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Game Reviews by GeorgeDuke
The Game of Jetan. Extensive discussion of various versions of the rules of Jetan. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]My recent Comments under 'Sissa' and 'Rose' pursue theme of multiple-pathway pieces, including Falcon, Sissa, Rose and Half-Rose so far. Jetan here has several pieces that move to a given square in more than one way: Thoat, Dwar, Flyer or Odwar, and Chief or Chieftain.
Six of eight Jetan piece-types have multiple paths in both sets of rules in 'Chessmen of Mars', text and appendix, giving latter precedence as Burroughs' intended revision. In appendix Warrior moves two squares orthogonally with 90-degree change of direction allowed. So, Warrior's two-path squares are the diagonally adjacent ones, 'Ferz squares'. A second piece, Padwar moves two diagonal in any combination of directions. Therefore, when Padwar 'turns' 90 degrees, it is going to a two-path square. To CV researchers, Padwar multiple-, that is two-, path squares are 'Dabbabah squares'. Notice that Warrior's one-path squares and Padwar's two-way squares are the very same Dabbabah squares. Both types of arrival squares, one-way and two-way, can be blocked, but it takes at least two pieces (of either colour) so a two-way one. These are two of the six multiple-pathers in Jetan.
Alice Chess. Classic Variant where pieces switch between two boards whenever they move. (2x(8x8), Cells: 128) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Are Chess and Chess Variants separate like Alice's 'Through the Looking Glass'? Has 14th World Champion Vladimir Kramnik even heard of Alice Chess, re-recognized now at CVP? Would #6 Peter Leko play Ultima? Contrariwise, are CVP readers even aware a World Championship match takes place now in Switzerland between Kramnik and Leko? Would perennial #1 Kasparov hold Recognized Chess Variant Kriegspel in high regard? Or #7 Michael Adams think RCV Avalanche Chess worth anything? Well there are Fischer and Random Chess, and a photograph in Pritchard's ECV of #9 Judit Polgar (and sisters) playing Intense C, being a variant neither known nor recognized here. Probably the realms will remain separate and unequal between Chess and CVs, at large most of the games played being Chess.
Jetan. Large variant from the book The Chessmen of Mars. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I somehow never work Jean-Louis Cazaux's article into text of my recent 'Multipath Chess Pieces'. Cazaux's Jetan description provides the rules I am most familiar with. Larry Smith's Jetan article is more difficult confronting as it does contradictions in interpreting the rules. However, I use a Smith version for Thoat, as non-jumping, both for being more effective implementation of the piece and for convenience to explore 'Multipath' topic. That way keeps fully six multipath piece-types from Jetan.
Maxima. Maxima is an interesting and exiting variant of Ultima, with new elements that make Maxima more clear and dynamic. (Cells: 76) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]A better embodiment than Ultima, to whose family Maxima belongs. Yet does Maxima have one or two too many features(rules), such as its multiple winning conditions? Or maybe it has one more piece-type than optimum for natural play.
Achernar. ACHERNAR is a mix of the game ALTAIR and Western Chess. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Achernar's pieces can conditionally switch to squares in a different rank at option, in lieu of a move. Would not that kernel of an idea be better embodied in a 3-D version? Relying on adjacency, variously defined, 3-D Chesses more or less try to extend 2-D notions(motions) to 3-D. Instead, think of a piece's moving to, say, the perimeter of a 2-D board, then being able to 'advance' to overlaying or underlying game board(s) (3-D levels) to a number of squares a la Achernar. Achernar certainly has unrealized potential if the too-numerous piece enhancements were scaled back. Hypothetical three-dimensional Chesses, relying on positional as opposed to motional criteria, would retroactively broadly include the fifty-year-old Alice Chess (though not 100-year-old Kriegspiel)too as notionally 3-D.
Vyrémorn Chess. Large variant on two overlapping square boards. (Cells: 132) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Is there not a GC preset for Vyremorn yet? It seems balanced with 14 piece-types on 132 squares, close to what is theorized for an ideal form (8-12%) most likely to be playable?
