Comments by PeterAronson

Thanks for the space, David (my mind, <em>tidy</em>? -- now there's a strange concept!). <p>[I'd have said you had a beautiful mind, but that phrase was already taken. --DH]

This contest is now closed, although non-competing entries will still be accepted. The judges are working on the judging, but still have a lot of e-mail games to go, and so don't yet know when they will be done.

It seems to me that <b>Ruddigore Chess</b> actually seems playable! But I would suggest that the first three turns be declared a Bank Holiday with no capturing required.

Well, the game has been played a fair number of times against the computer and at least once by e-mail vs a human opponent, and it seemed to play fairly well (of course, there might be something wrong with it, after all I <em>lost</em> :)). <hr> A play order of AABB instead of the more usual ABAB for a four-player partnership game transforms it into a limited double-move variant, rather like one whose name I can't recall, where you get to move a piece on the left side of the board and one on the right side each turn. Limited double-move variants tend to be fun and exciting, so I can see the appeal, and spliting the double-move between partners has some piquant aspects, particularly if communications are restricted and reading minds is not at least one of the partner's strengths. I think I may add an AABB variant as to the Chaturanga 4-84's ZRF (still double-dummy, alas). <p> As for bid multiplayer Chess with a dummy . . . Could be done. Should it? :) <hr> Thanks for the kind words, Tony.

A variant has been added where both moves of a side are made in sequence, instead of alternating; a sort of limited double-move version. Thanks to John Lawson for the idea!

It would seem kind of redundent to have you build a discussion group when we already have one. However. There would be some advantages to a home-built discussion board: <ul> <p> <li>It could be integrated with the comment system. What <strong>I</strong> would like to have is a single system where both comments and general discussion are displayed in order of posting. It seems awkward to me to have two different systems with two different user interfaces for one purpose: discussing Chess variants. And I know for a fact there are for both people who use one but not the other.</li> <p> <li>It would be faster (it would hard to be slower!).</li> <p> <li>It wouldn't have all of the stupid advertising the current incarnation of the discussion group has.</li> </ul> <p> But still, it would seem like a lot of work for something which we already have, if not in ideal form.

You know, I can't see any reason (aside from restraint) why stepping pieces couldn't take advantage of chatter even if they can't create it (sort of like a low-power line mixed in with higher-power lines). Then, if a stepper could move to a square containing a rider's line, it could ride away on it! In that case, castling and Pawn-double-step could definitely generate chatter lines (and we'd have to distinguish between capturing and non-capturing chatter lines). Of course, chasing down a King supported by a Bishop could be rather difficult . . . <p> The above would probably result in a fairly crazy game, but it would also come closer to working with different armies. <p> And for the list of possibly unplayable games, I'd like to add <u><a href='../d.betza/chessvar/confu01.html'>Confusion 1b</a> Chatter Chess</u>.

Great idea David -- thanks!

I think I was a little unclear about my idea. A stepping piece would move on a chatter line if one of the squares that it could move to was on that chatter line. Thus, a player with a King on <b>a3</b>, and a Bishop on <b>a1</b>, with the Bishop having a clear move to <b>h8</b> could move the King all the way to <b>h8</b>. Which is why it could be hard to run down the King without disposing of the Bishop first. <p> But in any case, your suggestion to exclude the King and Pawns from this behavior is probably wise, leaving it for various Faerie and CDA pieces in their stepping moves.

This looks like fun! I particularly like that once you overprotect a Pawn by two (easy enough -- just take an unattacked Pawn and give it two supporters), suddenly it captures forward and to the side. <p> I find myself wondering if overprotection is calculated recursively. That is, when determining overprotection, is overprotection taken into account? <p> Consider the following: <blockquote> White Pawns at <b>a3</b>, <b>b4</b> and <b>c3</b>; <p> Black Pawns at <b>a6</b>, <b>b5</b> and <b>c6</b>. </blockquote> Assume white's move. Can the white Pawn on <b>b4</b> capture the black Pawn on <b>b5</b>? If you apply white's Wazir capture first, then it can (since it is overprotected by two, black not having a Wazir capture as it is only overprotected by one), if you apply black's Wazir capture first, it can not (since then the white Pawn will only be overprotected by one). Curious, no?

