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I have attempted to analyze this piece using Zillions, but the program values it almost as much as a Queen, neglecting the fact that it can't capture. Thus, a human player can win either side easily. Rook vs. Ghost seems like it should be a draw with perfect play, but I have managed to win with it.
Zillions rates pieces based on mobility; even though this piece can not capture, the fact that it is very mobile makes zillions thing 'Wow. Look at all the squares this piece can move to! It must be extremely valuable!'
On subject lately of switching, swapping and Betza's Wand One of Teleportation, RBetza's Black Ghost(1996) introduces a weak teleporting piece here. To balance the first-move advantage for White is the object. There are GC Presets for Black Ghost because we played one. Black Ghost is a disrupter able to make two-move sequences unexpectedly out of straightforward attack. As boards now go to 8x10 and 10x10(9x9,9x10,12x12) primarily larger, it may be interesting to give Black Ghost more power. In 1990's Betza had serious reforms for standard 8x8 like this, whereas by 2001-2003 his style was more free-form, fanciful, and sarcastic. How weak can a piece get? Weaker, because as Jeremy Good has started to catalogue, there are pieces of negative value. This Comment leads into pieces of negative value because Betza himself has some. Besides, there are other very weak pieces in Betza we may take up first.
Among most of those with whom I've playtested this game, there is an impression verging on consensus that the Black Ghost is too powerful, that it more than overcomes the first move priority. The idea though is still a very nice one.
The way the current Black Ghost game is, barring a blunder by Black, I believe his Black Ghost side will always win.
I added a version with a White Ghost on c3, d3, e3 or f3 and a Black Ghost on hand in this zrf.
I strongly support the idea of having a White Ghost on a central square and a Black Ghost on hand. Maybe the original Black Ghost variant is not as good as I had thought...
Well, I wouldn't know about that, and I also doubt the statement that this game would be 'always won for black'. (That would make the Ghost significantly more valuable than a Pawn, as Pawn odds at worst reduced your score against an equal opponent to ~30%.) I can comment on the puzzles coined on this page, however: KNNKG seems a general draw. At first glance this is a bit surprising: KNNK under rules where black can pass his turn is generally won. The trick seems to be that the Ghost can hinder the Knights in going where they have to go to drive the black King to the corner. It throws itself into the path of the Knights like a kamikaze, knowing that it cannot be captured because KNN is always draw. It needs a certain agility to be able to hold off the mate; a non-capturing Dragon Horse (RF) is not strong enough to prevent a general win for the Knights, but a non-capturing Queen is enough to let the number of wtm wins drop to below 30%. KRKG is in general a draw; when the black King is already driven back to the 7th or 8th rank, however, it seems winnable.
I played Black Ghost with Jeremy Good, and we found that the ghost was far more powerful than it looked. The point, I think, is that the ghost can frustrate action by white that took some moves to prep, and thus black gains tempo. In the hands of a good player, this is often decisive, especially if white is left out of position.
Well, I will see if I can play-test it with Fairy-Max. It seems a very expensive piece, in terms of branching ratio. I guess that to not explode the search tree, I would need to apply extra search-depth reduction to Ghost moves. I see that there was a proposal to rename the piece. The name 'Journalist' suggests itself. Going everywhere, and getting in everybody's way! :-)
H.G., 'Journalist' is an excellent name, exactly as you've described it! ;-)
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