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Comments by GaryK.Gifford
Royal Magician's Chess. Missing description (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Jeremy: I was mentioning 'motivation' in an implied reference to Fide Chess, where it is typically best to leave the King on the first rank [and castled] and only venture the King outward when, for example:(a) one is approaching the endgame, or (b) Queens and Rooks are off the board.
Hexagonal chess. Chess on a board, made out of hexes. Variant of Dave McCooey. (Cells: 91) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I think Glinski chose his pawn movements such that pawn chains would more closely resemble Fide Chess pawn chains. I chose the same movement for that reason in my Hexagonal Hole Chess. In the rules for that game I discuss both types of Hexagonal Pawn movements. Jonathan's logic also seems very probable.
I prefer that comments of little or no value not be posted. For example: comments such as Good - No reasons given; Below Average - No Reason given, Excellent - still no reason --- I ask, 'Of what value are such comments?' In the recent addition of several of these types of worthless comments the commentor remains anonymous (understandable). Note that there is a oomment for the Salmon P. Chess: It reads 'good,,but a bit confusing' so, why not ask for clarification on what is confusing? And why not state what is good?
Royal Magician's Chess. Missing description (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Thanks Christine, for the comment and question about zrf - There is no zrf in the works for this game; but if someone with the time and know-how wants to make one, I have no objection. On a different note, it should be noted that Jeremy Good deserves credit for making the pre-set... he actually made several and took time to ask me which one I liked best. Thanks again, Jeremy.
Pillars of Medusa. A variation of Turkish Great Chess plus two additional pieces, the Morph and the Medusa. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Jeremy: That is a fair question. The answer is 'Yes, Medusas can capture each other.' They cannot freeze each other. The following, somewhat related question, was asked long ago is included in the rules. 'Why can’t one Medusa turn another to stone?' Answer: Game testing indicated that Medusa immunity (from each other’s stares) provided for a much better game than would result from the Medusa’s turning each other to stone. Also, from a mythological stand point, Medusa had two sisters… they saw each other without turning to stone (mythological speaking, of course).
Three Elephant Chess. 
War Towers destroy 3 spaces at a time - protect your elephants while capturing your opponent's. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Peter: Thanks for taking time to comment. You wrote, 'although I have some minor doubts about the Stones -- in my experiance, these sorts of pieces can make endgames less fun by making them slower.' My response: I dislike endgames period, so a slower endgame would cetainly be a drag. However, since all pieces (including Spearmen' can move around Stones, I can't imagine them hindering the more powerful player by much. The Stone move slow, like a King... they can hardly ward off 4 War Towers, 2 Dragon Horses, a Queen, 2 Horses and 9 Spearmen. What they can do is provide temporary protection and make someone work a little harder at getting his (or her) attack to work. You also wrote: But actual play should show if this is the case or not. My response: I agree. And with much appreciation to Jeremy Good (pre-set builder)and Antoine Fourrière (who solved a Spearman directional problem) the pre-set for Three Elephant Chess is just about ready to go. I hope there will be a few games to watch and participate in. You also wrote: The War Tower has a slight resemblence to the Mad Elephent in Mad Elephant Chess. My response: I was not familiar with your Mad Elephant... but you are correct.... there is some similarity between it, my Catapults of Troy Ram, and the War Tower. Perhaps the most important differences are that the War Towers and Rams fall apart when used (1-time use). And War Towers only impact 3 spaces... but Rams take out everything, so they are perhaps more closely related to your wonderful Mad Elephant piece. You now have me interested in Mad Elephant Chess, so I will be looking it over later this evening. Thanks again for your comments. And also to Jeremy and Antoine for the pre-set work.
