Ratings & Comments

Just a guess, but this kind of version of shogi (i.e. of board size 11x11) might make for the optimally largest board size, if it's desired that games not take arguably too many moves in an average well-played game. I also don't know if Wa Shogi with drops would give computer engines a harder time if they played vs. people than would be the case for regular (9x9) shogi. Maybe Wa Shogi with drops would be hopeless for human players, in the long run in any case, if they're faced with a self-teaching machine.

Also, in the past I've noticed a game where a leading (and still active) Game Courier player remarked that he could not find anywhere to play Wa Shogi with drops against people online, which is the way I think I would much prefer to play it if I ever could give this well-tested game a try on Game Courier. At the moment there is no preset for Wa Shogi, with or without drops.

@ H.G:  In case you've not noticed, the setup diagram for this Wa Shogi rules page currently is not showing up for some reason.

Thanks for the offer, wdtr2. I'll try to get around to making an unofficial preset for my (8x10) Officer Chess idea when I'm a bit less tired and also have more time.

@Greg

I have edited my previous comment with the needed information.

Good luck!

Thank you for noticing and your comment Nicolino. Mr Muller posted it here at my request. I only have an android phone and have not tried to submit my own rule pages. My idea with Grand Tamerlane, Grand Chu Shogi and Grand Courier is to make a basic set for beginners. Grand Chess and Eurasian Chess would round out the set. 

Thanks Greg,

For me:

Courier Chess Moderno 2;

Metamachy 4;

Symetric Chess 3;

Collosus 2;

Hectochess: 3;

Falcon Chess 4;

Gross chess 4;

Odin's rune chess 1;

Grand Shatranj D 2;

Janus Kamil Chess 3;

Maorider Chess 4;

Elven Chess 3;

Decima 4;

Sac Chess 1;

Unicorn Great Chess 3;

Heroes Hexagonal chess 1;

Tess Chess 1;

Opulent chess 4;

Shako Balbo 4;

@HG Muller

This is Grand Tamerlane Chess, not Grand Chu Chess

Thanks for the replies guys, however critical. The theme I had in mind with this Officer Chess variant idea is basically the same as what I had with Sac Chess, namely the standard chess pieces plus the classic compound piece(s) (i.e. crowned or knighted versions of the standard chess pieces). For Officer Chess I added in two more compounds, each triple compound pieces, to try to logically complete the classic bunch of crowned and knighted compounds (plus standard chess pieces).

As I wrote earlier, I originally wished to have two each of all the compounds (not counting the queen by itself), but that didn't work out on 12x10. It could work out on 12x12, but as a rule I don't think that board size would be remotely attractive except when played online rather than on a physical board. Not only that, but on 12x12 the Ns have rather a short reach, and somehow I'd rather have more camel/wizard type pieces, as in Gross Chess, which is a fine game (for online at the least, indisputably in my eyes). Also, a game played of a 12x12 version of Officer Chess might last way too many moves on average if played well enough, I fear, if armies of 36 units each are used. Note that castling is possible, along the second rank, for the (8x10) Officer Chess idea I'm still contemplating, though my doubts are now increased. Substantially modifying it would take more thought and work though, and it would become a different variant idea altogether.

With Officer Chess I had some hope of doing something fairly quick and dirty, else just forget it (or modify after a taking a break). Note that the popular (10x10) Sac Chess has not one but two amazons per army. I thank H.G. again for putting together a software package long ago that included that variant, though perhaps he has had a change of heart since regarding the merits of that game. Fergus has favorited it on this CVP website, which I consider a considerable endorsement, especially as Fergus also has the customary inclination to avoid including amazons in any variant as a rule (at least such a powerful piece type is on a considerably large board, in the case of Sac Chess). Aurelian's support for the (8x10) Officer Chess is encouraging, if I have any lingering doubts about just junking the idea, which is basically Sac Chess on a somewhat smaller board (perhaps allowing for shorter games on average, which is a plus). I'm not afraid to use a lot of super-pieces, as in chess major piece middlegames and endgames are often very exciting, for both players and spectators - and may lead to more decisive games.