This is something new in a way, or at least something not often done. It is a game where the two sides, while having the same movement, have different board topologies to deal with in the opening and midgame, and I think it an interesting idea. Now, if there was just some way to determine if it was balanced . . .

Shall we go with Tony Paletta's suggestion, and avoid all temporary powers when calculating overprotection? It does make it simpler, and importantly improves clarity.

The discussion of piece values and the purpose of the variant for <a href='../diffsetup.dir/chigorin.html'>Chigorin Chess</a> reminded me of a conceptually-related idea I had a while ago I called Rook-Level Chess. <p> <h4>Rook-Level Chess</h4> <p> The idea I wanted to explore in Rook-Level Chess is: how would the play of Chess be affected if the Rook, the Knight and the Bishop all had approximately the same value? It seemed to me that threats would be harder at the very least. Anyway, drawing on Ralph Betza's work on the value of Chess pieces I selected stronger Knights and Bishops that retained some of the character of the existing pieces: for Knights I used NW (Knight + Wazir or Marquis), for Bishops I used BD (Bishop + Dabbabah or Bede). These pieces retain the color behavior of the pieces they replace: the Marquis is color-changing, and the Bede is colorbound. <p> I sent this to David Paulowich, and asked him how he thought this would affect exchanges. He replied that we would still prefer a Rook to a Marquis and a Marquis to a Bede, as you could mate with a Rook + King vs King, but not with Marquis + King vs King or Bede + King vs King, and he still though color-switching pieces more valuable than colorbound ones, other things being equal. <h4>Rook-Level Chess II</h4> <p> Given the above comment, I wondered if the powered up Knight and Bishop could retain <i>different</i> characteristics of the base piece? So, for Rook-Level Chess II I replaced the Knight with ND (Knight + Dabbabah or Vicount) and the Bishop with BW (Bishop + Ferz or Dragon-Horse). In this case I retained that the Knight was a strictly leaping piece not attacking adjacent pieces, and I retained that the Bishop was a non-jumping piece. Are these pieces of equal value? And could you mate with Vicount + King vs King? (Dragon-Horse + King vs King is a win.) <h4>Discussion</h4> <p> I've played around with Rook-Level Chess a bit with Zillions for what it is worth, but I strongly suspect it loses somethings that Chess has. If nothing else, weak pieces can be fun since they can harass stronger pieces. <p> Other versions are of course possible. Given that Ralph has settled down to rating the Crooked Bishop (zFF) as equal to a Rook (there being a brief point where he was rating it at 1.5 Rooks), a Crooked Bishop might replace the Bishop nicely. <p> I should eventually add these as modest variants.

It would be nice if a place to click to create a new subject at the top of the comments page. Right now, as far as I can tell, you have to page down until you find an existing thread, and click there.

Here's an amusing possible solution to the problems with this variant: combine it with <a href='../other.dir/alice.html'>Alice Chess</a>. <p> Here's how it might go. You add a second board, like in Alice Chess, except the 2nd board has reversed checkering: a1 is white, not black. When a piece's move would otherwise cause it to move to a square of a different color, it instead lands on the equivalent square of the other board. Thus Knights always switch boards when they move, and Bishops never switch boards. <p> There are a number of ways to handle switching boards: <p> <ul> <li>Alice Chess-style. The move on the board on which the piece starts must be legal as in orthochess, and the square on the other board must be empty.</li> <p> <li>The Plunge. A piece moving to another color may only to move to a square that is empty on their current board, then they plunge through the board to the equivalent square on the other board, capturing any opposing pieces they land on, except for Pawns who may not plunge to occupied squares.</li> <p> <li>The Switch-a-roo. A piece makes a normal orthochess move on the board on which it starts, and then, if the destination square is of a different color than the piece's starting square, it moves to an equivalent position on the other board. If the space on the other board is occupied, then the piece occupying that space is moved to the space just landed on on the board that the moving piece started on. This version actually allows Bishops on the 2nd board.</li> <p> <li>The Last Square. The piece's move is as normal, except that if the piece would land on a color of square different from which it started, the last square of its move is the equivalent space on the other board, and the move does not pass through what would be the final square of its move in orthochess. The last square on the board on which the board-changing piece moved from may be occupied by a friendly or opposing piece -- it doesn't matter as the moving piece does not pass through it. </ul> <p> I don't know which would be best.

