Ratings & Comments

@Ben Reiniger, yes - of course, the rules are close to McCooey's game, with some remarkable changes. But, I'd like to point out that he was not first in creating the game that uses these rules, and I don't fully understand why his variant is mentioned instead of Shafran's version, which stands a little bit closer to my game (The difference between his interpretation and mine are the board shape, number of pieces, and some minor changes in the pawn and castling rules, as well as a new interpretation of stalemate. But still, the main difference is that my variant is actually playable).

As I can understand, you assume that my game seems to be too close to other existing variants, and maybe, it cannot be counted as a fully independent variant, at least without crediting McCooey's rules. Now, I regret that I didn't explain my ideas in the article due to the lack of free time.

Unlike all the variants on vertical hexagonal boards, which use diagonal pawn's capture (I won't be mentioning all other games and I'll be focusing only on this family of hexagonal games), I managed to come with a variant that is really playable and harmonic in its approach.

Both variants, which I mentioned previously, don't provide us with that. McCooey's interpretation has an unequal number of pawns and major pieces (7 against 9). In my opinion, it is enough to consider the fact that such a game cannot be accepted as something competitive to orthodox chess, and I highly doubt that it can be counted as an 'independent' variant if it uses the same board as in Glinski's game. Rules are the rules, but the board is the board. I like his variant, but I wouldn't prefer to play it as my major game. There are some other flaws (like the unprotected central pawn), but they are unremarkable. Shafran's interpretation has an unnatural initial setup, and I don't get the point of placing the pieces in such a broken array on vertical hexagons, while it works on horizontal ones (De Vasa, Brusky). But it doesn't matter at all if we'll be talking about the playing properties of this game. It is just unsafe to play it. After the first move by the central pawn, White threatens to attack both of the opponent's rooks at once, moving one of their bishops in front of their king. Can you imagine it in orthodox chess? Of course, it can be avoided, but it greatly reduces the diversity of possible opening positions, and it seems that this game doesn't have an opening stage at all. If Black moved their central pawn too, they're able to attack White's rooks, too. The exchange's happening, and the game continues. But still, can this variant look competitive to orthodox chess if it has such 'darkish' tricks? I guess that it'll be a true nightmare, especially for low-skilled players. The board is just too short for such pieces, and the game starts with predictable repetitive exchanges, especially if it is played by strong players. Unlike my variant, where castling actually does its primary purpose, it is completely useless in this variant.

My game stays free from all the special flaws that I mentioned above. It is actually playable and, I'm not afraid to say that it is aesthetically perfect.

At least, all thoughts that I posted here are just my thoughts. As a keen lover of hexagonal chess, I just wanted to create something better, and I continue to believe that this variant deserves its existence.

@Ben Reiniger, I renamed it.

As I can understand, you assume that my game seems to be too close to other existing variants, and maybe, it cannot be counted as a fully independent variant...

Ah, sorry, no, that was not my intended message. The board shape is enough IMO to warrant publication, since it limits the sort of "flanking" that rooks and queens gain in the hexagonally-shaped board of Glinsky/McCooey.

Let me try to clarify my intent. Hexagonal cells take some extrapolation from orthochess; the majority of variants (but not all!) agree on the basics (rooks and bishops, knights), and some (Glinsky!) differ on pawns, or sometimes kings. The next major splitting point is orientation (is forward an orthogonal direction or not), but again most variants agree on that. Within the large chunk of forward-oriented diagonal-attacking-pawns variants then, the only real differences are board size/shape, setup, pawn details (initial moves and promotion zone), and castling. So, I think it's nice to clarify quickly where a variant lives: this is one of those variants, not a "quirky" one with horizontally-oriented, or "weird" or "new" piece interpretations.

I'd like to point out that he was not first in creating the game that uses these rules, and I don't fully understand why his variant is mentioned instead of Shafran's version, which stands a little bit closer to my game

That's mostly a historical bias of this site I think: Glinsky's is probably the best-known, and McCooey's was introduced here, and so now the two Recognized/Primary links for the Hexagonal category are those. Perhaps we should add Shafran's game as a Recognized/Primary variant here in the hexagonal category?

I'll also mention that I'm not so familiar with hexagonal chess hierarchies and history, so I'm happy to be corrected on anything. Just to include them here, see also CECV chapter 22 and wikipedia.

Finally, I think the various claims like "the main difference is that my variant is actually playable" need some clarification. What is it about the different shape and setup that make this playable while all other hexagonal variants are not? At some point in your last comment you mention mismatched number of pawns and pieces, but that's hardly a disqualifier for me at least. Protected pawns, good and interesting openings, etc. would be more convincing to me. And yes, all that's subjective, but I think some discussion on the page (Notes section?) would be beneficial.