Ok, I have set the Max Time to 4 weeks and removed Apothecary as requested.  It looks like we might have around 8 players.  For anyone interested in playing, please rate each of these games with a value between 0 and 4.  Use 0 for a game you really, really don't want to play and a 4 for a game you really do want to play.  There are no limits - you could rate everything a 4 if you wanted to, but doing so would not accomplish anything.  Basically I'm going to total up the points for each game.  I will try not to include any games that have been given a 0, so if two games are very close in score, I may pick the lower rated one if it received no 0 ratings while the other one did.  So please use the 0 rating sparingly as that is basically a veto (unless lots of games get zeros.)

Please send me your ratings by email: [email protected]

I just see a few useless pieces. 1 rook, bishop, and knight (the standard ones) are superfluous. You already have one of them and then a king compound of the same piece. And if you remove the amazon you can get rid of four and it may make it easier to slim the game down evenly (even if I do like the piece and would love to see it in there somehow if it can be done without resorting to a weird board shape). 

But other than that it seems fine. I'd just simplify it that little bit and probably put the king in the back to allow for some castling. Then it's a little more like regular chess, albeit with a compound of every piece. 

I'm stil playing that has not changed :)!

This game makes for a fine blend of two already interesting games.

At first when playing I felt like I was starting out missing an important pawn, but then I remembered that in chess, the Exchange Variation of the French Defence can produce plenty of interesting and decisive games, even between strong players.

Interesting board shape. I'm currently not absolutely sure that bishops are quite as strong as rooks, on average.

I'm willing to play in this 2019 GC tournament. I'm happy with my Sac Chess variant invention being proposed for inclusion in the tournament.

Note that my email address is still found on my CVP personal info page; however, it's been a long time since I've been sent automated messages, e.g. reminding me whenever it is my turn to move in a game (to tell the truth, I don't miss the clutter in my email inbox that that causes).

For any questions, contact [email protected] or post here.

@John Davis: BTW, what is your opinion about the chess variant 'Scirocco'? This also seems heavily Chu-Shogi inspired, except that rather than doing away with all the piece promotions, like you did, it seems to put even more emphasis on those. The piece designs used in the article here are of course awful, hardly any better than writing the name on them in kanji. (I guess this would be enough to discourage anyone from trying it...) But I made an implementation of it in Jocly ( http://hgm.nubati.net/jocly ) using chess-style pieces, and it was possible to shape most of the pieces such that it would be quite easy to recognize / remember how they move, for someone with a bit of knowledge on chess variants (i.e. who knows about Ferz, Wazir, Alfil, Dabbaba, Camel and Zebra).

This is the (corrected) Interactive Diagram for Grand Chu Chess. I guess I hadn't looked carefully at the coordinates of the Stag, as I expected the setup to be Grand-Chess-like, with empty squares on the second rank.

To H G, thank you for your efforts, but one small mistake, the Stags should start on the second rank next to the Rooks. This thread is not the appropriate place to carry on. Would you please post the interactive diagram of Grand Chu Shogi as a comment on my Grand Tamerlane page and post the link to the jocly Scirocco on the Scirocco comment page. I will post my thoughts on Scirocco on it's comments page.

Ideally, I want to treat Metamachy as a game in which White has the first move of the first turn but Black has a special setup move before White moves. The trouble is that the more complicated Game Courier has gotten, the more difficult it has become to change how it behaves. I have some ideas for what to do, but I also worry about breaking things to get it done. It also takes a lot of inspection of the code to figure out how it works and what can be changed. Some of my ideas might also be useful for supporting multi-player games, but that's another thing I have not added yet because of the difficulty in doing so.

Ah, sorry, I had forgotten all about that. I read back on it now, and it definitely seems a variant that deserves an article here.

Thank you Greg, the short answer is I prefer your array, Grand Betza Stong. The long answer. After my game of Chess on a Really Big Board with Georg Spengler, we both decided that the Rose was a horrible piece. Then I was mortified to find that our game is still on the Wikipedia page for CoaRBB. The Rhino is also mentioned in the article for the game and I wanted to try playing with that piece. With the Rhino being a slider, I hoped it would be less obnoxious then the Nightrider and a full major piece . I also wanted to play with the Phoenix and Kirin, and the number of pieces suggested a 10x10 board for a good piece density. This was my first attempt at an array from scratch and the Grand Betza array seems to favor white to much. If you don't wish to have your name attached to it, I'm ok, but I much prefer your array and would like to have it as the official array for a published preset under either Grand Betza or Grand Betza Strong, your choice. 

Well, I guess black logically is the first player in Metamachy. Don't you have the same problem in Shogi?