Of course, there is the issue that on a larger board, since leapers are weakened, most of these pieces are probably not quite Rook-level anymore. One piece I do want to try in a larger variant someday is the NH (Knight + (3,0) leaper), since the H portion of the move would allow it to move around a 10x10 board slightly faster than a Knight moves around an 8x8 board.

There's an idea for the Bishop's move -- give it a colorbound Wazir's move, so that it can only use it to change boards. Just repeat that term: <i>A colorbound Wazir's move</i>. I love to be able to say that and have it mean something

Hey, David. Somehow my last comment in the 'Rook-Level Chess' thread turned into its own 'Rook-Level' thread (no 'Chess'). Any ideas? <p><i>Hey Peter, I think it's fixed. There was an issue with spaces I think. Time will tell...</i>

Thanks for the end-game! I deliberately left the Queen out of the leveling so as not to make thinks <strong>too</strong> uniform. <p> I wonder if the the <b>Rook-Level Chess I</b> army vs the <b>Rook-Level Chess II</b> army would be a balanced form of Chess with Different Armies? I would think so, but the <b>RLC II</b> army does have a significant 'can mate' advantage. Does it matter?

Yellow is the color of mystery in Italy? I wonder if Robert Chambers knew that. (Robert Chambers was an early writer of supernatural horror who's work, particularly <u>The King in Yellow</u>, was cited as major influence by Lovecraft and his circle.) <p> Repetition is now forbidden! <p> I have printed out your screed to study in the morning, when the sap rises and the brain cells go off strike. <p> Forget the root beer or the Hennepin, what I want is a case of Diet Moxie. It's the one form of soda that my kids will not filch. <p> (I have actually recently dived into the seas of i18n, actually -- talk about your eldritch horrors! The subtle distinctions between UCS-2 and UTF-16 will drive me mad, <strong>mad</strong> I say! <i>Mua, ha, ha, ha . . .</i>)

ZRF updated to fix multiple captures by Remover, revision displayed in history is now 1.4 for latest version.

I would have to agree that the Cavalier (Gryphon + Aanca) is a kind of extreme piece, but if you look at Ralph Betza's note on the value of such <a href='../piececlopedia.dir/bent-riders.html'>Bent Riders</a>, you will see that he rates such a piece as being worth slightly less than an Amazon (Queen + Knight) on an 8x8 board [Although honestly requires me to add that Ralph himself is not entirely convinced of his piece evaluation system, although in my experiance it is at least approximately right most of the time]. On a 10x10 board the Cavalier gains some additional value, while the Amazon would probably break even (Queen components gain in value, Knight components lose in value) -- so call the Cavalier a rough equivalent of an Amazon. <p> Now, would two Amazons be too strong for a 10x10 board? It comes down to a matter of taste I suppose, but I have to suspect that as Tony Paletta noted in a comment on <a href='../large.dir/full-double-chess.html'>Full Double Chess</a>, their presence would tend to reduce the minor pieces to cannon fodder (although there is fun to be had with weak pieces). <p> In any case, I rather like your idea of substituting Cooked Bishops -- the world needs more games with Crooked Bishops (and where, you may ask are <em>your</em> games with Crooked Bishops, Mr. Aronson? Err, well, the <a href='../dpieces.dir/fighting-fizzies.html'>Fighting Fizzies</a> have a WzFF as a Queen, and otherwise, they're all in the future . . .) <hr> I'm commenting on your comment here, rather than by e-mail as you suggested as that way other people can join in the discussion and have fun.