Altair. Altair is a modern game with an oriental flavor. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Altair, Roberto Lavieri points out, is precursor to Achernar. With ten piece-types on 81 squares, this may be where Reducer originates. Or does Reducer come from still another game? I notice that Mage re-appears in Maxima but not in Achernar. Why does a 'triple rank switch' work best in Altair and Achernar both? And why call them 'files' when standard terminology is 'ranks'? It seems to me this maneuver, inherently more powerful than say castling or pawn promotion, if only because allowed repeatedly, calls for an actual 3-D embodiment, as Lavieri suggests. Altair's piece-types are less familiar than Maxima's, which largely come from Ultima. The cannibal provision seems to be attempt to counteract the extreme piece mobility.
The CHANGE is in the nature of a liberal drop, always available for Lion, Overtaker, Diamond, and Grand-Bishop. No licentious drop as in Shogi, and in fact no promotees at all, just the 8 piece-types on 81 squares. The HORIZONTAL is a more restricted drop applying to Pawns also. The Mage is 800-year-old Gryphon. I don't expect to use the bizarre cannibal provision. Three long-range D,M,B; and five one- or two-step K,U,E,P,L. In comparison, Achernar, having standard pieces, is weak sister.
Bifocal Chess. A game without capture : win by checkmate with a neutral piece! (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Bifocal and my Dice-Mate Chess were both invented under the constraint that Roberto Lavieri laid down last summer for no captures. This Bifocal implementation utilizes my two favourite chess pieces, Falcon and Cannon/Canon. I wonder whether Falcon could also be worked as a variation into Fourriere's two games I played in Game Courier, Jacks and Witches highly-recommended and Pocket-Polypiece43, the latter on a larger-than-43-square board that Fourriere once speculated about.
Big Battle
. Large (10x10), commercial variant.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Never commented, Big Battle at least attempts to solve the spacing problem inherent in 10x10. Here Pawns always have 1, 2, or 3 option if not capturing. Prince is Amazon(Q+N). Queen is enhanced by ability to leap over adjacent piece. Knight may double hop from initial position. King becomes more elusive as 1- or 2-square leaper. Conservatively only seven piece-types: usually 8 or even 9 is ideal when a decimal variant is sought. The extreme power of the new piece-pair Prince is offset by powerful Pawns. Nice try.
Big Board Chess. On a 10 by 10 board with individual opening setup. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Big Board here has similarity to Quintanilla's Switching Ch., and to last week's Lizarzaburu's XYMYX (a version of earlier Synchronous), and to any 'Random Chess' for that matter, in the following respect. All of them can in turn be applied to any other CV. Schonfelder's idea is to have a placement phase instead of an initial array. That gets rid of opening theory right away. In Schonfelder's preferred embodiment, 25 pieces would take a long time to place (anywhere in own half of board). See the sample game of Schonfelder, Beyer and Buntz. Now we can also combine further. For ex., take Brown's Centennial Chess, a relatively unheralded game. Play it with Schonfelder's placement (for the first 26 'moves') and Quintanilla's Switching adjacently throughout: Big-Board-Switching-Centennial Chess, theoretically very playable.
Rolling Kings. Kings must move along a predetermined path. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This is so suitable a fit for '32-Turn Contest', it's almost as if someone invented the game and then made up a contest to go with it. Not really how it happened to be designed, Rolling Kings' drawback is in being more like a study than a game to play, as paucity of Game Courier scores shows. Here you learn what 'bustrophaedonically' means, that 'oxlike' is not the same as 'bullheaded'.
