Bicyle, Bireme, Biplane: Daniel, the use of "bi" as a kind of prefix is bizarre for me in this context. "Bi" evokes the notion of twice or double, which is not present. I even prefer "ski" because it may me think of skipping. Anyway, having the 3 starting with the same letter if not the best imo.

I've been working on reviving this game (and Mitsugumi Shogi), and pretty much everything is done, but I am not sure how I should handle trading of the Fire Demons in these games to keep them exciting. Such rules don't really matter in Tenjiku Shogi, as the Tenjiku Fire Demon burns every adjacent enemy piece every time it moves, and even on the opponent's turn, so you can easily get several pieces for the price of one. In Suzumu Shogi (and Mitsugumi Shogi), the Fire Demon moves like a Free Boar with an additional area move and can optionally shoot one adjacent piece, either without moving or after it stops, and has no passive burn (XBetza: shQshympacabQ(a)2KmcabK(a)2mpacabK). In other words, the Suzumu Fire Demon's burning move is much weaker, potentially requiring rules to conserve it until the very end of the game.

I thought about implementing Chu Shogi-style rules for this, but they don't really work for a piece like the Suzumu Fire Demon. I then thought about implementing Maka Dai Dai Shogi's contagious promotion rules as well, but I worried that it would make the Fire Demons too survivable.

Right now I have a more limited contagious promotion rule in place which only affects direct captures of a Fire Demon or Heavenly Tetrarch from pieces that are not (potential) royals. I also gave the Suzumu Fire Demon's burning ability to the Heavenly Tetrarch. The former ensures that at least one Demon/Tetrarch survives, and the latter makes the Chariot Soldier more dangerous to make up for the weakened burning move. I think these changes work quite well, but I still want an outside opinion on this to make sure I am dealing with this issue the right way.

One remark: you made the starting letter of each of these equal to that of the normal slider moving in the same direction (B, R, Q). This makes an easy mnemonics for the names, but is a bit catastrophic for the move notation and other places where a piece has to be identified by a single-letter ID. And I wonder how much the mnemonic is worth; these are only helpful if you already know the names, but are not sure which name belongs to which piece. But most people would not even be aware that pieces of this type exist at all.

I have fixed the GC preset's contagious promotions and clarified the rules for contagious promotions as well.

Richard Milner suggested to me the names Bicycle (ski-bishop) Bireme (ski-rook) and Biplane (ski-queen) for these pieces.

The GC preset is no longer up to date. I still need to work out the kinks of the contagious promotions.

'Ski-piece' is more a generic descriptive prefix for how the piece moves. Like one uses 'crowned' for pieces that also move like King ('Crowned Bishop for the Dragon Horse) and 'mounted' or 'knighted' for pieces that also move like a Knight.

I suppose the association with skiing mainly comes from the sport of ski jumping, where they first slide from a ramp to jump as far downhill as they can, before sliding further downhill. One finds similar behavior in the sport of motocross or BMX cycling. So one of these pieces could be called a Crosser.

In fact the ski-pieces are very similar in character to the bent riders: the first step of their trajectory is a different one than the rest of the slide. But the difference only manifests itself in the length of the step, while the bent sliders also change the direction. Especially Osprey and Ostrich are similar, as their first step is also A or D, and the following steps F or W. The Ski-Bishop could be described as A-then-B.

All these pieces are capable of launching 'sneak attacks' on the more conventional pieces. Bent riders attack from around a corner, and the ski-pieces from behind and obstacle.  'Highwayman' seems an apt name for that behavior.

In my book about Jetan, published by McFarland, the rules of Jetan-Sarang are included in an appendix. That version of the rules are based on a thorough analysis of all available rule versions (including the version on this page) and games of Jetan-Sarang played on Game Courier, and fixes many of the ambiguities built into previous versions.

This variant, along with many other Jetan variants, is mentioned in my book about Jetan, published by McFarland. Follow the link to learn more. I would welcome reviews of the book posted to the book's page.

I would just like to mention that there is now a book about jetan, written by me and published by McFarland. Follow the link to learn more. I would welcome reviews of the book posted to the book's page.

I would just like to mention that there is now a book about jetan, written by me and published by McFarland. Follow the link to learn more. I would welcome reviews of the book posted to the book's page.

For those interested in testing out this unusual game, I have a new build of ChessV that plays it. Everything is supported except the rule where pawn moves to the last rank give you another avatar to drop.

http://chessv.org/downloads/ChessV2_Avatar.zip

NOTE: You may need to copy that link and paste it into your browser. Since my site is not HTTPS, some browsers will not follow the link.

Extract the zip somewhere, run ChessV.exe, and double-click on Avatar Chess from the games index.

An interesting variant. Ski-pieces are not used all that often in variants, and should definitely give it a unique flavor. I also like the fact that castling makes the King end up well in a corner despite the fact that the Rooks are not on the edge. I could not find the inverted pieces in the Alfaerie PNG set, so I improvised a bit for those in the Diagram. (Alternatives would have been the symbols for the hoppers, or the halflings (but there is no halfling Queen.)

Cam (short for Cameron!?) Neely was a (male) Boston Bruins ice hockey player, too (though Gilman didn't know it, yes Cam can be a woman's name, also even short for the UK Queen Consort's name Camilla). The word chess also means a form of grass. Words can sometimes have way more than one meaning.

Just to make sure about the moves of the Ski-XXX. Can they hop over the 1st square if it is occupied or not? For example, is the Ski-Bishop moving as Alfil-then-Bishop, A(A-B) or like Tamerlane Chess Talia which needs a first square empty, nA(A-B) ?