Mad Elephant Chess. Pawns can be turned into Elephants; Elephants can promote to Mad Elephants, and Mad Elephants can trample lines of pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This game reminds me of Shatranj with elephants raised on a diet of TNT and nitroglycerin. I have no doubt that it would make for a very fun 10 or 15 minute game using a chess-clock. Longer e-mail type games could require lots of deep thought and could result in some hair-pulling. I did notice a slight error in the rules. There is this statement, 'Elephants move like Alfils, a jump of two squares in any direction, leaping over any pieces that may occupy the first square.' It should state 'any diagonal direction' instead of 'any direction.' A clever idea.... perhaps there should be a pre-set so players could start getting rated at this wild game?
Three Elephant Chess. War Towers destroy 3 spaces at a time - protect your elephants while capturing your opponent's. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Roberto - thanks for the comment. It is much appreciated. In part you mention Stones slowing the game; and Peter mentioned this as well. The fact that two well-respected game designers/players mention this is important to me. So I must provide a few more of my thoughts on this subject: We must consider the 'Pawn aspect' of chess when discussing the progress of these games. I offer that 'Western Chess Pawns' will actually slow a game down more than the Stone / Spearmen 2:9 ratio mix we see here. Aaron Nimzovitch wrote an entire book on the subject of 'Blockade'... he illustrated how pawns could lock up a game. Such a lock up, slowing down a game, is good if you need a blockade to defend from attack... it is not so good if you are the one trying to get through the blockade. Now, back to 'Three Elephant Chess,' if it used Western Chess Pawns the game would be slower and adding Stones would slow things down, possibly to a stand still if it wasn't for the War Tower's ability to crash through. We also must consider the Spearmen that can change their direction of movement and capture. With War Towers and Spearmen we can have no solid pawn chains to provide a lasting blockade, even with the aid of stones. Of course, there is Theory and then there is Practice. We now will need to examine the practice aspect.
In my last comment, which diverged from Stones to Blockades and pawns, I neglected to mention this interesting scenario: we could have situations in which Spearmen on both sides will form somewhat of a demilitarized zone between them... so, unlike a pawn-chain-lock in Chess, here we could have two ranks of Spearmen facing each other, separated by an empty but vey hostile rank (with all those spears pointing inward). Players would need to use War Towers to tear through such barriers.
Grandmaster Adorjan wrote 2 books on the subject of black's supposed disadvantage due to the first move initiative. The first, 'Black is Okay!' (published by Batsford in 1988), it is a book dedicated to proving that Black has his full share of chances. The second, recently published, 'Black is Still Okay' has the same objective and offers more proof. I have a copy of the first book and must agree with the grandmaster. Adorjan's premise, is that “The tale of White's advantage is a delusion, belief in it is based on mass psychosis.” And I believe the current point scoring system is fine. If your opponent is 2200 rated and you are 1500 rated... I believe that you having white is not going to be of much help. A new scoring system would be grossly unfair as well. For there would be rounds inwhich players advance and neeed that extra point fraction offered by a black win (under the new system). Yet they are assigned the white pieces worth less if they win. Terrible. Also, there is the ratings factor... now a win against Player X with Black should get me more rating points than would a win against Player X with me as White. In effect, we'd need a black piece rating and a white piece rating. Again, Terrible in my opinion. To offset the small white initiative, change not the point system, instead increase your own playing strength.
A lengthy e-mail I received prompted me to add the following, in relation to my previous comment. When I used the word 'terrible' is was not meant to be directed at Jeremy Good's proposal in and of itself, but rather to situations which would result by applying that system to a Swiss type event. These are extremely popular because they can accommadate large numbers of players in a relatively small number of rounds. From the several USCF Swiss tournaments I've directed and played in, I cannot remotely imagine the new point system as being satisfactory to the majority of players [of the Swiss System]... primarily because a player can lose an event,simply because he (or she) won with white pieces in the last round.....and I contend that that is terrible. However, what I did not point out was that for a Match between 2 players Jeremy's idea seems interesting. In fact, I think I will calculate the Fischer-Spassky 1972 match using the Jeremy method, to see what result we get. Anyway I think Jeremy Good's new point system idea is fine for Matches and for this type of event: Round-Robbin 'Double-Game' -- where everyone plays everyone, once with black and once with white... such events are very rare due to time available. So, I apologize if it seemed I was attacking Jeremy's proposed system. What I really meant was it could result in terrible situations in Swiss System events.
