Comments by JorgKnappen

In fact, I have seen two names for the (2,4) leaper, the two names are lancer (used by G.P. Jelliss) and Hase "hare" used by German problemists. And there is probably at least one name by Charles Gilman for it, maybe two because his nomenclature has changed over time.

The Harvestman goes only in the direction that is strictly incresing the distance from its starting field. I never intended it to take the sidewards turn that increases the breadth of the covered squares from 3 to 5. But I see that one can read the description in such a way that this kind of move were also allowed.

I have definitely heard about this kind of Chess variant, and I remember to have played it in Germany when I was young and not fully introduced to FIDE rules. It is a kind of popular chess variant always flying below the radar, a bit like "Queens Left Chess" with a point-symmetric setup of the pieces. Interestingly, it is the first question in the Rules of Chess: Pawns FAQ on this site.

I found the old Gilman name from 2003 for the (2,4) leaper again, it was Carriage. Already in 2007 he had replaced it, but by an oversight there is still one Carriage left in "Carnival of Animals"

While I think that the inventor of a Chess Variant has the final say in the naming of pieces, I must admit that the choice of Falcon is a very unfortunate one because the Falcon of George Duke's Falcon Chess is vexingly similar to that piece but different.

What about naming it Kestrel (in German Turmfalke instead? This keeps most of the semantic associations but uses a free word (not used for a chess piece yet as far as I know).

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In fact, Charles Gilman has used the name Heroine before for some piece on a hex-prism board (3 dimensional with stacked planes of hexagons). I don't whether it was featured in a game and Gilman's games tend to be deployments of the pieces in many cases.

When you can read German in Fraktur printing, this digitised book shows the variant under the title "Vom vermehrten und vergrößerten Schachspiele, genannt das Spanische":

https://books.google.de/books?id=dv1dAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=%22Bickelheringe%22&source=bl&ots=KlPjbEnTRs&sig=ACfU3U3_0lJIKKQ5eITSb4KYJPxccK0v7g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7-taS1vTvAhXRgf0HHUEmCxAQ6AEwAXoECAMQAw#v=onepage&q=%22Bickelheringe%22&f=false

It gives interesting German translations of the piece names, the Bishop is a "Bickelhering" (a fool in commedy), the Ensign is a Fähnrich, and the Guard is a Trabant.

Despite the nice geometric move pattern this piece seems to be unemployed before Musketeer Chess. I can understand why: It creates triple forward forks into the rank behind the pawn line and is a very dangerous attacking piece. Creating a playable game with this piece is definitely a challenge (I haven't examined Musketeer Chess in this respect).

The Silly Sliders are one of the weirdest Chess experiences I have had. They are so strange: One attacks by retreating and unlocking the far range moves and one escapes from attack by approaching the figures. I'd suspect that the army is a bit weaker than the FIDEs because the ranging pieces can be stuffed. A blocking piece on the ski square doesn't even need protection. The rotated short range moves of the Onyx and the Duck have unusual interactions with the pawn formations.

All in all: A great design worth trying.

There is a typo in the German book title, it should read "seine" in place of "siene".

Also, I read the author's name as "Tressan" in accordance with Google OCR. There is a clear bridge between the two stems on the upper part of the last letter of his name. Google search finds the name on several pages where it seems to be removed from the pictures (Probably from bottom lines for the bookbinder, called Bogensignaturen in German language).

I have found the book on Google books here: https://books.google.de/books?id=n64UAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=Tressan&f=false

I cannot reproduce that problem, pressing CTRL-U in Firefox gives me a clean and readable source page.

Thanks Greg. Can you update the Emperor's Game as well?

Just a few days ago I created some diagrams with dots meaning plain and empty squares. I usually use numbers for fully empty lines, but dots for spaces in lines with pieces or decorations.

I suspect that there are more diagrams of this kind.

The new setup is mistaken, the Knights are between the Rooks and the Bishops, and the Bishops are on different colours, compare p. 77 in the book by L. Tressan here: https://books.google.de/books?id=n64UAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Castle is lacking the Alfil move in the diagram.

I am probably a bit late in commenting, but jAA has a meaning in Classic Betza notation (an Alfil-jumper-rider, i.e. a piece needing hurdles for each Alfil step it takes), and changing that meaning to something very ad-hoc is probably a bad idea. Either adding a new lowercase letter for slip-movement or attempting for a generic solution with different types of movement in the two legs of the move as in Betza's proposal t[FAA] would be better. Or new uppercase letters for the atoms slip-Rook and slip-Bishop.