The rating I really want to give this page is 'interesting'; not <b>Excellent</b>, <b>Good</b> or <b>Poor</b>, but interesting. <p> While the game L. U. Kisljuk describes is perfectly playable, I have real doubts it ever existed. Much more likely London confused a description of Shogi with Korea, and gave it a name often used for Korea at that time. Or possibly he was just passing on someone else's mistake. I've never heard any evidence that the Koreans played Shogi in the past, and this is the first 'historical' game I've ever heard of that combined drops and cannons. Remember Occam's Razor.

You <strong><em>don't</em></strong> want to pronounce Nemoroth correctly. You really don't. But if you must, <i>do not pronounce that dread name in a room with any corners!</i> But I'm probably worrying about nothing. <br> <br> <br> Heh.

I spent some (to much!) time last night fooling around with Ruddigore Chess. I started by hacking and slashing up Fergus's Duniho's Chessgi ZRF, and seeing what happened. (Zillions is hardly the only tool suitable for this sort of thing, of course, but it is the one that usually comes to hand for me. Occasionally I worry about the effect this has on my game designing, since if the only tool you have is a hammer, everthing starts to look like a nail. However, the essay <u>Zillions of Games: threat or menace</u>, will have to wait for another day.) <p> As a frame, the battle represents a Loser-take-all battle between Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd (white) and Sir Despard Murgatroyd (black) as to who will be stuck being the cursed Bad Baronet of Ruddigore. <p> The initial rules were: <ol> <p> <li><b>Ruddigore</b> Chess is a <a href='../other.dir/chesgi.html'>Chessgi</a> variant, and all rules of that game apply except when contradicted below.</li> <p> <li>Each turn that a player does not perform a wicked deed by capturing a piece (their's or their opponent's), they must sacrifice a piece to the curse. Pieces in hand may be sacrificed. Sacrificed pieces are out of the game.</li> <p> <li>You may capture your own pieces ('If a man can't capture his own, pieces, <strong>whose</strong> pieces <em>can</em> he capture?'). Pieces of your own you capture go into your hand.</li> <p> <li>The first three turns are a Bank Holiday, and there are no captures or sacrifices then.</li> <p> <li>If you run out of other pieces to sacrifice, and you must sacrifice, you must sacrifice your King and lose.</li> </ol> <p> The problem with this game, as a few minutes of thought would have told me, is that it is far, far easier to capture your own pieces than the opponent's. What you get is mostly self captures with occasional threats in order to force a piece loss on the opponent, with the goal of having them run out of pieces to sacrifice first. Not very Chess-like. <p> The made the follow changes then, attempting to get more pieces engaged: <ul> <p> <li>Only the King, renamed the Baronet and given the ability to capture (but not move without capturing) like a Knight in addition to moving like a King [WFcN], can capture friendly pieces (if you want something done right . . .).</li> <p> <li>The Knights are replaced by Gentlemen, which are limited Nightriders (NN2).</li> <p> <li>Pawns are now Quickpawns which can always move two forward, and I've eliminated en passant to encourage them.</li> </ul> <p> This made a small difference, but not enough. So I eliminated the Bank Holiday, and made sacrifices required only on even turns (Sir Despard did all of his wicked deeds in the morning, and did good in the afternoon). This helped a lot, now you can capture your own piece on an even turn, and deploy it on an odd one. Now, though, I'm wondering if the Gentlemen are too powerful, since when dropped they can fork like anything. Maybe Halfling Nightriders? <p> I also find I'm tempted to rename everything: Pawns into Farmers, Bishops into Vicars, Rooks into Squires, and Queens to Stewards. But on the other hand, if the move hasn't changed, it is confusing to change the name of the piece. <p> Anyway, this is still very much an on-going project, and I'd appreciate any advice anyone has.