I calculated the score from Fischer vs. Spassky, 1972 Chess World Championship using the following Jeremy Good proposal: Black Win: 4 points, White Win: 3 points Draw for Black: 2 points. Draw for White: 1 point. Loss: Zero point(s). Reults: Fischer: 41 Spassky: 30 (Jeremy's system) Fischer: 12.5 Spassky: 8.5 (Original system) Of course, White players would likely be less willing to draw knowing that they are effectively going down a point... but black would be very happy to play for a draw. I briefly discussed this information with a near master friend of mine moments ago. He likes Jeremy's idea and mention that similar proposals have been made before. He also sees that the Swiss System is not a valid platform for the new point system. Best regards to all...
In response to Derek Nalls' comment: Derek -you make good points... but I don't think Adjoran's intentions are to insult... but just to convey his idea that a pygmallion effect is going on (in his opinion). Statistical results do not disprove that such an effect is not at work... the subconcious is powerful. You also write, 'It is wise not to uncritically believe everything you read.' I agree.
Derek - you wrote, in part: 'White chooses and dictates the opening that black must defend against and so, shapes the entire game. White acts and black reacts as it must ... repeatedly.' Really? So, when white plays 1.e4 what is it exactly that Black has to play? e5, c5, a6, Nf6, d6, something else? I see no such control you describe by white. I do think you are imagining something here. In a tournament game my 200 point higher-rated white-pieced opponent played 1. e4... I did not feel the least bit controlled. I responded 1.... Nf6 (my very first Alekhine Defense in a tournament. Guess what Derek? I won, with black. A fluke? No, I win with black quite often. As Dennis Monokroussos has stated, 'what matters is that you have a good feel for the initiative. If you do and you know what you're doing in a given opening, then you will often find ways to seize the initiative, regardless of the opening.'
Jeremy, you are quite welcome for my brief comments. And I thank you for your interesting 'article.' On a somewhat related note, I think it would be interesting if players had 3 ratings calculted for Western Chess. Overall Rating, Black Rating, and White Rating. It would be interesting to see what players had for a rating when given the 'initiative of white.' Could a 2000 rated player (white rating) have a black rating of only 1800? I doubt that. If a player excelled at the French Defense as black, would that player likely have a higher black rating? Seems logical. When I played in the 9 round World Open in 1980, for example, I started all my Black defenses with e6 (going into French Defense patterns).... I lost no games with Black pieces (all wins, except 1 draw), and had one loss when playing White (a gruelling 7 hour long game), and one draw as white. Anyway, I would have emerged with a higher black rating. Of course, if I was worried about White's 'initiative' I'd likely not have done as well with black. In regard to your question about Adorjan's black/white results. No, I do not know what they are. But, I do know that Adorjan was qualifier for the Chess World Championship Candidates in 1980... unfortunately for him, he was eliminated by Huebner. Interested players can read about Adorjan and view many of his games (including many fantastic wins with black pieces) at this site: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=14589
I still disagree with the display of unqualified comments... simply because they offer no value. Good, Poor, or Excellent .... for example... If Good - what makes it good? What whould make it better? If Poor- then we certainly should know why it is poor. If someone says, 'Poor because I don't like the pink board.' Then that is different than 'Poor-because white has a forced mate-in 6 at the beginning of the game, here it is: _________' In the great game, Storm the Ivory Tower, by Fergus, there where many comments about the pieces and board design. These were constructive and several nice board and piece options resulted. That is just one example, of course. In closing, it is ironic that game comments receive more detailed comments than most games do.
Chess Variant Pages Rating System. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]It is good to see a well-thoughtout proposal which actually requires that the raters play at least one game of what they are to evaluate... of course I already imagine there will be complainers. Of the system's steps, I really like number 4, which says a lot, and I quote: 4. Any ratings submitted would have to be accompanied by a textual explanation explaining the reasons for the particular ratings. Only after review by the editorial staff would a rating be accepted. Raters must have played at least one game of the variant they are rating. Very nice David. Well done and well written.
