Ratings & Comments

1. Please transfer the official rules page to chessvariants.com.

2. If a Go Away screams in the middle of a desert and nobody hears it, has
it screamed at all? The answer, in the Game of Nemoroth, is 'No!'. 

3. I lost the email with the clever Nemoroth notation, and the clever
diagrams that can give all the info. Why isn't it a page yet?

4. I have uploaded a file with a sample game that I saw in a dream of
Nemoroth. I have editied it less than I should for the same reason that I
have been out of touch for awhile -- I foolishly reinstalled Alpha Centauri
on my computer.

5. An extensive discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of
moving the Ghast to f3 or f6 needs to be written. For a few hours I feared
that the manouevre provided an instawin.... but now I once again think it's
not a good idea.

You just about have me convinced, but I can't admit that you're right until
I find the error in my way of doing it. This will have to wait until I'm
both well-rested *and* in a proper frame of mind. 

Presuming you're right, you have my deepest thanks. 

My confirmation of my error and your correctness is on my to-do list.

Once it's confirmed, I'll have to rewrite the 'Revisiting the zFF' page
because the error is large enough to make a difference in the evaluation of
the piece. My evil twin would curse you for it, but I am above all that. 

Evil twin. Hmmm. Evil Twin Chess. James T. Kirk's evil twin was from an
alternate universe, so a two-board setup reminiscent of Alice's Chess seems
natural. Same move on both boards, all is well. But the N and its evil twin
must have different powers of capture or movement; when you make differnt
moves, what's the rule to make it a playable game? Why of course! you have
to move both the Q and her evil twin, unless one of the two has been
captured! Mate on either board wins. The army: N twins with Fibnif, B twins
with fBbN, R twins with mRcHcWcD, Q twins with Chancellor, K twins with K,
P twins with berolina P. No playtest but I'll bet it works with at most one
more rule needed somewhere.

I have played games of FIDE Chess with W giving odds of all 8 Pawns....

With both sides no Pawns, I'd try 1. Qxd8+ followed by 2. Rh1xh8, which
ought to win.

With Pawns replaced by W or F or Berolina Pawns, in a sense it's not so
Pawnless, is it?

Racing Kings is Pawnless. It has a different goal, and perhaps you could
argue that it's not even Chess. However, in the process of becoming NOST
postal champion a few years in a row, I learned to appreciate what a great
game it is.

Without using really weak pieces to replace Pawns, you could probably find
a setup on the 4x16 circular chessboard that works.

The fault is mine but the credit yours. It's easy, and it's fun, to toss
out a 'brilliant' idea for a strange CV in an offhand remark, but to
actually make it work, that can sometimes be hard work. 

One criticism. and one only: Basingstoke. Where is it in the rules? I
suggest that in order to offer a draw one must say 'Basingstoke'.

In the same vein, should one wish to announce check (not required by the
current laws of FIDE Chess), one should say 'Beware! Beware! Beware!'

(((((((((((((( it just occurred to me in a 17th level digression tat the
actor who delivers this line is usually anything but gaunt. ))))...)))

'Inky clouds like funeral shrouds sail over the midnight skies' -- isn't
that some of the finest poetry in musical theater (second only to 'svani'
per sempre un sogno d'amore')? 

Just like the chessboard in my head, I have a record player in my head, and
Ruddigore Chess has moved me to put that platter onto the turntable of my
mind; and for this if nothing else it would deserve an excellent rating. It
is said that one's favorite G-and-S opereta is always the one most recently
attended (exception being perhaps the overperformed but excellent Pirates
-- NYGASP recently gave my lifetime best Pirates, far exceeding DC in
London (and please note: if you know Pirates you gotta see Il
Trovatore!!)).

Listening to Ruddigore again, what a pleasure, and the theme of G-and-S
Chess, well, hey, what's next? I once hitchhiked to Penzance from
Stonehenge, and although of pirates I saw not one there, yet I wait in
breathless anticipation for

Pirates Chess. With different armies, no less. Instead of Bishops, the
Pirates have a Pair of Docs, Doctor Einstein and Doctor Schweitzer (unless
you despise Marxism), the Q is a nursemaid, and Frederick is a semi-neutral
piece who, being the Slave of Duty, can belong to either side according to
the argument most recently presented.

> I love these questions, and always try to include them in my own new
> games.

Glad that you like these kind of questions. I thought it might be fun
too.

> 1 Rh7 Na6 2 Qh5++; 

Short and sweet. Quite amazing really.

'Note 1 Be2 Bd7 2 Kf1 Ra7 3 Qe2 Ra8 4 Bh5++ is shortest doublecheck
mate.'

the 3rd move doesn'T make sense.

After the second move we have

. n . q k b n r
r . . b . . . . 
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . B . . .
R N B Q . K N R

Qe2 is an impossible move, however I think you intended Qe1

which works.

It is interesting that both of these are helpmates, I wonder if a
computer
mate as I defined can be found easily, or does it really need a computer
to answer that questions.

Two 'excellents' because i love the way it's written up.

The idea of going back to the source of the play to justify the
alternate-move requirement is excellent as well. Perhaps I should have made
this line a separate comment for 3 'excellent's.