Well, I do worry about limiting my designs to what works well for Zillions. Of the 17 or so games I've published since I've learned Zillions programming, only one -- Transactional Chess -- has not been implemented with Zillions. This leads me to wonder what games am I 'self-censoring' in favor the ones that are easily implementable with Zillions. The games I designed before were often difficult to completely implement for Zillions; some would merely say that Zillions was simplify causing me to simply the games, which is all to the good. But there can be simple ideas that are not simple to implement with Zillions. Chatter Chess would be a great deal of work to implement in Zillions, for example.

I hadn't worked with halfing Nightriders before -- it's a very nice piece. All halflings have shorter range the closer they get to the center, but the hhNN is more extreme somehow, moving like regular Knights when in the central 4x4 area. I'll have to use them somewhere else someday.

A very clean design with lots of tactical interest.

It's nice to see a game of different armies on a large canvas. It's hard to tell if it is balanced or not, but I wonder if balance is as important at this scale: both sides possibly having more material than they can effectively use. Or is 11x11 with 22 pieces a side too small for that sort of effect?

I would recommend safety goggles and a digital camera (to record board positions) as useful equipment for this game.

I could see times when you might send a piece up or down the elevator just to clear an attack lane.

Well, given that in Tai Shogi pieces promote when they capture (I think), he might have been discussing something other than material.

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.

There's a mistake here -- Ralph didn't want the previous page <strong>replaced</strong> by the rules page, he wanted it to reference it or be merged with it! I have a copy of the old page at work and will fix it on Monday, unless one of the other editors has a pre-modification copy. <p> Sorry Ralph!

I do seem in general to have been influenced by Parton. I share his interest in non-replacement capture; although in my case I came to Chess Variant design from a general interest in games, and have looked at many games over the years with many forms of capture. <p> But many of my games seem to owe somthing to Parton: Snark Hunt, Jumping Chess and Interweave in particular. <p> But there could be worse models.

Another fix, I'm afraid, this time for a capture by a Pawn landing on the 7th rank, and not promoting. Previously, if you did not promote, you did not actually capture, which was wrong. ZRF is now at Rev. 1.5.

I am convinced! The last paragraph of the <b>Notes and Comments</b> section now contains the suggested terminology.

Well, to damn it with faint (or dubious) praise, it seems reasonable to me, at least at first blush. <p> With forced captures and an attainment goal, the play will not be particularly Chess-like, I suspect. Not that that's a problem. <p> It has some simularities to <a href= '../diffobjective.dir/giveaway.html'>Losing Chess</a>, but only in the middle. I do wonder if the board will just become hopelessly clogged, particularly the middle board. The problem is, pieces can only be forced to move by offering them captures, and captures can only be offered <strong>on</strong> the squares you want to be able to move pieces <em>off</em> of. <p> Perhaps some form of capture other than elevation is required for the outer boards, such as <a href='../difftaking.dir/circe.html'>Circean</a> capture where captured pieces are returned to their starting square.

<h4>CV Descriptions as Literature</h4> Ralph Betza recently complimented on how my page on <A HREF='../other.dir/ruddigore-chess.html'>Ruddigore Chess</A> was written. This led me to think about Ralph's excellent pages for <A HREF='../other.dir/nemoroth.html'>The Game of Nemoroth</A>, and wonder: can an Chess variant's description also be a work of literature? <P> (Let me note that in my view, literature comes in a quite a large range of quality, and piece of writing does not have to be to the standards of F. Scott Fitzgerald or James Joyce to qualify. The fast and loose definition I'm going to use here is that literature is writing of at least reasonable quality, intended to be pleasurable or moving to read. (The intelligentsia may now commence my immolation.)) <P> A possibly analogous situation. One of my two degrees is in geography, and of course I was educated in its history. Until the late 19th Century, Geography (with the exception of Cartography and related disciplines) was primarily a descriptive science, and could be and was looked at as a variety of literature -- the literature of place. A piece of geographic writing was judged almost as much by the quality of its writing as the correctness and completeness of its facts. <p> Chess variants as described in these pages are a combination of rules and description, of algorithm and literature. While I would hardly suggest that the quality of the writing is anywhere near as important as the quality of the rules, yet sometimes the writing is very good. If you search through these pages, you will admittedly, find many bare-bones or clumsy descriptions of Chess variants. Often it is not the fault of the author, who may be laboring with a foreign language, or simply not have time or writing experience for the type of description they would like to produce. And opinions vary; as editor, I have corresponded with authors who prefered a very minimalist presentation of their designs. But still, if you wander through these pages, you will find stories and jokes and puns, references to arts and popular culture, small essays on the processes of designing and playing games, and snatches of biography and history. Sort of a literary smorgasbord. <p> Does all of this additional material add or detract from the rules that are the <I>raison d'etre</I> of the pages in the first place? Do readers like their Chess variants straight, or with a splash of story?