I've played the heck out of this via Ai Ai, and I absolutely adore this game. I prefer the greater piece density and the more interesting piece mix here to those of Grand Chess. The resulting play is interesting and nuanced both tactically and strategically. In my opinion Opulent Chess is one of the finest 10x10 variants.

My one complaint is the presence of Pawn promotion by replacement, but that's not particular to this game, I just dislike it everywhere. Promoting stuff is fun and interesting, so I prefer just being able to promote to any piece without restriction. After all I'm a Shogi player, and what can I say, we like promoting stuff! I also dislike some of the weird effects the rule can produce in rare circumstances, but that's more of an aesthetic objection. I do like the extended promotion zone though.

On the whole, a delightful game. Strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in decimal variants.

This post is ready for publication.

@Ben Reiniger, thank you for the explanation! Yes, this is one of those variants, and definitely not a 'quirky' one, because I didn't want to create a completely new game, but rather to rebuild in a new way the material that existed before me.

I think it would be great to add Shafran's variant to the primary hexagonal groop too, as well as variants by De Vasa and Brusky.

I think that I must explain, why I consider that my game is 'better' than other major hexagonal variants. Some of the reasons may sound a little bit subjective, although I believe that they will help to finally clarify my ideas about this particular game.

I came with an initial setup, which incorporates an equal number of knights and bishops (as well as pawns and major pieces - ten against ten). Since the knight and the bishop are relatively close in their values, I believe that this ratio is important for the balance of the game, especially after exchanges.

The initial setup of my variant seems to be a little bit more 'safer' than in other variants (Especially by Shafran, and Brusky (among horizontal ones)). This safety increases the diversity of possible openings and makes this variant relatively similar to orthodox chess, while it does not imitate the original game and its setup, but provides its own harmonic array. (An interesting fact is that the number of all first possible moves is similar to orthodox chess - 20 against 20). The number of black, grey and white-colored cells is equal to each other on my board. (Shafran - 23 white and black cells, 24 grey cells. Glinski/McCooey - 30 white and black cells, 31 grey cells. Koval - 24 white, grey and black cells). Of course, it is not important when it comes to the playing properties, but it may have some impact on the actual value of the grey-colored bishop, and, at least it just was an aesthetical flaw. I believe, that any unprotected pieces (not necessarily the pawns), especially at hexagonal boards, where the major pieces are way stronger than in orthodox chess, tend to be easily attacked, and in some cases, this leads to forced defensive progressions (Like in my previous example, related to the unprotected rooks in Shafran's variant). Such games cannot be acceptable for high-level or rating play, although it still works for 'home usage' or just as an intriguing novelty. The goal of the author was not just to create something different - I wanted to create a hexagonal variant that could compete with orthodox chess.

I've been playing a lot of this game recently (via Ai Ai), partly for my own enjoyment and partly as inspiration for my own 16x16 experiments. There are relatively few modern Chess variants played on 16x16, and for me, this game is the best example thus far.

The variety of pieces presented here is at first intimidating, but one soon realises there is a logic to everything presented here, and shortly thereafter you'll find the piece movements become natural. The balance of the initial position is excellent, with every piece finding its way into the fight without too much awkward development. Games are long -- against AI at 2 minutes/move my games take at least 400 plies, with my longest so far at 695 -- but as a large Shogi variant fanatic this doesn't bother me at all. Throughout those long games one will find drama, excitement, and plentiful opportunities for subtlety and subterfuge.

If I were very picky, I might say that I'd like to see the Rook + Camel/Bishop + Camel compounds in here, which I find really fun on a large board. Also the basic leapers -- Camel, Giraffe, Knight -- feel less impactful in a game this size. Having said that, everything works well together, and I enjoy this game tremendously.

I have implemented the bishop conversion rule now as a standard feature of the Interactive Diagram. So that it is now also possible to play Symmetric Chess against the AI (for which the trick of changing both bishop's piece types when one of them moved did not work). All that is now required is define the bishop with an extra initial iW move, and add a parameter conversion=N, where N is the number of the piece table of the piece to which the rule applies. (So here N=3). The first moves of pieces of this type are then forced to go to different square shades.

But why the limitation to set up queen and archbishop on different coloured squares, when they can change the square colour by moving like rook resp. knight?

The rule of castling is not correct as far as the Rook is concerned. When castling, the king moves three squares when castling short and four when castling long. The rook jumps to the immediate square on the other side of the king.

This will be corrected in future editions of A World of Chess, by JL.Cazaux and R.Knowlton.

The rule of castling is not correct as far as the Rook is concerned. When castling, the king move four squares toward one of the rooks, and the rook jumps to the other side of the king.

This will be corrected in future editions of A World of Chess, by JL.Cazaux and R.Knowlton.

In addition, the name Tressan has to be corrected to Tressau on this page.

Umm, I did not even know this rule existed. WinBoard restricts the shuffle only to have the Bishops on different colors. I agree the rule makes no sense. I have also seen descriptions that did not allow the Bishops to be on adjacent squares. (That also seemed to make little sense.)