Jumping Chess. Pieces capture by jumping. Board has extra edge squares making it 10x10. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Jumping Chess is another contest winner (Aronson won several contests). This one is not recommended, mostly because generalized jumping eliminates the uniqueness Knight has. There are only two Game Courier log-scores the last one a year ago, indicating an apparent verdict. Besides, somewhere Aronson himself says jumping-chess concepts, or jumping pieces generally, were invented before. I did not bother to look that comment up, or jumping predecessors in Pritchard's 'Encyclopedia Chess Variants'. This set of rules is just one from a potentially infinite set of sets of game rules featuring jumping pieces. All that said, the board is important towards development of later Rococo. Also, jumping Pawn was a work-in-progress to its Cannon Pawn. With David Howe's contribution, they hit a home run with Rococo! Jumping Chess is a strike out.
Chess-Battle. War variant from the Soviet-Union, 1933. (12x12, Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In this 1933 game from Russia, Cavalry is (Knight+Camel), but over enemy pieces it requires a specific pathway, only one being allowed. Both (N+C), or 'Gnu', and (N+Zebra), or 'Gazelle', have been used sometimes under varying names, both compounds about ten times in Pritchard's 'ECV'. Only once in Pritchard is there a piece that is (N+C+Z), a triple-compound leaper. Cazaux's 2001 Gigachess here in CVP re-uses that thirty-year-old (N+C+Z)leaper calling it Buffalo. Gilman's 2004 Great Herd is apparently the first ever use of (C+Z), or 'Bison', in a game.
Chess on a Really Big Board. Chess on multiple chess boards. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Continuing alphabetically thru the 'Large CVs', informally and retrospectively, 'Chess on a Really Big Board' is more like Ralph Betza's changed style by 2001-2004. Gradually Betza becomes equally interested in being entertaining as CV analysis. Making his game rules, or piece-value methods, clear was more of a priority in 1970's and 1980's. Never fatuous, Betza's sarcasm always has a point and this makes another 'fun' Betza 'read'. However, sorting out the CVs proposed from the irony becomes problematic. Is Betza serious or not about a 256-square board? Here he is both serious, and he is not, about 576 squares in a Chess embodiment. Somewhat prolix bombast and in-your-face leave-taking come to mark Betza's last 20-30 CVP pieces(and Comments).
Carrera's Chess. Large chess variant from 17th century Italy. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Mark Thompson in the classic article 'Defining the Abstract' uses the term 'their present perfection' referring to families of games including chess. Unfortunately CVP has never reprinted that article. I probably would have changed use of verb 'perfect' if Thompson's comment had not intervened. I mean 'to make better'. I think of the various Carrera embodiments as like rolling terrain with higher hills hard to discern with our tools which protrude, but with limited time we make the best estimate, and give supporting facts, including game scores.
Ultima. Game where each type of piece has a different capturing ability. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In contrast to the Carrera family, which have less differentiation, Ultima-like games are more sharply delineated in their features, metaphorically like USA Colorado's 54 'fourteeners', not somewhat similar hills of Carrera-Capablanca terrain. I would much rather have invented the 'Rococo peak' within the Ultima family than the 'Gothic hill' in its family; yet that one stands out within its environment.
Chessma 84. Game with elements of Chess and Ultima on a board with two levels with special corner squares. (2x(10x10), Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Continuing alphabetically retrospectively thru 'Large CVs': Do not be deceived by seeing 132 squares. Most of the squares are common to both halves, and there are only 84 unique spaces to move. There are 14 piece-types, the same number as Large Variant Contest winner Vyremon Chess on its 132 squares. The independent two rows of the two halves evince vague similarity to Altair, which comes later. Antoine Fourriere knows I like Jacks & Witches, Pocket Polypiece, Bifocal, and Chess on Larger Board, all his inventions. This Chessma might be too complex to go in detail into its strategy.
Assassination Chess. On a 10 by 10 board with teleporters and assassins. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Still in the 'ABC's in review of Large CVs, here's one never commented, never played probably except by Blanchard and Hogarty. Despite the name 'Assassination'(1998), it appears the game will revolve around the ten Teleporters. A T switches any other piece to its own square and then itself goes to Home Row, i.e. rank 3(8). I think there is only same-colour 'switching', but it is not entirely clear. This 'swap' is like Swapper of Rococo (V.R. Parton's Chimaerine), except the T goes elsewhere. That makes it different from Switching Chess' way of swapping too. The disruption in established positions 'T's can wreak is reminiscent of Lavieri's Alpha Centauri and its Rotor, just commented; and having a whole row (the Home Row) for the Teleporter to go connects to 'Positional 3D Chess', itself a panoply of games featuring promotion to any square in an entire row.
