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Comments by JohnAyer
Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The Wikipedia article on shatranj says that the alfil leaps over one square to land on the second square diagonally. This is true. It does not say that it captures a piece on the square leaped over. It does not.
The Russian version does indeed say that, and without citation. We have citations going back to the original sources. Not one mentions capture by leaping. The Russian article has an empty discussion page. I'm not sure I'm up to a slugging match in Russian.
Chess. The rules of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I think the formal rule is that the game must be returned to the point where the illegal move was played and a legal one played instead, and if that is not possible, the game must be annulled.
Xiangqi FAQ. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Wei chi, or wei qi, is known in Japanese as I-Go, and in America usually as Go. It is a game of territorial possession, played on a grid of nineteen points by nineteen, with pieces of black or white that are placed on intersections and then never moved (though they may be captured and removed). Sic bo and pai gow are Chinese gambling games, suitable for casino play.
According to Murray in his celebrated History, chess among the Malays has been heavily modified by the example of European chess. It is called Main (game) Chator (chaturanga). The markings on the ashtapada have been reduced to two lines marking the long diagonals. Actually other patterns are known, but this pattern, apparently brought from Burma, has influenced the pawn-promotion rules. The starting array has each king standing just left of the centerline, and each minister just right. The king moves one square in any direction, and on being checked for the first time (or, on other islands, only if he has not been checked) can leap to any square on the second perimeter (on yet other islands, he can never leap). The minister (or lord; the pieces have different names on Java) moves as the queen. The elephant (or minister; Dutch influence here) moves as the bishop. The horse leaps as the knight. The chariot or boat moves as the rook. The pawn moves one square forward, capturing one square diagonally forward, except on Java and Borneo, where it can make a double first move, with no capture en passant unless the capturing pawn is blocked from moving forward by another pawn. Among the Batak tribesmen there was no pawn promotion: on reaching the farthest rank the faithful little figurine spun on his heel and marched back toward his master's home-row, on reaching which he would turn again and march again toward the enemy's camp, and so indefinitely. The usual rule was that a pawn reaching a rook's home square promoted at once, usually to queen but optionally to any other piece. A pawn reaching any other square on the last rank had to retreat diagonally one, two, or three squares to the long diagonal before promoting. This could apparently all be done in one move, unless the pawn captured on reaching the last rank. The rules governing check, checkmate, stalemate, and bare king were quite varied.
Courier Chess. A large historic variant from Medieval Europe. (12x8, Cells: 96) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This game is documented from 1202, Grande Acedrex only from 1283, so this is earlier.
Chess. The rules of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]What you and your friend choose to do is, of course, up to the two of you. I have looked up the rules of chess, which say that if an illegal move has been made, the game must go back to the position before the illegal move and resume from there. If the exact position cannot be recreated, the last known legal position must be re-established, and the game played from there. It appears to me that in an extreme case this could mean going back to the starting position.
Isle of Lewis Chess Men. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I made a slight mistake. The set with square towers as rooks and the footsoldiers reduced by about a quarter to serve as pawns is at http://www.chessbaron.co.uk/chess-TH2003.htm . That company carries four sets based on the Lewis chessmen; the other three all have runestone pawns.
It seems to me that the armed footsoldiers, four of them berserkers, must be rooks. They appear to be about the same size as the other pieces, just a little shorter, as the end pieces usually are, in modern chess sets and in other connections (even the Rockettes in Radio City are arranged with the tallest in the center and the shortest at the ends). In order to make them pawns in reproduction sets they have to be scaled down. Rooks are depicted as warders, castle guards, or captains afoot in German and Scandinavian sets down into the nineteenth century.
Nifty idea! Now, which of us will write to Chessbaron? After that, I give up: who are those TLAs?
Chancellor. Moves like rook or as knight.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Shatranj al-Kabir is the name of several Eastern variants of chess; you can read about them in Murray's History of Chess, Chapter XVI. I don't see any form with a rook+knight combination earlier than about 1800.
Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The statement in the Russian Wikipedia that the alfil can capture by leaping has been removed.
Chess. The rules of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]If a player erroneously announces checkmate, he loses whatever time it takes to convince him of his error (if the game is actually being timed) and is subject to teasing thereafter.
Photo's of Thai Chess Set. Photo's of Markruk set of Thailand.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Murray, writing a hundred years ago, illustrated a similar set from a German periodical, and described the design as traditional, so it appears to go back a couple of centuries, at least. While trying to find any further information on the subject I learned that before the Age of Plastic the pieces were usually made of teak, though ivory and horn were also used. If cowrie shells were not available, the craftsman might substitute disks in the same material the pieces were made of.
Mr. Bernard Hempseed, current whereabouts unknown, gave some good advice on how to start on this project. http://www.chessvariants.org/crafts.dir/fairy-chess-pieces.html I was was inspired to buy a checker set and two chess sets in the same material and colors and make pieces for my favorite games. It is possible to buy a courier spiel set (old-style pieces) on-line. http://courierchess.com/ Superchess in the Netherlands has a wide variety of pieces for sale, and might be willing to mix sets. http://www.superchess.nl/indexengels.htm There is of course no reason why you have to use their pieces the way they say.
