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Comments by JorgKnappen
Sky. Brilliant original game by Christine Bagley-Jones. Pieces promote through a succession of odd leapers eventually to a rooks.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I don't think we should see problemists and chess mathematicians as a kind of enemy camp. And: As long as chess variant inventors are ignorant to prior art, why should anyone else care. A striking example is Seirawan/Harper chess: Allthough there are established and sometimes even well-known names for the Rook-Night compund and the Bishop-Knight compound, they came up with new names. Even worse, their new names are established for pieces with other moves. As I say: With their (peer reviewed!) journals problemists have a far better infrastructure than chess variantists can even dream of. We have this web site and wikipedia. Neither of the two media is peer-reviewed.
Fairy Chess. Short introduction to the world of fairy chess problems.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Fergus, you underestimate the strength of the fairy problemist's community very much. Fairy chess problem do not only occur in the mentioned journals (note that I posted recently a list of fairy pieces and fairy conditions hosted by Die Schwalbe); they are even included in FIDE albums (where you can earn points for becoming a chess problem grandmaster). And there are lots of active composers for fairy problems around, they are creative with new pieces (like the Zabel pawn), and they are younger than Dawson :-) If you are really interested in chess problems, the language of the journal is a minor issue: The diagrams speak for themselves and the conditions or special pieces use some standardised notation. The journals or problem books often have bilingual or trilingual glossaries.
UTF Conversion Page. Page for documenting UTF conversion issues.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Unfortunately,
the UTF conversion problems strikes me in several ways: I cannot edit any
longer my own comments, and in my name i get an ugly (diamond with a
question mark) displayed.
This latter proble should be easily fixed by sending an appropriate header
in the html; it is one line that reads:
<meta http-equiv='Content-Type' content='text/html;
charset=UTF-8'>
This line should be close to the top of the page, after the tag.
I don't know if this fixes the former problem, too.
--J'org Knappen
((To the editors: You may delete this comment after reading it))
In my previous comment I wanted to exhibit some html tags verbatim. They were visible in the preview, but are now invisible (but still there, when you view the source of the page!)
I vote for the cat, alltho the other images are also good.
TeX Chess 
. Chess program (including many variants) in TeX.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Great work! You should submit your package also to CTAN; http://www.ctan.org there are some more chess-related TeX and LaTeX packages (and as a bonus, a Go package), but they don't handle chess variants AFAIK. (Chinese Chess is there; Shogi is missing on CTAN).
In fact, a bishop limited to 3 steps can be found in Taikyoku Shogi (The monster version) under the name Rikishi (Wrestler). On the other hand, a piece named Rikishi or Wrestler with different moves occurs in Tai Shogi and Maka Dai Dai Shogi: Here it is a limited bishop who can move also one square horizontally. In Ko Shogi, the Rikishi or Wrestler is lion mover. So sticking to Bishop's Dog for the limited bishop is probably the best choice. This also gives me the opportunity to advertise Derzhanski's list again: http://www.chessvariants.org/piececlopedia.dir/whos-who-on-8x8.html The huge advantage of this list that you can actually find pieces when you know how they move; either by searching the move notation or by estimating their strength and scanning the appropriate strength region.
Ideal Values and Practical Values (part 3). More on the value of Chess pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In fact, if there is any difference in the values between Grand Rook (RAF) and Chancellor/Marshal (RN), then I expect the Grand Rook to be stronger, because it cannot be approached by the opponent's King.
Knavish Chess. Variant using square-board analogues to 6-way hex-board Dabbabas. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]First, an excellent to the 2 new pieces, the knave and debtor. The two are nice findings and worth the consideration of other chess variant authors as well. It is not an excellent for the whole game, because I think board design, piece mix and rule setup don't work as well as they could. For most pieces, 10x10 is already a too large board making them slow. The standard chess bishop and queen aren't good counterparts to knave and debtor. The standard chess rules on stalemate also don't accomodate knaves and debtors well: How many of them do you need to force the checkmate of a lone king? Knave and debtor have a strong 'shatranjian' feel; probably a very good variant is taking standard shatranj and replacing the knights with knaves and the alfils with debtors. Note that the original shatranj has only 2 alfils (where 8 are needed to cover the whole board); in the same manner shatranj with knaves and debtors has only two of each species. In shatranj, stalemate and lone king are wins, which reduces the number of draws.
Thinking of german translations for the knavish pieces, I came up with the following: Spitzbube for the knave (this is a possible real translation. The initial Sp- relates to Springer like the initial kn- relates to knight.) and Dabbes for the debtor. Dabbes is a south-west german dialectal word meaning 'clumsy one, dabbler' and I choose it because it sounds like Dabbaba, so this is a translation of the sound and not the meaning.
Dai Dai Shogi Western. Missing description (17x17, Cells: 289) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The nice graphics make this very large game readable and maybe even playable (if you find enough time and a partner). On my wish list: Could you also show the graphics for the promoted pieces, e.g., as a board with two ranks with the original piece above the promoted one?
Knavish Chess. Variant using square-board analogues to 6-way hex-board Dabbabas. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hi Charles, I think the knave and debtor pieces are worth more thought and some playtesting, too. I currently think of publishing 'Knavish Shatranj' as outlined in my first comment as a game with your pieces. You and the others around here may come up with more games featuring knave and debtor. A very inspiring game! P.S. Thinking about the knave rotated 45 degrees ... a left-right asymmetric piece with camel and alfil moves, colourbound and knavish bound at the same time.