Beastmaster Chess. Large chess variant with a fantasy theme, emphasizing leaping pieces. (8x11, Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Yet within the 'ABC's of 'Large CVs': Some games have to be judged by their unifying concept more than playability. It is a subtle distinction that needs to be made with the proliferation of forms because of computers. One example is 'Rolling Kings', a fine 'idea game'. Beastmaster Chess is centered around the plan of having all leaping pieces. That has only been tried a few times before: an instance is Cavalier Chess, though the latter is not a Large CV and has one non-leaper. Beastmaster extends the leaps up to five steps away in the 'Wyvern'. By 'leapers' we tend to mean 'oblique leapers'. Of dubious playability, Beastmaster is still a great notion. It does not go so far as to include any of Charles Gilman's Bemes(11,3), Soll(7,4), Albatross(9,2), Deacon(8,7), Stork(7,2) etc. of 'From Ungulates Outward'.
Bird's Chess. Chess variant on 10 by 8 board from 19th century England. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Bird's Chess deserves its first comment. After 250 years Carrera's natural compounds (R+N) and (B+N) are moved toward center in initial position for first time by Henry Bird, a chess master. Is the further centralization of Bird's 'Guard'(R,N) in Gothic Chess a slight improvement? I think so. Is Knight centralized to d,e,f,or g also playable? Yes. It's better to cover all Pawns in array when there are so many long-range pieces. Bird fails to do this since c-pawn is not protected, but credit him with playtesting his own inventions. This family of chess has four Knight-capable pieces out of ten in the array.
Camblam. On a 12x12 board with archers, catapults and other enhanced pieces. (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The squares are not in fact skewed, like Ultra-Slanted Elevator has squares offset. It's the programming, I can visualize it fine. Nine piece-types is minimal for 144 squares. Six of them sound FIDE-like but mostly they're not. Bishops and Rooks enhanced by four-way one-steps their other way (Shogi-promotion-like), and up-to-three-step Pawns make sense. Knight enhanced is where this falls apart: in addition to own Knight-squares, N goes more or less to Camel AND Gilman's (1,5) Zemel squares. (Gilman never intends Zemel squares actually to be used.) There are Rook-modified 'Catapults', rifle-like 'Archers', and quasi-Sissa-like 'Prince'. Enough said, P-rated.
Al-Ces. Variant on 10 by 10 board with 30 pieces per player. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'ABC' Large-CV thread: Charles Gilman's Comment here is concerned with the naming. I would cite the 13 piece-types in making strategy difficult to picture. Having different moving and capturing capabilities for three of them results in effectively dealing with 16 piece-type-moves. 16/100 (= 16%) for piece-types is rather unfriendly to players. However, the mix of FIDE types and exotic pieces is usually good practice.
Bach Dang Chess. On board with 100 squares, with crafts and other special pieces and rules. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'ABC-Large-CV thread': 'The rules are simple' says Vu Q Vo. 8 piece-types, after predecessor Quang Trung Chess has seven. Do its piece powers overcome the low 'Xiangqi-like' piece density of 40%? At first blush, no, Counsellor is weak, and Elephant(=Camel) is weak and unpopular. Chariot here is a nice piece as a cross between classical Cannon and T.R.Dawson's Grasshopper. However, Chariot does not have enough supporting material. Why call the Bishop-mover a 'Cannon'? That's confusing even though just nomenclature. Also confounding is having a central 'palace' between files c and h for two pieces but maybe that works. The new piece 'Ship' is somwhat Sissa-like. The game is reminiscent of Outback Chess in being an unusual mix of piece-types. This Bach Dang would have to be played. It may have unexpected merit.
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