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Enlarged and Improved Chess. Early large-board variant from Holland.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Sun, Apr 11, 2021 06:21 PM UTC in reply to Jörg Knappen from Sat Apr 10 10:54 PM:

good finding Danke schön


Jörg Knappen wrote on Sat, Apr 10, 2021 10:54 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Mon Jan 25 01:07 PM:

When you can read German in Fraktur printing, this digitised book shows the variant under the title "Vom vermehrten und vergrößerten Schachspiele, genannt das Spanische":

https://books.google.de/books?id=dv1dAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=%22Bickelheringe%22&source=bl&ots=KlPjbEnTRs&sig=ACfU3U3_0lJIKKQ5eITSb4KYJPxccK0v7g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7-taS1vTvAhXRgf0HHUEmCxAQ6AEwAXoECAMQAw#v=onepage&q=%22Bickelheringe%22&f=false

It gives interesting German translations of the piece names, the Bishop is a "Bickelhering" (a fool in commedy), the Ensign is a Fähnrich, and the Guard is a Trabant.


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 25, 2021 01:07 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 12:55 PM:

Commoner, Knight and Kight all tested as equally valuable, from an opening position. (E.g. when I replaced the Knights of one player by Commoners it did not affect the win rates.)


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Mon, Jan 25, 2021 12:55 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 09:45 AM:

Excellent post, thank you for this analysis. What is value of the Kning in FIDE contest? (You said 1/2 Pawn more than other combinations, which ones? The Kight?)


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 25, 2021 09:45 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Sun Jan 24 08:14 PM:

I did once measure the value of the Kneen and the Quight. This confirmed what I had also observed in divegring short-range leapers: roughly 2/3 of the value of a piece is determined by its captures, 1/3 by its non-captures. The value of the Quight was thus about 5, and that of the Kneen about 7 Pawns, in a FIDE context.

I did observe an interesting irregularity, though: testing divergent compounds of Knight and Commoner, which themselves test as nearly equal in value, the combination mNcK (Kning?) proved to be about half a Pawn stronger than the other combinations. I suspect that there are some penalties and bonuses on the move pattern as a whole, which happen to cancel each other, so that its value is in the end not much different from that of other 8-target leapers. The K move set is very poor on 'speed', but very good on 'concentration' (i.e. lots of orthogonal contacts between the target squares). Speed seems to be mainly important on non-captures, determining how many turns you will need to reach the location where you are needed (such as a promotion square). Concentration seems to be mainly important for captures, determining whether you can attack Pawns in such a way that they cannot simply move away, and whether the piece has mating potential. The Kning thus has the best of both worlds: the Knight move provides the speed, and the King captures the concentration.


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Mon, Jan 25, 2021 08:38 AM UTC in reply to Christine Bagley-Jones from 01:19 AM:

Sure, I am the one who is making most updates on this page :=)


Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Mon, Jan 25, 2021 01:19 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Sun Jan 24 08:14 PM:

Yes, i see the names 'Biok' and 'Roshop' and also the 'Quight' and 'Kneen' on the Wiki fairy piece page ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece#:~:text=A%20fairy%20chess%20piece%2C%20variant,in%20the%20way%20they%20move.


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Sun, Jan 24, 2021 08:14 PM UTC:

V.R.Parton also was interested in these divergent pieces. He used the "Biok" (mBcR) and the "Roshop" (mRcB) in his Half-Queen's chess. The Biok is a name that was invented by Lewis Carroll. Parton also proposed a Quight (mQcN) and a Kneen (mNcQ).

The Enlarger and Improved Chess is also described in my book A World Of Chess. It seems to have appeared in Dutch edition of a treatise by Greco circa 1696. Interestingly, modern Chess had barely two hundred years only, so this game is one of the earliest variants of modern chess.


Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Sun, Jan 24, 2021 01:57 PM UTC:

So with this here, we have the info 'From Holland, 1696. Guards move as rooks, capture as bishops. Ensigns move as bishops, capture as rooks.' This page here .. http://www.quadibloc.com/chess/ch0502.htm

it says here .. 'D. B. Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants brought to my attention an extended form of Chess from 1696, called Enlarged and Improved Chess.' (And further down the page, we have) ... 'the two added pieces were the Ensign, a Bishop-mover/Rook-capturer, and the Guard, a Rook-mover/Bishop-capturer.'

So, these two pieces sound exactly like the ones in this game yeah, https://www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/thinktank.html

The Bisroo - Bishop-mover/Rook-capturer

The Roobis - Rook-mover/Bishop-capturer

that is correct yes, hopefully i got it right lol


Michael Farris wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2004 05:06 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Intriguing! Is there an article on these 'semi-combinative' pieces?

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