Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Feb 13, 2018 04:28 AM EST:Good ★★★★
Shatranj is a cool variant mainly for its historic value, IMO. It's awkward, weak ferz and (especially) alfil (or elephant) pieces make it somewhat frustrating to play for many a modern player, again IMO. The present variant, Shatranji, removes some of this frustration, as dropping either of these weak pieces after they are captured allows the (now not necessarily permanent) binding of them to become less of an issue. However I find the elephant piece still awkward to use, while it is still on the board, in Shatranji, owing to its double binding. I'm wondering if a 'Modern Shatranji' version of Joe Joyce's Modern Shatranj variant (i.e. crossing it with Chessgi-like drops), with Joe's use of guards and modern elephants, rather than ferz' and alfils, might prove at least as good in practice as Shatranji.
[edit: Here's my tentative estimates of the piece values for this variant: E=2.06; P=2; F=2.25; N=3.5; R=4.]
Shatranj is a cool variant mainly for its historic value, IMO. It's awkward, weak ferz and (especially) alfil (or elephant) pieces make it somewhat frustrating to play for many a modern player, again IMO. The present variant, Shatranji, removes some of this frustration, as dropping either of these weak pieces after they are captured allows the (now not necessarily permanent) binding of them to become less of an issue. However I find the elephant piece still awkward to use, while it is still on the board, in Shatranji, owing to its double binding. I'm wondering if a 'Modern Shatranji' version of Joe Joyce's Modern Shatranj variant (i.e. crossing it with Chessgi-like drops), with Joe's use of guards and modern elephants, rather than ferz' and alfils, might prove at least as good in practice as Shatranji.
[edit: Here's my tentative estimates of the piece values for this variant: E=2.06; P=2; F=2.25; N=3.5; R=4.]