Ratings & Comments

Today I was thinking about large board variants and their typical "two step" pawn-at-any-time option and "three step pawns" and I thought of a possible idea for pawn movement in general, for ALL board sizes, even 8x8 or smaller.  The main idea is a way of speeding up the game and giving pawns just a bit more power at the right time, while keeping some restraints.

So here it is: what's to stop us from playing with pawns that can slide straight forward as far as they want?  They still capture only one square diagonally.  My added rule is this: ANY piece or pawn can capture en passant at any square that it just moved through.

1. e5 looks too powerful for White as a first move, but what about 1. .... d4 as a response?  If e x d6 e.p. then Qxd6.  Black isn't hopeless here. 

Admitedly I haven't studied it much or played it, but let's discuss!

Can anyone verify for me that the preset for Korean Chess on Game Courier does not use komi rules (that is, take into account total piece values per side to decide who would win a game that is otherwise unwinnable for either side)?

Looking at the rules page for Korean Chess, it seems komi rules are only used for official Korean Chess tournaments (wikipedia notes this even more explicitly).

I am ahead by a very large amount of material in terms of piece values in an endgame in one game (useless for winning without komi rules, in this particular case, it seems). Besides this being a bit of a waste, and a shame for the game of Korean Chess itself (i.e. without the use of komi rules), what concerns me also is there seems no way to guarantee properly ending the game without agreeing to a draw (e.g. no 50 move rule, unless I forgot it).

I am a bit worried about this paragraph that states a dropped Rook is considered virgin (and thus fit for castling). As far as I know there doesn't exist any on-line server that uses this rule, or any engine that plays by this rule. It is also a very weird rule: when you move a Rook you lose castling rights, and moving it back to a corner normally doesn't restore them. And a drop move is a move like any other.

It looks as though Round 2 is nearly about to draw to a close. Any idea when the rule-enforcing presets for Metamachy and Symmetric Chess will be ready for us?

I've been racking my brain lately trying to come up with a good 12x8 variant (or maybe even larger) that besides having the FIDE army per side includes the Archbishop and Chancellor piece types (as Sosarian Chess does, here), with very few other piece types added as well. Eric Greenwood wrote on his ArchCourier Chess rules page that he couldn't make these criteria work together for him (on 12x8), to his satisfaction.

I've noticed that there are 3(!) presets for Sosarian Chess, each with slightly different setups. The one I prefer (as apparently does Greg, based on a comment in a game of his with Jeremy Good) is the setup with White: Q on a1, A on f1 and C on l1, with Black placed similarly; this particular preset is called 'SosarianChess' (no space between the two words).

There's also a setup that was unintended to be used (again based on a comment by Greg in said game with Jeremy Good), a preset that has 2 A's and a C (no Q) per side; this particular preset is called 'Sosarian'.

Finally, there is a preset with White: A on a1, Q on f1 and C on l1, with Black placed similarly; this particular preset is called 'Standard'.

The reason I prefer the same setup as Greg (to the 'standard' one) is, in addition to his one, in a comment to Jeremy (that the Q helps guard an edge pawn again, in the setup), I like that an A on f1 can discourage the Black C (on l8) from developing to k6, since White can push the pawn in front of his king, as soon as move one, if he wishes to. Thus the setup helps keep the Chancellors from always developing to the k-file by a knight leap, followed by an unfortunate exchange of these pieces on said file, which could be a waste of their presence in the setup.

So, aside from agreeing that the SosarianChess preset has the best setup, and should be preferred, I found the choice of Lions as the added piece type (compared to 10x8 Capablanca Chess, etc) interesting. I'd quickly estimate the piece type to be worth about 4.75 on 12x8. Its ability to leap 2 squares orthogonally (besides 3) comes in handy, as it can go to the third rank and still be protected by a pawn. Since it also moves like a ferz, it usefully guards pawns in the setup.

One thing I've been undecided on is whether to have some sort of fast castling rules (as in my earlier 12x8 Wide Chess) for any board that's wide - no one has recently commented on whether they like such a rule, but for my 12x8 variants so far people seem to have voted with their feet (unless some other features were unattractive, alternatively). Anyway, Sosarian Chess deals with this issue by having the rooks each one file closer to the centre, and then retaining Capablanca Chess style castling rules (I observed this from a comment by Greg to Jeremy, when I was seeking confirmation). Based on Greg's (longer) game with Jeremy, the latter was on the verge of actually castling at one point, and so it seems Greg's way of handling the castling issue may be fully feasible.

No one has played this variant in a long time, maybe partly because of confusion about what the setup position should be (a tidying up of the presets at some point would clear that up, unless there was meant to be a choice offered if players preferred). It looks like it could be a very fun game, albeit one with a lot of powerful pieces and kings that may feel insecure often at the start. That's in spite of the queen(s) possibly being a little buried for a while at the start of a given game, with my favourite setup being used.

[edit: Here's a link that currently includes the 3 presets I mentioned above for this variant (Sosarian Chess):]

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/settings.php?author=mageofmaple

[edit: Here's a link that gives all finished games of Sosarian Chess (regardless of preset used in a given game):]

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/logs.php?game=Sosarian+Chess&age=0&stat=finished

Does anyone know if this variant has been tested much over-the-board or online? Superficially, it looks like if a player castled (especially kingside, with the enemy queen beaming in to the l-pawn's home square right from the setup), he might routinely get destroyed by an attack based almost on long diagonals alone. In any case, the opposing bishops are beaming at each other's home squares in the setup, which may be seen as undesirable (though for 12x8 variants with the inclusion of bishops, some sort of tradeoff(s) may always have to be made when it comes to choosing a setup).

Hey, this is softburritoz, I commented below about not recieving the email password, and I am still not receiving it, I couldn't delete that other account because after a few days it wouldn't let me because I wasn't claimed as the owner anymore. Any reason why the password email isn't sending?

Fergus started working on Metamachy but I don't know where that sits.  I have been planning on taking a stab at Symmetric but haven't started yet.  I will make a concerted attempt probably starting tomorrow.  Aside from the tournament, this is one of the most played games on Game Courier so it should have a rule-enforcing preset.  Whether or not I succeed will depend on how difficult I find it.  The Bishop Conversion Rule is a little tricky and I find game courier code pretty difficult to work with.

Hi Kevin.  Thanks for your interest in Sosarian Chess.  Yes, this is one of my many unfinished projects.  I still need to determine the optimum starting array.  I think the array is incredibly important and very hard to get right.  Ideally you want there to be lots of different opening options that are still balanced.  Orthodox Chess clearly has this, but it si not a given, it si because the starting array is perfect.  Sosarian is trickier both because there are more pieces, and thus more options, but also because the Lions, with their (3, 0) leap, can potentially harass enemy pieces almost immediately.  Imageine a Lion starting on the b file.  It could leap to b4 on the first move and on the next move go to a5 where it traps and kills the archishop.

I do want to revisit this soon and do some analysis to determine the best layout.  Fortunately I now have tools that do that pretty well.  Sneak preview - I am about to change the starting array for Opulent Chess.  I had determined that array with computer assistance, but that was about 15 years ago and now with better software and hardware I have determined that it is definitely inferior.  So I will post an update soon swapping the knight and bishop.

If one wanted to play Sosarian right now, I would agree that the current best array is the one you mention with the archbishop beside the king and the queen and chancellor in the corners.  Flexible castling rule - king slides two or more squares towards the rook, which jumps over to the first square on the other side, subject to the usual restrictions.  Pawns promote on the last rank to Queen, Chancellor, or Archbishop, but not to any lesser piece.

I posted an invite if you would like to play

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After a period of experimentation and looking at the How to Program Multi-Move Variants for Game Courier documentation, I managed to create a preset for my game Suzumu Shogi that can enforce rules for piece movement, display legal moves, and correctly handle both single moves and double moves. I am quite proud of it, actually.

However, no matter how hard I try, I cannot get the preset to correctly handle all promotions. The systems I came up with could handle promotions after a single move, but when the preset used the askpromote command to determine a promotion after a double move, the code would exit with an error message where the last move made had the first move in the sequence repeated. Any advice on how I should handle this would be greatly appreciated.

The preset for the game can be found here (Note that it does not support promotions): https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DSuzumu+Shogi%26settings%3Ddefault

Yes, this game has no page because I never really released it.  It should be considered "beta" :)

Once I'm satisified with the opening array, I'll release it.

