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Jupiter. Huge chess variant on 16 by 16 board. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
ChrisWitham wrote on Mon, May 6, 2002 12:04 AM UTC:
Anyone know how to contact Adrian King to find out if he ever made a more
polished version of the rules?

ICBM Chess. I(inter)-C(hess)B(oard) M(issle) Chess, where you can throw a piece to capture as well as make normal moves. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Stephen Cieply wrote on Mon, May 6, 2002 12:58 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Must have noted my play :)

Jupiter. Huge chess variant on 16 by 16 board. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
David Howe wrote on Mon, May 6, 2002 01:29 PM UTC:
Adrian should be getting email whenever a comment is made on one of his pages. I can also forward email to Adrian if anyone wishes to contact him.

Rules of Chess FAQ. Frequently asked chess questions.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
David Howe wrote on Mon, May 6, 2002 02:23 PM UTC:
'can a king switch places with a pawn when in check?' <p>The answer is no. A king may never switch places with a pawn, whether in check or not.

Chaturanga. The first known variant of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anonymous wrote on Tue, May 7, 2002 02:14 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
give more history?

Invasion. A military inspired Chess variant played on an 84-squares board. (10x10, Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
TW wrote on Tue, May 7, 2002 02:15 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
I wanted something in between Poor and Good here actually. I like the game
and the movement but I would have liked a bigger board. This feels more
like a tabletop wargame then a chessvariant but I guess that it's a
chessvariant in the aspect that pieces have preset moves on a squared board
(something not all chessvariants follow even ;)
I watched Zillions play this game for a while and realised that the
powerful strategies behind a great played game is way above normal chess.
It is a bit complicated for my mind and a bit defensive for my taste.
Still, the idea is wonderful and I would love to see it come back with a
bigger board variant *smile* This is a game I want to have at the table at
home to play with my friends rather then playing it over the net or with
the computer. Adding two more players would also increase the fun level
since tactics would increase and you could help eachother out, if rules
allowed it....I'm now changing from poor to good actually *smile*

Chaturanga. The first known variant of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anonymous wrote on Wed, Mar 20, 2002 12:00 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

Anonymous wrote on Mon, Mar 11, 2002 12:00 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
the page gives good information but when you show the games you sould be aloud to play a mini version of the game and see if it is intresting because from what i read i thought these games look fun and i would like to play a number of them before i download it. thanks for you time.

Anonymous wrote on Tue, Feb 12, 2002 12:00 AM UTC:Poor ★
this is completely in error, chataranga is a four player game pre-dating crist, you dopes.

Anonymous wrote on Thu, Aug 23, 2001 12:00 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

Anonymous wrote on Tue, Mar 13, 2001 12:00 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Great! I have to try Chaturanga with my friends. Very interesting!

Anonymous wrote on Wed, Dec 6, 2000 12:00 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
At least pople are agreeing that India had some form of chess from the earliest of times Thanx for the info.

Anonymous wrote on Thu, Nov 2, 2000 12:00 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Holly crap I've never been to a site with so much info on chess....i mean wow this is a really good site and im a huge chess fan

Anonymous wrote on Tue, Sep 26, 2000 12:00 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
This site is o.k. but you should let people play chess on it!

The One Ring. White wants to get the Ring to the far side and destroy it. (5x8, Cells: 42) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tomas Forsman wrote on Tue, May 7, 2002 11:57 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I must say that I have fell in love with this game. You say in your
description that you don't like the setup of the pieces but I enjoy them
very much.
The consept of the one ring is wonderful and really adds to the game. I am
just about to download the bigger version as well and find out why you like
that even more then the smaller one.

Congrats on a wonderful variant.

Tomas Forsman

The Fellowship of the Ring. White may win by carrying a 'ring' to the other side of the board. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tomas Forsman wrote on Wed, May 8, 2002 12:15 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Just as I loved the smaller version I fell in love with the bigger one.
I have just watched the white side crush the black side again. I'm using a
slightly slower computer then you (450 Mhz) wich might indicate that the
black has some advantage but has to think things through more.
Anyways, I love this game very much and I am very greatful that you
invented it.
I enjoy variants that doesn't change to much on the original rules. Just
enough to make it interesting.
Simple changes are often more enginous, this one certenly were.

With regards

Tomas Forsman

Ruddigore Chess. Chessgi variant where you can capture your own pieces, and every other turn you must capture or sacrifice a piece. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Lawson wrote on Thu, May 9, 2002 04:55 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Hey! I'm as innocent as a kitten! I wasn't even there! And if I was there, I didn't do it! And if I did it, I was lead astray by evil men!