This is looking interesting. Have you tried it yet? If you don't have an opponent it would be easy enough to program for Zillions, given that Halflings have been figured out for ZRF. <p> In his page on <a href='../dpieces.dir/amontillado.html'>Amontillado Chess</a>, Ralph Betza speculates that a Halfling Nightrider is worth in the neighborhood of 1/2 a Queen, or approximately the value of a Halfling Queen. I don't see this as a problem with your game, mind you, but if it is correct players will have to be careful to keep in mind the new balance of power amongst the pieces. <p> I do wonder about the piece density -- 16 pieces on 64-squares do seem to rattle around a bit. I suppose you could double the back rows except for the Kings, although I'm not sure that would improve matters. <p> I'm not sure if it necessary, but if the game tends to end in draws even with the stalemate rule, you could also add victory by Bare King.

Well of course elegance is in the eye of the beholder, but that's hardly a satisfying answer, is it? <p> Why only one doubled piece? Well, the descent of Rococo is from Orthochess via Ultima, and in Orthochess of course there are three pairs of pieces, while in Ultima there are two pairs, and Rococo has one pair. It seems as piece types are added, doubled pieces are removed. <p> But that's history, not an answer. One way to look at it as is that pieces in Rococo are either <strong>paired</strong> or <strong>doubled</strong>. Here are the pairs: <p> <ul> <li>King and Chameleon. This is the weakest pairing, but does correspond roughly to Orthochess's King and Queen: the piece the must be captured and the piece that captures in the most ways.</li> <p> <li>Advancer and Withdrawer. The two mirrored capture methods, also the two capture methods borrowed from Fanorona.</li> <p> <li>Immobilizer and Swapper. The piece that stops opposing pieces from moving, and the piece that can move opposing pieces.</li> <p> </ul> This leaves the Long Leaper doubled up, as it doesn't seem to have a logical complementry partner. Can you think of one?

<blockquote> 'The only other rule I can think of is that if it's your move and the other player is already in check, you cannot capture the King but you can play any other legal move you choose' </blockquote> This also deals with the discovered check problem in multiplayer variants: that is, when player A moves a piece that was blocking player B's piece, so now player B's piece attacks player C's King, and the turn sequence is A-B-C so player C never gets a chance to move out of check before being captured.

No warrentee is provided on the following idle speculation. Any damages resulting from incorrect application of others work is not the problem of the author. <p> Since I wrote this, Ralph has revised his estimate of the value of the Crooked Bishop back down to about a Rook (see: <a href='../piececlopedia.dir/crooked-bishop-revisited.html'>The Crooked Bishop Revisted</a>). (Peter Hatch's revision, if I understand it correctly, if correct, would only make 0.04 of a Rook's difference, or about 1/5 a Pawn.) That means my estimated value for the Eaglescout is off. Using Ralph's colorbound correction number of 1.15, the value of the Eaglescout can be calculated as: <blockquote> <pre>1.15 * 4.5 + 1.5 = 6.67 Pawns</pre> or <pre>1.15 * 5.0 + 1.5 = 7.25 Pawns</pre> </blockquote> depending on what value you use for a Rook. This is roughly equivalent to the value of a Cardinal: <blockquote> <pre>1.15 * 3 + 3 = 6.45 Pawns</pre> </blockquote> (There appears to be missing 2nd correct factor for the Knight's contribution, since the Knight is no longer color switching -- surely that ought to be worth something?). Anyway, that makes the Eaglescout worth a bit more than a Cardinal, but not that much, but still noticable weaker than a Queen. However, given the Army seems strong enough or too strong, there's nothing wrong with that. <p> This downgrading of the value of the Eaglescout makes me wonder again: is the strength of the army due to the combination of the pieces, or is perhaps the value of the Left- and Right-Rhinos and maybe Crabinals higher than estimated?

