Comments by JohnLawson

In http://www.chessvariants.org/piececlopedia.dir/ideal-and-practical-values-3.html , Betza gives no value, but explicitly states the AD [funny notation] is in practice worth "much less than a knight".

And as if this weren't confusing enough, the Wikipedia page for Chu Shogi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_shogi , refers to "Heisei chu shogi", which seems to be Chu Shogi with all the slow-moving pieces in hand at the start of the game, to be dropped later.  This seems to be the same as the Heisei shogi mentioned in the post in the shogivar Yahoo group.
I spent some time looking for Heisei shogi online, and found nothing conclusive in English.  I neither speak nor read Japanese, so I have to leave that research for others.

I think I remember that Mike pulled all his content from this site a couple
years ago.  He is no longer on the contributor list.

No, castling can only be done with the rook.  The king is moved two spaces toward the rook, and the rook is then placed on the other side of the king.  There are other limitations as well, all detailed in the rules.

It's been quite a while, but I believe Spearmen do not promote.  Since I believe Glenn wrote the zrf himself, trying it in Zillions would give a solid answer.

Withdrawing is from Fanorona, played on Madagascar.  According to "Abbot's New Card Games", the Coordinator and the Immobilizer are original pieces, as is the Chameleon.

For what it's worth, Murray in chapter XVI (p. 346) describes such a game, but it is modern.  The description occurs directly after a description of a 14th C. shatranj-al-kabir, so perhaps a mistake was made.

I have no special knowledge of Fugue, but two considerations lead me to believe that the spotter must be on the same side as the Archer. First, the friendly piece is referred to in the paragraph on the Archer, so I infer the spotter is friendly to the Archer.  Second, I interpret "spotting" as being like an artillery spotter, and logically, why would a piece spot another piece from its own side for an enemy Archer.
Your friend sounds like a rules lawyer; he should relax, especially if this argument is five years old.  Of course, you could play the game both ways and report back here which you fond to be better.

Any piece that is immobilzed can self-destruct, including the Immobilizer.

I started coming here in late 97 or early 98, when we got our first home
pc. I find it amazing that it has been nearly 20 years.

George Hodges died about five years ago.

Just to clarify, Hands either move four spaces as a Rook, or one Knight move?

Greg,

I have The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, so I looked it up.  There's not a lot of additional information.  It says Janus Chess was invented in 1978 by Rudolf Lauterbach and Werner Schoendorf, and originally marketed as Super-Chess.  The only references mentioned are, "Booklet Janus Schach, also photocopy of manufacturer's publicity material."

Greg,

Talk about synchonicity, I just came across the Kyoto shogi pieces I got from George Hodges, while packing to move.  I looked around in my stuff, and found the rules are not included in Hodges Ten Shogi Variants, nor is the answer to your checkmate question in the screen print of the moves I have from Steve Evans' SHOGIVAR.  The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, after describing the moves, says "All othe rules as in Shogi". There is also a Zillions implementation by Steve Evans, but I no longer have a working version of ZoG.

After all these years, I see a typo. In the description of the promotion of the Bishop, it is called a "Rook".

David, 

As Ben said, the CVP tends to be inclusive  as far as what is considered a chess variant.  There have been several discussions over the years, and it is always too hard to draw a precise line.  Ultima was questioned because it didn't have replacement capture. There was a discussion around Nemoroth because the victory ondition was stalemate and the piece interactions were unique.  All in all, any game inspired by chess that might interest a variantist would be included.

Kevin,

I have a Modern Chess set, so I checked the official rules. They state that the game be played as it is set up. That is, one player has two bishops on white, the other had two bishops on black. The author seems to think this is better. The inventor permits, with prior agreement of both players before the start of the game, the "Adjustment of the Bishop".  Each player may swap one bishop with either neighboring piece, providing neither has moved.  This expressly forbidden in the official rules.