The Game of Nemoroth. For the sake of your sanity, do not read this variant! (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Moussambani wrote on Thu, May 9, 2002 06:55 AM UTC:
There's a well-known old philosophical problem that states: 'If a Go Away
screams on the middle of a board, and there's no one near to hear it, does
it count as a valid move?'

Well, The question here is if one could 'pass' by making an isolated Go
Away scream. On first thought, I said that this was not legal because it
would be a repetition, but it's not true because now the other player is on
move. Additionally, if some ichor is on the board it evaporates if only
partially, so even the board changes, not only the player on move.

This of course doesn't save anybody, so it's legal only if you have no
compelled pieces (unless you use evaporation as a saving move). But should
it be allowed? Why would someone do that is beyond my range, but maybe some
day a situation will arise in that this is desirable. So, is it legal?

Chess. The rules of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Brady wrote on Thu, May 9, 2002 08:02 PM UTC:
In the second castling picture, white can't castle anyway. He already moved his king.

Zelig Chess. Game where the power of the pieces varies based on their position. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jianying Ji wrote on Fri, May 10, 2002 12:33 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
This game is highly remaniscent of Capriccio described by Mark Thompson
at
http://home.flash.net/~markthom/html/capriccio.html. though maybe arguably

better since the goal is better defined.

Pawnless chess[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Jianying Ji wrote on Fri, May 10, 2002 02:07 AM UTC:
I am creating a pawnless CV, which suddenly led to the question of:

What happens in FIDE chess if we remove the pawns and disallow castling.
Does white have overwhelming advantage or is there a good defense for 
black?

Peter Aronson wrote on Fri, May 10, 2002 04:05 AM UTC:
I don't think simply removing the Pawns from the FIDE array would make a good game. Consider Derek Nalls various all-rider Chess variants -- they use rather different arrays indeed. <p> Maybe something like:<b><pre>+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | r |:q:| k |:r:| |:::| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |:b:| n |:n:| b |:::| |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |:::| |:::| |:::| |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | B |:N:| N |:B:| |:::| |:::| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |:R:| Q |:K:| R |:::| |:::| | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+</pre></b> Of course, different pieces might work even better, such as halfling pieces or powerful but short ranged pieces, such as Half-Ducks for Rooks and FAD's for Bishops and a FAWDH for a Queen. Experimentation is certainly the key here.

Jianying Ji wrote on Fri, May 10, 2002 09:23 AM UTC:
Actually my game will be different from just removing pawns from standard
FIDE setup. The reason for my question is more along the lines of giving
a pawnless FIDE, what are the shortcommings of such a game, and why 
wouldn't it be a good game. Or in other words what is the mininum that
can be done to make it a good game.

Jianying Ji wrote on Fri, May 10, 2002 04:14 PM UTC:
Thinking about it, let me restate my question in the form of 2
challenges:

Construct the shortest possible fool's mate for the following variant:

FIDE chess without pawns nor castling.

Then construct the shortest possible computer's mate (named after early
chess computer programs),  by which I mean that it will respond to
any possible mate within 3 moves. Or another way to say it is
construct the shortest game that leads to a win in 4 moves.

Revisiting the Crooked Bishop. Revisiting the Crooked Bishop.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Peter Hatch wrote on Fri, May 10, 2002 09:05 PM UTC:
> When you're really stuck with probabilities, you can use the
> laborious case-by-case analysis.

Indeed.  Instead of checking each case for two-path bonus, it's easier to
just check each case to see whether it is blocked, and just add up the
probabilites.  With 5 squares that can be blocked (e3, d2, d4, f2, and f4)
there will be 2^5 = 32 total possibilities.  1 possibilty has no squares
blocked, 5 have one square blocked, 10 have two squares blocked, 10 have
three squares blocked, 5 have four squares blocked, and 1 has all five
squares blocked.  The probability of each possibility is 0.7^(number of
unblocked square) * 0.3^(number of blocked squares).

The no squares blocked possibility lets us reach the destination square, as
do 4 of the one square blocked possibilities (all but e3), and 2 of the two
squares blocked possibilities (d2 and d4, f2 and f4).  None of the rest do.
 So the total probability is 0.7^5 + 4 * 0.7^4 * 0.3 + 2 * 0.7^3 * 0.3^2 =
0.51793, which agrees with my formula.  So I'm confident I'm right again.
:)

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