Related to the proposed 'Ferris Wheel' Piece (in the recent Joe Joyce ELK comment, is the Proteus 6-sided dice piece. Proteus is a dice-based chess variant by Steve Jackson. It is played on a standard chess board. Each side has 8 dice with a different piece on each face. You start with 8 pawns, but each turn you get to change one of your dice to a more powerful piece, or a level down (so a Pawn could turn into a moveless, captureless Pyramid or a Bishop. As pieces become more powerful, they become worth more points to your opponent. You win by points or when your opponent cannot make the required 2-moves which are to move 1 piece and promote (or demote) another. The dice-pieces must follow the designated chain of promote/demote... it is an interesting and challenging game.
Christine Bagley-Jones wrote in part, '. . .if they rate it 'excellent', then i don't think it is entirely fair to say that it is worthless, just because of no comment. to rate it excellent, one should assume they thought the game was really good :)' My response: With 'Excellent' I somewhat agree with Christine. It is like getting an 'A+' on a school paper. Though the teachers usually wrote something on my papers like, 'Excellent!, splendid research!' 'Good' is understandable, but of no value if someone wanted to improve their game design. Going back to the teacher grades, 'B' with no red marks is not very helpful. 'B' with a comment, 'You failed to summarize your composition. Otherwise i'd have given you an A+' is a useful comment. But, it is really the rating of 'Poor' [that is unqualified] that I dislike seeing. Again, back to the school analogy, 'D-' no comments... what was wrong here? The person getting the mark has the right to know, in my opinion.
Chess Variant Pages Rating System. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Here is another idea: Have no ratings at all. Just two rows (A) and (B): (A) This is what I like about this game: (B) This is what I don't like about this game:
Pompeii Chess. Variant on board with 25 squares. (7x7, Cells: 25) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Jeremy Good and I will be giving this game a run through. My feelings are that the previous commentor may be correct... but, maybe Pompeii Chess will turn out to be thought provoking and challenging? After all, Pente can be fun and there's really not much to that game.
In response to Roberto Lavieri's request for a Soccer Variant,since the World Cup begins tomorrow. John Boyer has a Soccer Chess at: www.pathguy.com/chess/SoccerC2.htm it has a java player Another chess game with a soccer theme is here: www.soccervault.com/sochga1.html
Dimension X. Chess on two planes - one with the usual chess pieces, the other with spooky trans-dimensional pieces with strange interactions. (2x(8x8), Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Namik: Thanks for the comment of, 'Good - Very interesting and funny.' I especially appreciated the 'funny' comment because I had not seen the game as being funny. But then I went back and looked at it, and Yes... I think you have a good point... it does seem a bit humorous. However, to show the more serious aspect of the game I have added a Problem just prior to the Rule notes.
Dragon Chess (tm). Commercial board game played on a large board with a new piece -- the Dragon.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I looked over Dragon Chess and it is clearly not as imaginative as 95% or more of the games I've seen at CV. But I think the intent of the game is to stay very close to chess, and at the same time wipe out all the Openings. So, it has done that. (( But then so does FRC... and so would switching Knights and Bishops, etc. )) In regard to making Dragon Chess stray further from chess I think adding a few more piece types would have made the game more desireable to a variants player. For a typical chess player wanting something marginally different, Dragon Chess might be good. On a somewhat related note: Navia Dratp varied from chess quite a bit with lots of different piece combos and options. On an interesting note, I've been informed that BANDAI (that game's producer) is abandoning it.
Jianying Ji, I agree that openings would evolve in Dragon Chess. What I meant by wiping them out was that, for example, players can no longer go to books and apply an opening such as Ruy Lopez, Sicilian, King's Gambit, etc. Also, it would take years for well-developed Dragon Chess Openings to evolve. Basically, opening book knowledge is no longer directly present.
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