I now have a working preset for Metamachy at this URL:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DMetamachy%26settings%3Ddefault

Just to make sure everything is working, it could use some beta-testing before it's used in the tournament.

This is a big game of the sort I'm not too familiar with. It would help if you would play a game against yourself up until the promotion move you're having trouble with, then give me a link to the game, so that I can try to figure out something.

New Metamachy rule-enforcing preset: After brief testing of en passant and initial king move...

I was unable to make any en passant captures using white pawns on ranks 6, 7, and 8. I was able to make normal en passant captures with white pawns on ranks 4 and 5. More interestingly, I was able to make illegal en passant captures with white pawns on ranks 4 and 5. By illegal, I mean that: a black pawn that can be captured normally by a white pawn makes a double-move; White on his next turn is allowed to take that pawn en passant illegally. I was able to make legal en passant captures with black pawns on all squares tested. I was also able to make the illegal en passant captures with black pawns on all squares.

The initial king 2-square move doesn't seem to work.

Will keep testing...

It seems that posting kibbitz comments isn't available anymore?

I made some more fixes to the King's two-space leap in the subroutines for moving the King. They now give informative messages about particular reasons why an illegal move is illegal. Since I used restore to check whether the King was in check, I went back to checking whether the destination space was empty.

The last Kibbitz comment was 438 days ago. When I got rid of the play subdomain and put everything on one main domain, I started using the same footers for all pages. It looks like I did not add Kibbitzing code to the main footer that replaced the play subdomain's footer. I'll get on that in a while.

King 2-space leap appears to be in order. All legal en passant captures can be made. However, one is still allowed to make incorrect en passant captures.

For example, if a white pawn is on c4 and a black pawn on d5, if White plays c4-c6, the preset still allows Black (incorrectly) to take d5-c4 en passant, removing the pawn on c6.

Here is an example of the error that comes up. Note that this only happens after I complete a double move with the mouse and the askpromote command is used after.

ILLEGAL: se 3f-4e; se 3f-4e; se 4e-5d; se$-dest on turn 3:

There was no se on 3f. It is an empty space.

Go back with your browser's BACK button, reload the page, and try again.

For diagnostic purposes, here is the full movelist:

1. se 5m-3k 
1... SE 12d-14f 
2. se 3k-3f 
2... SE 14f-14k 
3. se 3f-4e; se 3f-4e; se 4e-5d; se$-dest

In case there is a bug in the code, the settings file can be edited at play.php?game=Suzumu+Shogi&settings=promotest&submit=Edit

As you can see, the first part of the move somehow got repeated during evaluation, which, of course, shouldn't happen. I think it might have something to to with something in the Post-Move sections, but I could be wrong.

Interesting game. It begs some questions, however:

• What made you decide the move of the Demon and Jumping Generals in Tenjiku Shogi make that game 'unplayable'?
• Why do you prefer the standard Shogi promotion rule over the Chu Shogi rule?
• What is the point of disallowing a jump for the double King move of the Demon? The area move it has would be able to reach the same squares through multiple paths, and they are unlikely to be all blocked. Especially since any obstructing enemy can be destroyed in the process. So in practice it would only delay development of the Demon, when the latter is still behind a solid wall of own pieces. Which you probably would not want to develop very quickly anyway, valuable as it is. So it doesn't seem worth introducing a new type of move, rather than just taking Demon = Buffalo + Lion + Area Move.
• The value of the Demon with the move you give it would not nearly be 3 Jumping Generals. I am not even sure it is worth more than a single VG or GG (even when the latter have limited jumping power). The Lion power isn't worth that much, since most Tenjiku pieces are 'Lion proof' (i.e. have all King moves, so you cannot bring igui to bear on them as an attack). Note that some Tenjiku players value the Lion Hawk (as Bishop + full Lion) less than a Queen. BTW, the rule of thumb that a Demon is worth three Jumping Generals in Tenjiku Shogi only holds when these Generals are still able to inflict smothered mates, which can only be averted by giving a Demon back. Otherwise Demons that burn are priceless: losing one is losing the game. Conventional pieces have no defense against a Demon.