I've moved a couple of the last comments to a new thread: Setup graphics, piece sets

I was looking for the GC page for Tiger Chess. It is not visible in the Alphabetical Index. To find it I had to go in the database of the logs. Maybe someone can add this GC page for Tiger Chess in the Alphabetical Index?

Is it just subject threads or also comments I can't post?

After all the ups and downs over 3+ years and a much needed break, I can finally say with certainty that Suzumu Shogi is done, except for maybe the rules for prevemting Fire Demon trading. The main changes are as follows:

• The initial setup is different compared to the version you played (you can delete that game if you want).
• The Heavenly Tetrarch now has the Fire Demon's burning ability in addition to its original move.
• The Fire Demon and Heavenly Tetrarch cannot be burned.

The GC preset is up to date. I am planning on removing the old GC piece sets and set groups and uploading new ones once I manage to make contact with Greg Strong and Ben Reiniger.

The premise for tri dimensional chess set's presence on federation star ships was to teach three dimensional combat tactics, which is something the Bartmess and Meder rules patently fail to do, by blocking circumventing moves.
The rules presented here, on chess variants, are not complete and lack rules for castling but also advocate inverted attack boards, which, if nothing else, are highly impractical.
Not only were the World Tri Dimensional Chess Federation rules written by a fighter pilot, to teach three dimensional aerial combat, which is more in keeping with the original theme, they also start the king and queen in the centre files and provide the most reasonable method for castling, as the attached images demonstrate.

King's side castling


Queen's side castling

It is a little detail, but I recently observed that the initials of this 19th German author, Albers, is not H.G. but H.C. It is H.C. Albers. The mistake comes from the title page of his book, Unterricht im Schachspiele which is written (as well as the full book) with Gothic script. There is no doubt, the C of H.C. is the same than the C. of Courierspiele.

I don't know who was the first to make that mistake, then it crawled in many places including my own books. Fortunately we can also find some sources which are correct now, like Georgi Markov's papers.

Indeed, M for caMel. Another mnemotechnic is M with 2 humps like the camel.

I like the abstract pieces a lot and I use them when playing Gross Chess. But the farther you go from the standard types, the less well I think it works. In this game, you have Dragon King, Dragon Horse, and Amazon, and I don't think the abstract pieces are particularly effective.

I am disappointed to hear that Fergus requested you to use his graphics. I think it's fair to say that, while they may be good, they are decidedly non-standard. I do not think it helps our cause, (encouraging Chess enthusiasts to explore Chess variants), to make things appear more alien. Personally, I consider the standard for this site to be the Alfaerie graphics. Each contributor can, of course, choose whatever they like to represent their game.

What I think would be nice is to have buttons over the graphic which switch all page graphics between the options. I think H.G. has done this on some of his pages, but I don't know how it works. If it is not hard to do, I may start updating pages. OTOH, an argument can be made that the main diagram should be one of his interactive diagrams. Personally, I prefer to put the interactive diagram down in the "Computer Play" section, as I have done here,  But that may be because of my own biases.  The way I have the "Setup" section on that page is how I like to do it, largely because that's how it has been done here for a very long time (although I added the Initial Setup FEN.)

You can play this with the latest ChessV release candidate: ChessV 2.3 RC2

Just unzip and run the EXE.

Testing the game first with actual play, say using a preset on this website's Game Courier, would give players and viewers much clearer ideas about how any complex strategies might unfold in typical games.

Because the game is not played on a board that uses plain graphics (like a chess board), you (or someone else) may need the help of a CVP site editor or the webmaster to get the graphics of the board onto this website, for subsequent use on Game Courier when you (or someone else) will go about making a preset.

I'd hoped that castling would often come in handy, but there have been a couple of games, so far, where my opponents have dropped their K back a rank against me (likely after an Amazon move to third or second rank - one possible drawback might be if said Amazon ever has to retreat somewhere with loss of time). Castling kingside followed by shifting my K sideways one more square is something I often do, though maybe out of habit from chess (somewhat unrelated, Play Tester recently championed the idea of quickly charging the pawn in front of his Sailor on the kingside, even before either side may have castled).

The more space you have control of on a side of the board, the safer it is to castle there, I suppose. If Black plays a French Defence analogue, for example, then kingside castling seems nice enough for White. Not only that, but if a centre file is about to get opened early, castling may be a good idea. Sac Chess is still relatively unexplored, of course. I thought I'd sensed some unexpected defects to its design (compared to chess, at least) since inventing it, but at least it's being played more often again lately (though I'm always one of the players). Bishop(s) (and later Missionaries) flying out to the edge of the board, especially of the queenside, for example (the Sailor pawn charge may be another).

I'd also hoped when designing the game that the Judges (Centaurs) on the wings would help to guard a castled K for a long time. Castling queenside seems like it's usually quite unsafe, even compared to chess. The K is still likely unsafe in the middle for a couple of moves at the least. I'd secretly hoped to be the first one to castle queenside in a Sac Chess Game Courier game, but Fergus beat me to it when playing someone else. It's also easier to discourage or prevent castling queenside in the first place than in chess, it seems.

This looks interesting, but I wonder how well it works allowing the maggots to move backwards.

A 50-move rule like in orthodox Chess is completely pointless in games where Paws can also move backwards; the player that does not agree with the draw would simply move a Pawn back and forth to reset the ply counter. To make any sense the counter should only be reset on irreversible moves (captures and promotions).