1 Be2 Bd7 2 Kf1 Ra7 3 Qe1 Ra8 4 Bh5++ doublecheck

'I'm glad you like these questions' -- I have always (well, at least since
I started publishing CV writings in the early 1970s) appreciated the
value-added that asking these questions can give to your new game.

Before you ask, you should either know the answer or suspect that the
answer will be really interesting.

The 'standard' questions are::::::::

1. Shortest foolsmate (for some games, shortest victory)

2. Shortest doublecheck (triple check, quadruple check, etc.) with or
without mate

3. Shortest stalemate; 4. shortest stalemate without capture (the great and
brilliant and superhuman Sam Lloyd solved these for FIDE Chess; if you
don't know his solutions, look them up and you will feel the emotion known
as 'awe' -- really, no exaggeration, awe.)

5, shortest perpetual check, 6. others appropriate for specific variants.

If a reader says 'give me more history', then there should be a prominent
paragraph with links to: history, shatranj, xiang qi, shogi.

Skip if you've heard this story. When I was 14 years old or so, I used to
go to the library every week to read some more of HJR Murray's thousand
page history of chess, week after week until I finished. And when I
finished, I knew that Chess was not just this one little game with one
specific set of rules that I strived to master (and since I'm a national
master and an FM, I guess you can say that I did so), no, Chess was not
just one game with one set of rules, but rather Chess was a big thing, with
billions and billious of games with a wide range of rules.

Therefore, according to my own experience, one of the best ways to promote
chess variants is to teach the history of chess.

Chess variant people often like to make new rules more than they like to
play the games; and often also they are less skillful at playing the games
than they are at making the rules. Rarely one finds the Chess Variant
inventor who is superhuman at chess but totally naive at variants (the two
prime examples are Fischer and Capablanca).

During my lifetime, the field of chess variants has advanced to an
incredible degree. To a large extent I have been able to lead because the
average of my chess skill and my variant skill is far higher than anybody
else -- and I am not ashamed to claim that my average of the two skills is
higher than the divine Parton or the superhuman Fischer -- and if you
spread the word about chess history can you imagine what will happen in the
future?

Imagine an era when chessmasters routinely know about Shatranj and Shogi
and Xiang Qi and the Colorbound Clobberers! In such a utopia, the very best
ideas that you or I have had will be seen as mere fumblings in the dark by
ignorant savages -- and the perception will be correct.

Have you met any Grandmasters? Have you played? Do you truly understand how
both their knowledge and their wisdom of Chess is far beyond what a mere
mortal can hope to achieve? I have; as a mere master, I have what's needed
to appreciate the greatness of grandmasters.

Imagine an era when Grandmasters of Chess are also routinely Grandmasters
of Chess Variants. ((Emanuel Lasker imagined it although he never proposed
any variants.)) ... and the one thing you can do to facilitate this vision
is to make it easier for people to learn about the history of Chess!

Continuing what Ralph said about the need for more prominent heading for
chess history. One possible idea is a specific page on the history of 
chess that shows a genealogy of chess. A genealogy because it shows both
history and the relationship between the different historical variants.
Such an undertaking would be no small one by any means but would provide
a good context for the layman and scholar alike in the foundations of 
this pusuit of variants.

OK, I've gotten ahold of the original page, and will attempt to merge them
this weekend.  John Lawson has also promised me the e-mail notation when he
has time from making his house unnaturally clean.

Since the major pieces in the back row are weak, it might make sense for
the following variant:

No apprentices, Just the backrow pieces. and have the pieces promote to
full strength when they reach the backrow. With the same object of
checkmating the king.

OK, the pages have been combined and uploaded.  Please send all complaints
to king-in-yellow@hastur.eldergods.org.

The copy of Murray that I own is the 1969 reprint, not the 1909 original.


It may well be that the reprint in some manner updated the copyright? Laws
on this subject have changed from time to time...

Project gutenburg is usually plain text files. Can Murray be appreciated
fully without the diagrams? No. Can it be appreciated to some extent? Yes,
of course.

Modern scanners may be able to extract the text pretty well, but then if
you don't proofread what the scanner said, the book is seen as if
through a scanner darkly
(title of a book by l cordwainer smith; always wanted to use that phrase in
casual conversation.)

Big job, no matter what. Big disk space, but there are so many terabytes
now, how else to fill them? Big download for the reader. But, what a book!
And how much we all owe to it!

This is a splendid idea which strikes me as being extremely Partonesque.

The situation of the Anti-King in the opening position also reminds me a
bit of Racing Kings.

The diagrams will have to be described using FFEN, which the FFEN to HTML
converter will take care of the rest. And probably lots of proofreading.
But it is possible.

Err, I don't think Project Gutenburg is using FFEN -- just plain text.

Seems to me that Basingstoke indicates a temporary mitigation of the
situation, not a permanent cessation; thus Basingstoke seems to me to be
inappropriate for an offer of a draw.  However, 'Beware! Beware! Beware!'
is a perfectly good way to declare check.

A small correction: The line that read currently as: 


    To solve this problem, The following diagram illustrates this: 

should have been
                          
   To solve this problem I tried some different starting setup that 
   kept with the minimalistic philosophy. After some playtesting the
   following is what I came up with: