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'Area moves': a new class of moves[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Dec 13, 2017 09:25 AM UTC:

I came across the following innovative idea by Angel3D at chess.com:

Slider moves can be generalized by requiring they end in a certain rectangular area, (which could be the entire board), rather than on a ray through the square of origin, with the requirement that the rectangle spanned by their move (i.e. of which the square of origin and the destination are opposite corners) should not contain any pieces (other than the piece itself and a possible capture victim on the destination square). This way, an ordinary slider of range N would be an Nx1 area mover, as the 'area' that must be empty to allow the move is just the (1-wide) ray it moves along. But real area movers have both their ranges larger than 1.

On an empty board such area movers are reminiscent of hook movers (which make the sliding move twice, in perpedicular directions). But they are in fact much weaker (or, to put it in perspective, not as insanely strong), as they can be easily blocked, because the entire rectangle they 'sweep' should be empty, while for a hook mover only the two edges of the rectangle it travels have to be empty.

The idea can be combined with virtually all existing move concepts: you can have diagonal area movers, sweeping 45-degree rotated rectangles (i.e. the 'conjugates' of the orthogonal ones), limited-range area movers characterized by two ranges, area riders based on elementary steps that jump over squares, lame area riders that are even blocked by pieces inside the swept rectangle on squares they cannot not visit, area hoppers, which must leave exactly one piece in the swept area, etc.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Wed, Dec 13, 2017 11:26 AM UTC:

And I lost my long beatifull comment because of not being lgged on, silly me I guess :(! But stay tunned, I'll write it again :)!


Aurelian Florea wrote on Wed, Dec 13, 2017 12:23 PM UTC:

I lost my comment for a second time, this is becomming anoying as now my bowser seemed to have just refreshed for no reason :(! It is surelly not somthing form the website but still :(!


Ben Reiniger wrote on Wed, Dec 13, 2017 05:54 PM UTC:

This idea has surfaced before.  I remember it from Prince, the Base and its relatives.  The more general idea that "a rook blocks lines (from king passage) in 2D" should generalize to "a rook(ish thing) should block planes (from king passage) in 3D" has come up more often, not always with the blocking criterion now being discussed.


H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Dec 14, 2017 08:55 AM UTC:

Indeed, the 'Base' in Prince uses exactly this idea. Note, however, that this is in the context of 3D boards, while the idea as I reported it was supposed to be for ordinary 2-dimensional variants.

I wonder why this idea is not encountered more often. If I had been aware of it earlier, I probably would have used a diagonal area mover in Team-Mate Chess. As in the end-game this must be a quite strong piece, while its color binding still prevents it from having mating potential.


HaruN Y wrote on Tue, Jan 30 11:58 AM UTC:

XBetza for Base on an 8x8: (abaqaq)W(afabafaqaq)afW(afafabafafaqaq)afafW(afafafabafafafaqaq)afafafW(afafafafabafafafafaqaq)afafafafW(afafafafafabafafafafafaqaq)afafafafafWR


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