Links added -- sorry about missing them the first time! And I see John actually beat me to the punch.

<h4 align=center>What's the Value of a White Elephant?</h4> Here are some thoughts on a variant I've played around with, but never finished as I was uncertain about the balance. I thought they might be of minor general interest, so here they are. <P> Sometime back, after reading the Piececlopedia article on the <a href='../piececlopedia.dir/alfil.html'>Alfil</a>, I started thinking about the other sort of Elephant piece, the one that moves like a Ferz or one step forward (fWF), found in <A HREF='../oriental.dir/burmese.html'>Sittuyin</A> (Burmese Chess) as the Elephant, in <A HREF='../oriental.dir/thai.html'>Makruk</A> (Thai Chess) as the Thon, and in <A HREF='../shogi.html'>Shogi</A> (Japanese Chess) as the Silver General. <P> It's a simple piece, but what is it worth? A <A HREF='../piececlopedia.dir/ferz.html'>Ferz</A> is generally accepted to be worth about 1/2 a Knight (balancing colorboundness with a good forward move), but how much more does that single forward move add? I'm not as scientific about these sorts of things like Ralph Betza is, but it does add a lot. First, an Elephant is not colorbound like a Ferz is, and second, its forward moves are the same as a <A HREF='../piececlopedia.dir/man.html'>Commoner's</A>. In fact, you could look at an Elephant as 5/8's of a Commoner, which is generally considered a Knight-valued piece and about which Ralph Betza says: <BLOCKQUOTE> This is a very short-range and very flexible piece that is much weaker than a Knight in the opening, very strong in the middlegame if it can occupy the center, and almost always wins against a Knight or Bishop in the endgame. </BLOCKQUOTE> Of course, an Elephant is less flexible in the endgame where the opposing pieces very well might not be in front of it. But on the other hand, it has the three most useful moves of the Commoner for the opening. So we'll assume 5/8's of a Knight is about right; roughly two Pawns. <P> The next thought I had on the subject was what if I were to combine the Alfil and the Elephant? This produced a piece that moved one or two (jumping) diagonally or one square forward. Looking at this, I realized that if I added a two square jump forward (yielding fWFfDA) , I would repeat the shape of the Elephant's move (supposedly four legs and a trunk) on a slightly larger scale. Thus was born the 'Great Elephant'. <P> Now, what's the Great Elephant's value? It attacks 10 squares on an empty board, and it is neither colorbound nor colorchanging. The simplest calculation would be a Knight and a quarter -- 3.75 Pawns. The lack of colorchanging might kick it up to as much as 4 Pawns. <P> OK, the actual variant. Thinking about Ralph Betza's game of <A HREF='../d.betza/chessvar/ghost.html'>Black Ghost</A>, where black is given a piece worth less than a Pawn to balance white's first turn advantage, I decided to give white an Elephant-based army worth a tiny bit less than black's in order to balance white's first turn advantage. <h4 align=center>White Elephant Chess</h4> The rules for <B>White Elephant Chess</B> are as for <A HREF='../ichess.html'>FIDE Chess</A>, except where stated otherwise. <P> White's Bishops are replaced by Elephants (fWF), and Knight's by Great Elephant's (fWFfDA). Black's array is the usual FIDE array. <P> Pawns may promote to any non-Pawn, non-King piece that started the game on either side (Elephant, Knight, Bishop, Great Elephant, Rook or Queen). <hr> My suspicion (backed up unreliably by Zillions) is that white might be a tad <STRONG>too</STRONG> weak. I tried adding the Alfil's move to the white Queen's to produce the Queen Elephant, but that didn't seem right, either.

