Check out McCooey's Hexagonal Chess, our featured variant for May, 2025.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Earlier Reverse Order Later
Ghast knights. Missing description (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jörg Knappen wrote on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 11:09 AM UTC:Poor ★
First of all, the write-up of the rules is a bit too sketchy and a lot of interpretation is needed in order to bring this game to play.

Second, it is a straight and boring win for white under the following interpretation of the rules: If a piece is watched by a knight (friend or foe) it must move and this zugzwang cannot be lifted by capturing the knight unless the capturing move is also also executed by a piece forced by a knight.

The sample game starts as follows:

1. e3 e6 
2. d3 d6   The first two moves are forced. Taking double step
3. Na3 Nh6 Other black responses won't help either
4. c3 f6
5. Nb5     Now black must move the pawns on a7, c7, and d6 while
           white has three free moves. Afterwards, the knight moves
           to c7 pressuring Ra8, Ke8, e6. White has free moves again.
           Eventually white blocks a pawn and the game is over.           
           Alternatively, white can bring out its queen to checkmate the 
           black King.

💡📝Daniil Frolov wrote on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 11:34 AM UTC:
Thanks. What can you suggest to make it playable? For example, knights forces move pieces in other positions in relation to these knights?

Jörg Knappen wrote on Thu, Aug 26, 2010 07:26 AM UTC:
In fact, I don't know immediately how to save this game. The problems are obvious: A blocked pawn threatened by a knight will bring the game to an early end, and white has the initiative which brings free moves for white while black is forced to answer all the threats by the white knight. The key is the forking power of the knight.

So there is much room for experimentation and playtesting. Ideas include:

* Make pawns insensitive to the knight

* Allow the capture of the knight if there are no forced moves left after
 the knight is removed

* Allow suicide of a stopped pawn

* Use multiple moves

* Tune down the knight to a Mao, a Moa, or a heavenly horse (vN)

Each idea and combinations of them need intensive playtesting, many of them probably must be discarded as the original sketch.

Is it allowed to move to a square threatened by a knight (of course you have to move away in one of the following moves, but maybe you can just oscillate between two threatened squares in order to avoid to be forced to move a blocked pawn?)

At last, a more precise description of the interaction between 'check' and forced moves is required. Does a piece give check and mate when it cannot move because other pieces have forced moves? What happens if your king is in check but other pieces have forced moves (you loose, you may move the king or remove the check in another way)?

Again, the rules need playtesting to see whether they result in an interesting game or not.

Bn Em wrote on Sun, Apr 20 03:35 PM UTC in reply to Jörg Knappen from Wed Aug 25 2010 11:09 AM:

Note that, filling in the blanks in the write‐up by analogy with the rules of Compulsion in the original Nemoroth, the zugzwang can in fact be lifted by a ‘saving move’ such as capturing the knight; as such 5. Nb5 would be a blunder: after 5. … c6, 6. c4 is forced (White in any case had only up to 2 free moves), allowing 6. … c4xb5 and white is an N down, which might well be a crippling disadvantage; white can force capture of the Nh6 before it goes on to wreak its own compulsion havoc, but only in exchange for its queen, and of the unmoved knights the black one would seem to have the advantage in terms of enemy pieces' positions (Na6 introduces no new compulsions, is safe from attack, and with the queen gone it poses a credible threat in the white camp, especially if preceded by Qa5 to prevent the white K chasing the N away once it reaches c2).

Also, applying Nemoroth rules, moving into a square under a knight's control is prohibited (4. c3 f6 is exactly forced; the double‐push is illegal), even when coming from another knight‐threatened square (all squares are equally far from the knight and there seems to be no other criterion to favour any above others).

I haven't tried out other openings though as yet; it may well be that there's some other forced win for white. And indeed all this really ought to have been specified in the rules, as with the interactions with check/‐mate.

(I was reminded of this sketch by this discussion; check‐plus‐Nemoroth‐compulsion and check‐plus‐king‐capture present very similar issues in their interactions.)


4 comments displayed

Earlier Reverse Order Later

Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.