This one looks better, mainly because the templars (ND-compounds) are gone. But how bad the bishops are looking! You can't even dream of fianchetto, and the Knaves on the second rank have no sensible moves at all: If you advance one, it will be chased back to its starting square by a pawn, or you loose it entirely. The queen also looks cramped in the initial area, but she may find a way out of her mess. It is not easy to design a good army and initial position ... still good stuff for thought!
Concavities are indeed a good idea: Rank 0 may be filled as follows: d0 <- Debtor from h2, e0 <- Knave from b2, f0 <- Knave from i2, g0 <- Debtor from c2. This is probably the best board for mixing four Knaves and Debtors with Rooks, Bishops, and a Queen.
Knavish Shatranj. Shatranj with Knaves and Debtors. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]@Christine: Unfortunately, I do not even own an operating system necessary to run Zillions of Games; therefore I cannot make and test zrf files. @Charles: Yes, replacing Knights and Alfils with Crabs and Alibabas should make another army for Shatranj with different armies. Now waiting for more radical approaches touching the rook and the wazir, too.
Knavish Chess. Variant using square-board analogues to 6-way hex-board Dabbabas. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Looking at 80 squares Knavish Chess, I don't see what the back ranks are good for. They contain very hard-to-develop pieces, and the templars (ND compunds) are also back in the game. Of course, you want to show something by your choices. The game just doesn't feel optimised for actual game play, which is a design goal I rate rather high. In case I cannot achieve it, I make it clear in the naming of the game: Nachtmahr is undertitled A study game.
Knavish Chess. Variant using square-board analogues to 6-way hex-board Dabbabas. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I am updating the rating to excellent, because seeing the elegance of the knave and debtor pieces is obviously a non-trivial task. In fact, Abdul-Rahman Sibahi and Joe Joyce discussed the pieces (without naming them) here briefly [link deleted because it doesn't work no more] but they didn't see that they are exceptional. Perhaps it needs some hexagonal thinking to see it.
Flight and Ferry. The gold dragon of Wessex fights the red one of Wales across the Bristol Channel. (8x10, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I just want to mention, that kind of a ferry also occurs in Floßschach (Raft Chess). Charles even commented on this item 8 years ago.
The raft of raft chess differs in its size from Flight and Ferry's ferry, leading to more raft moves.
Analysing the game deeper, it appears to me that it is too drawish to be worth playing. The issues are mating material and crossing the channel. Because the King is confined to his own half of the board, he cannot assist his pieces in giving checkmate. Therefore, at least two pieces (one major and one minor one) are needed for checkmate. There are at least three rule changes lifting this severe condition: a) [most elegant] import the rule from chinese chess, that the Kings may not face each other. With this rule, King+Rook win against a lone King b) Declare bare King a win as in Shatranj c) Declare Stalemate a win (and not a draw). The rules with the ferries are incomplete; I interpolate the following additional rules: * Pieces on the ferry are vulnerable to capture * The ferry loaded with a piece can capture another piece * An empty ferry sent to an occupied square does not capture, instead it is mounted by the piece there * An empty ferry cannot be sent to a square occupied by a dragon I cannot interpolate whether a rook or dragon may 'fly' over an empty ferry or not. The major issue is, that after crossing the channel, the piece on the ferry is essentially unprotected. It can be protected only by a rook or queen - it does not help against double attack. Therefore crossing the channel is hard. Wessex has a severe handicap here, because it lacks rooks and owns only one queen. Wales can try to monopolise the control of the ferries by bringing them both to its side: Only the Wessex' queen can than occupy the ferry and send it back. But, I'm afraid, this is also only a drawing strategy.
Ben asked: >Where does it say the king cannot move to the other side of the board? I infer this particular rule from the table entry King/on a ferry: It only mentions the default action of sending the ferry to another shore square (not occupied by the second ferry); but does not mention the ability of the King to move with the ferry. A king on a ferry is a strange beast: He cannot be checked by a dragon. Thus sending a ferry to the King can remove check given by a dragon. The Endgame King on a ferry vs. King and any number of dragons becomes a draw this way.
Charles, after all, you are the game designer and it is your decision (after, I hope, some playtesting) what design you want to implement. With the King being able to cross the channel, additional rules may be not necessary, but it is worth to think about game endings and how to judge them in any game design. Adding new methods of capture (like overtaking [2/3] and approach capture [4/5]) to the dragons is certainly a good idea, you may also consider igui capture (killing a piece on a adjacent square without moving). This will correct the balance of pieces protecting another piece over the channel on the ferry from 1:3 (Queen vs. Queen and 2 Rooks) to 3:5 (Queen and 2 Dragons vs. Queen, 2 Dragons, and 2 Rooks)---a balance I'd consider still very unbalanced, since Wales can try to sharpen it by exchanging Queens and Dragons.
Man. Moves to any adjacent square, like a King, but not royal.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I have never seen the plural of the man/Mann piece of the Courier game, but I'd consider the plural 'Mannen' (which has an archaic tone and restricts the meaning from male person to soldier or guardian). Mannen may even work as an irregular pliral in english (like oxen or VAXen)
Rhino. A set of pieces which combine the movements of the Mao with that of the Wazir.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]@charles: ... but can the rhino and the king force this position? Yes they can, and they can do so easily: Essentially, after forcing the opposite king to the edge of the board, the rhino pushes forward using the wazir move.
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