This does look like fun! It's an interesting question if it is better to play your Rhino and Headless Rhinos early, or to keep them safe in the box. Elephants and Great Elephants of course should come out and play as soon as possible. <p>As for Lint to Dust Bunny to Dust Demon -- you may have found another great train of evolution to rival Paperclip to Coathanger to Bicycle. <p>As for the credits, your stuff has long and often had a light-hearted (and erudite) touch -- you didn't really get it from me.

I agree with Tony -- very pretty! And I've already appropriated the Elephant graphic.

A worthy project! And a valuable addition to the available Chess variant graphics.

Pink Elephants! I gotta think about that one -- there's something there, I'm sure.

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The Drunken Elephant or Suizo moves like a King, except not directly backwards (fsWF). It promotes (by capturing) to a Crown Prince (!), which is essentially a spare King. It's found in Chu Shogi and most other large Shogis.

Tastes do vary. At 44 I no longer qualify as a 'younger player', but I have to admit that after winning the game in a contest, I looked it over two or three times, and then put it on a shelf where it remains today, due to the (to me) unpleasent artwork. Life is too short to expose myself to that sort of thing. But then, as I said, tastes vary -- the world contains many people who enjoy horror novels and long dreary Russian novels.

Another question: if the Box moves to a square adjacent to the 8th rank, may it play a Bat on the 8th rank? If so, is the Bat stuck there, or does it instantly promote to a BOOH?

Karl, in <u>Knight-Relay Chess</u> you get to move your <strong>own</strong> pieces a Knight's move away from one of your Knights like a Knight -- in <u>Knight Scattering Chess</u> you get to move one of your <strong>opponent</strong>'s pieces a Knight's move from one of your Knights. Not a big change in the rules, but this results in a very different game.

<h4>Progress Report</h4> The judges have <strong>not</strong> actually fled the country, but continue to work on the contest. Since we decided to play all of the entries <em>twice</em>, that's 42 email games. However, we are down to 10 games left, all currently in simultaneous progress. <p> Thank you for your patience.

When I go to sleep at night, I often try to think about something interesting or pleasant while I drift off. Last night I found myself thinking about an odd Chess piece. <p> The piece moves without capturing like a Dabbabah-Rider (repeated leaps of two squares in the same orthogonal direction), but captures like a Rook. So, mDDcWW or mDDcR in Ralph's funny notation. <p> And I found myself wondering: how powerful is this piece, and what sort of game or problem would it be good for? I has a number of curious characteristics: except for capturing, it is doubly colorbound, being restricted to 1/4 of the board; and while it can switch by capturing, at any time it can only attack 1/2 of the board. <p> It seems to me that this piece is vaguely cannon-like, being more powerful in the opening and midgame than the endgame. It also seems to me that it might be a very charming part of a piece mix. Any thoughts?

I considered the Bishop equivalent, but decided it would likely be too weak. <p> Mike Nelson has proposed a game based on these sorts of pieces -- you can see it in the comments for Colorboundmost Chess. My suspicion is that there would not be enough power in the board in the endgame, making the game drawish.

Honestly! See Jean-Louis Cazaux's page on the relative ages of 2-handed and 4-handed Chaturanga. It can be found at: <ul> <li><a href='http://www.chez.com/cazaux/chaturanga.htm'>http://www.chez.com/cazaux/chaturanga.htm</a> </ul> Neither Forbes nor Cullen are considered exactly up-to-date sources, you know.

Joerg, <p> That sounds like the French game described in the ECV as Djambi -- you can find some information on the Internet if you search under that name, including a (French) retailer who apparently still sells it. The inventor's name is Jean Anesto. <p> There's an extensive page in French on the game at: <a href="http://jeuxsoc.free.fr/d/djamb_rg.htm">http://jeuxsoc.free.fr/d/djamb_rg.htm</a>