d5.

Blue has two options: Kd6 and Kd4. If makes Kd6, obviously would lose his pawn on c4. And if he makes Kd4? Let's see it:

Then White wins the rook by moving Sd7+...

...moving path: e5-e6-d7 or e5-d6-d7 / checking path: d7-g7-d4 or d7-g4-d4. The rook is captured by d7-c7-b6 or d7-c6-b6.

Viewing these examples of what the sissa can do on an 8x8 board, we can hope reasonably that on a 10x10 its powerful will be increased greatly, overall by acting in combination with the remain venomous pieces.


💡📝Charles Daniel wrote on Fri, Jul 3, 2009 05:14 PM UTC:
thanks for your comment Carlos. You might also be interested in these opening moves involving the Sissa.

Jose Carrillo wrote on Sun, Jul 5, 2009 12:45 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Good to see the Sissa in action again! Love the new symbol for the Sissa!

Very interesting new piece the Sorcerer Snake... It feels like a longer range Knight, yet it's not a leaper, and is a cousin of the Sissa, as the path to it's destination square must be unobstructed.

The Sorcerer Snake's movement is actually easy to learn, and understanding it can make it easier for beginers to learn the more complex movement of the powerful Sissa.

Well done Charles!

PD. Just curious why didn't you also improved the Bishops and made them Wazir-Bishops (since you improved the Knights)?

💡📝Charles Daniel wrote on Sun, Jul 5, 2009 07:39 PM UTC:
Thanks for your comment Jose. In response to your question - The bishops are already a bit stronger on a 10x10 board so maybe don't need improving, while a regular knight is a bit weaker. On 10x10, Zillions rates the wazir-knight a half pawn more than the bishop and the regular knight almost a pawn less than the bishop. So WN=B+1/2P; B=N+P; WN > FN > B > N

George Duke wrote on Mon, Jul 6, 2009 06:38 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
This looks pretty good, but I do not like Ninja Pawns, unlikely ever to have wide appreciation. Interestingly they gain strength in boards' upper half. Sissa goes well with (N+Zebra)-hybrid. Upwards of fifteen CVs in Pritchard's 'ECV' use (N+Z) going back 100 years. They are mostly leapers exclusively. Differently, a couple of them require Knight-space clear, to either stop there or optionally slide one more to Zebra(2,3). These mostly have accompanying (N+Camel) separate piece. So straight two-path  is unique and creditable. This Snake(N2,Z2) amounts to Moo (1960s) plus two pathways of Falcon's (1992) six in legitimate tinkering. The companion piece-type Moo + two-path Camel is obvious follow-up, and expect to see it in the spirit of proliferation. In 'ECV' (N+Z) is not the commonest compound, which would be among RN, BN, and RB, but (N+Z) is in the top 50 for frequency; others like K+N,AD,AND,WAD would be a lot higher. Truelove's can validate accuracy of the last sentence. Both (Moo+Zebra) and (Moo+Camel) are logical complements themselves to further Sissa for 10x10 Track II material. Remember Track I and Track II are not value judgments, but I OrthoChess replacements-to-be and II CV art per se. I think this Venomous could be as good as Centennial and number of other 10x10s. If we were ever rating precisely, we  need scale 1 to 1000. Then if we get 'goods' as the highest '10x10s' so far, they would cluster like 650, 645, 639, 637, many really close together. I do not think '10x10' is yet ''solved,'' as '8x10' is already solved, until there are one or two that get 900 out of the 1000. As Hutnik says, 2c=2c=2c; or does it really?

Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Jul 7, 2009 05:23 AM UTC:
Nice-looking game, Charles. I do have to point out though, that the sorcerer snake has the same footprint, although not the same movement pattern, as the Nahbi, used in Nahbi Chess and designed by Uri Bruck for the 1999 Large Variant Contest. The Nahbi is a slider. It slides 2 squares diagonally in a straight line, then must step 1 square orthogonally, in any direction. It is clearly weaker than the snake, but by how much?

💡📝Charles Daniel wrote on Tue, Jul 7, 2009 04:54 PM UTC:
Thanks for you comments Joe and George. Regarding George Duke’s  ninja pawn comments: It is true that the complexity of the rules and/or the drop mechanism may put off some players, but the upside is a much greater scope for pawn play. Weakened pawns and pawn chains are characteristics of large board chess. Faster standard pawns and Ninja Pawns address this drawback as well as providing richer and unique endgame scenarios. The threat of quick promotion (by moving 2 steps forward) and ninja pawn lateral capture add substantial power to advanced pawns or ninja pawns in enemy territory. 
     Interestingly, Nahbi Chess mentioned by Joe, allows standard pawn to move sideways on enemy half of board, but this may not be sufficient to overcome the inherent weakness of pawns on larger boards. On Nahbi vs Sorcerer Snake: the Nahbi allows one path to destination squares so can be blocked easier while the Sorcerer Snake can choose an alternative path and is a bit harder to block.  On a crowded board, this difference can be substantial, on a more empty board not so much.

Georg Spengler wrote on Mon, Mar 16, 2015 10:13 AM UTC:
There should be a rule: don't post games with undefended pawns in the starting array!

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