Gothic Isles Chess. Fictional historic variant, with Dragons, Wizards and Champions. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This looks like quite a good game. The page for Fairy Tale Draughts is gone. While looking for it I discovered a table of checkers variants at BoardGameGeek (and elsewhere) that contains several men's names that I recognize from Chess Variants. The move of the dragon is also the move of the bishop in Courier Spiel, devised in the early nineteenth century.
I, too, am interested; please send a copy to the e-mail address in my profile.
Wildebeest Chess. Variant on an 10 by 11 board with extra jumping pieces. (11x10, Cells: 110) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]As far as I can see, the Diana knight is an ordinary knight, and doesn't need a different symbol. The Duke of Rutland also chose to maintain symmetry by placing a third knight on the queen's off-side. A neat solution, I think.
Courier Spiel (that's the modern version) is still my favorite variant, and playing sets are commercially available, though I made my own.
Joerg Knappen in Teutonic Knight's Chess has a crown princess moving as bishop, knight, or wazir.
Chaturanga. The first known variant of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Jason L. asks, 'But what if there are historical documents or artifacts in China that suggest that Xiangqi has been around since 2nd century B.C.? What if the similarities between the early Indian version and Xiangqi were the result of influence from the other way around?
Are there any such documents? Last fall someone argued in the English Wikipedia that Chinese chess is the earliest and original version, but the only substantial source offered was a Chinese document at http://ent.veryeast.cn/ent/26/2006-4/23/0642309574393496.htm . Can you translate this for us?
Prof. David Li stated that Xiangqi was invented about 200 B.C., but in the first section of his book, in which he described this invention, he adduced not a single source of any type.
'Just because European scholars had no access to Chinese documents but did with Indian archives, that does not mean it can be assumed that the first game was from India. It seems since China was not a part of the British empire, then its archives can be ignored and only regions of the world which are a part of Britain's sphere of influence can be deemed as inventing anything.' Britain was heavily involved in China in the nineteenth century, and quite influential, and British savants could probably have gotten access to Chinese documents. We are aware that China invented many things, including gunpowder and rockets.
'How come no Westerner or scientist has noticed the similarities between Weiqi and Xiangqi?' I don't know about Weiqi, but Gerhard Josten, of the Initiative Group Koenigstein, argued in his essay 'Chess--A Living Fossil' that the ancient Chinese pastime of Liubo was one of the ingredients that went into chaturanga.
'Also if one assumes it went from India to China, it is unlikely that pieces would become more restricted. This is a misnomer.' A misnomer is an inaccurate name. Probably 'This is a fallacy' was meant.
'So when the Chinese come forward with so called records, they are refuted by European chess historians as being inaccurate!' What records?
I have read Prof. Li's book. In fact, I own it, and have taken it off the shelf and am looking through it again. I am still not persuaded. As I have explained elsewhere, I don't think Chinese chess developed from chaturanga, I think it developed from Shatranj al-Kamil v.1. While the king (governor, general)'s and aide-de-camp's moves were restricted, because they landed in the nine-castle, the dabbabah's move was greatly increased, and the pawn's move was slightly increased, and simplified. I can't imagine how that weird rule about the pawn capturing diagonally forward would ever have been introduced after the game had been established.
I understand that there were elephants in China, too.
There are different kinds of symmetry. FIDE chess has reflective symmetry: symmetry with respect to a line, as I think of it. The crossover pattern has rotational symmetry: symmetry with respect to a point, as I think of it.
I don't recall about the names of the armies. That could be suggestive.
I live in America, and it is no matter to me whether chess originated in India, China, Bactria, Iran, or Albania. I am simply trying to make the best sense I can of fragmentary evidence.
Murray was aware of the Ramayana. It contains references to the ashtapada, which we know antedated the game of chaturanga, and to the chaturanga, in the sense of an army of four branches; none to the game of chaturanga. Murray does not mention the Arthashastra as far as I see. I find on line a commentary by Group Captain S. M. Hali on the military portion of this work, in which, I gather, 'chaturanga' means an army of four branches. If the Arthashastra really does mention chaturanga as a war game on an eight-by-eight-square board, I would very much like to see the text.
Jason L., even if you found a very early reference to Xiangqi, we still wouldn't be satisfied. There seem to have been two other games by the same name, so we would need a sufficient description to make clear that Chinese chess is meant. Names can be casually misapplied. The same problem occurs in Europe. The household cashbook of one medieval English king records an expenditure for 'two silver-gilt foxes and twenty-six geese for merels.' Merels is a boardgame in which the two players have the same number of playing pieces, all alike. The pieces mentioned are for Fox and Geese, an asymmetrical hunt game.
No one has suggested that Xiangqi was invented in China under the Tang Dynasty.
Yes, I am also aware that the Chinese developed printing with movable type, and that the idea likely reached Europe through a Chinese trade mission. Really, we are not enemies of China, and I wish you would stop imputing improper motives to us. The fact remains that the earliest definite reference to chess in China is later than the earliest definite references in India and Iran. You say you want to do further research on this subject. We will be delighted to hear what you find.
As for what the Courier Game may have contributed, on the comments page for that game H.-G. Muller suggests that, in addition to the modern bishop, the Courier Game may have given us the optional double first move of the pawn. In the Courier Game the queen's pawn and the two rooks' pawns on each side (and the queen) must each make a double step forward at the start of the game. Now, when the optional double first move of the pawn was introduced, it was limited to the king's, queen's, and rooks' pawns. It was then extended to the bishops' pawns, and lastly to the knights' pawns.
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