The Interactive Diagram would have to struggle to enforce this rule, because there is no way to tell it directly that a pair of pieces of different types would have to be placed on different square shades. As a work-around you could 'mark' the shades by piece type, by defining the nominal start position with a back rank RBRBNKNCQA, so that RNQ are on dark squares, and BKCA on light. You can then order a sequence of shuffles, RNQ,BKCA,QA,!BNRKC .

The first shuffle solely serves to put Q on a random dark square, the second to put A on a random light square, and the third then randomly swaps the two. The remaining pieces then have to be shuffled the usual way, i.e. the Bishops would have to go on opposit shades (indicated by the ! prefix).

I guess it would be useful to extend the shuffling capabilities of the Diagram with a prefix to indicate the piece should stay on the same color as it was in the nominal setup. Sy This would be indicated by #, then the shuffle instructions could be K#QC#AR!BN,QA, with a nominal setup where Q and A start on different shades.

When castling, the king move four squares toward one of the rooks, and the rook jumps to the other side of the king.

That definitely sounds more sensible. I had to add a special parameter castlingGap to the Interactive Diagram to support the weird way of castling that is described in the text. (I see the Diagram in the article has already been changed to castle in the normal way, though, unlike the one I first published in the comments.)

I have made an attempt to implement Fischer castling in the Interactive Diagram. There is no special XBetza notation for this; a shuffle game has to be specified with a 'nominal' setup. This setup defines (together with the XBetza normal castling definition) where the king must end up, and what the castling partners are (the corner pieces, which must be of equal type). If such a castling is defined, any shuffle that involves the king will then be restricted to make the king end up between the castling partners, and will activate Fischer castling.

To support the shuffle rules of Capablanca Random Chess I enhanced the Diagram's shuffle feature: An exclamation point before a piece in a shuffle specification now either means that pieces of that type should be equally distributed over square shades, or, when there only is one such piece, that it must remain on the shade it is already on. This way Q and A can be forced on different shades by putting them so in the nominal position, and order an extra shuffle of only Q and A to determine which one goes on which shade. The shuffle specs are thus QA,N!BR!AC!QK.

Initially a Diagram always shows the nominal position; there is no spontaneous shuffle. To shuffle you have to press 'Restart' in the AI control bar.

[Editor's Note: Disabling this diagram to keep it from interfering with the one on the page.]

<script type="text/javascript" src="/membergraphics/MSinteractive-diagrams/betza.js?nocache=true">
</script>
<div class="idiagram">
files=10
ranks=8
promoZone=1
promoChoice=NBRQAC
graphicsDir=/membergraphics/MSelven-chess/
squareSize=35
graphicsType=png
shuffle=QA,N!BR!AC!QK
pawn:P:ifmnDfmWfceF:pawn:a2,b2,c2,d2,e2,f2,g2,h2,i2,j2,,a7,b7,c7,d7,e7,f7,g7,h7,i7,j7
knight:N:N:knight:c1,h1,,c8,h8
bishop:B:B:bishop:d1,g1,,d8,g8
rook:R:R:rook:a1,j1,,a8,j8
queen:Q:Q:queen:e1,,e8
archbishop:A:BN::b1,,b8
chancellor:C:RN:chancellor:i1,,i8
king:K:KisO3:king:f1,,f8
</div>

Indeed. See my comments from October 20 and 21 for the Sultan's game.

Thank you for your comment and the discussion.

Indeed. Please see my comments on the Sultan's game page from October 20 and 21.

My comment here on Oct 20th was in reply to your previous one in fact. But I still haven't learned how to incorporate a previous message or parts of it.

Fischer castling now should work in the Interactive Diagram, including the AI.

<script type="text/javascript" src="/membergraphics/MSinteractive-diagrams/betza.js">
</script>
<div class="idiagram">
  graphicsDir=/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG35/
  graphicsType=png
  symmetry=mirror
  shuffle=N!BRQK
  pawn::::a2-h2
  knight:N:::b1,g1
  bishop::::c1,f1
  rook::::a1,h1
  queen::Q::d1
  king::::e1
</div>

What If They Castle Do they Tell you?

I found the book from the inventor describing the game in 1919:

https://core.ac.uk/reader/14514151.

He gives multiple versions of the starting position and rules for pawn movement, as well as also describing some 4x4x4 and 7x7x7 variants. The version this article covers is the 10 pawn version (C³) of type C "Neue", which Maack calls the normal way to play. There is also the type A "alte" with pawns only on the γ level, and the type B "vier Einhörnern" where each side has four unicorns, but only one rook and knight, in order to span the whole board with each piece. All of the diagrams in the book show point reflection symmetry, not rotation symmetry, between the two sides, contrary to this article. The type B "reduzierte" pawn movement which the author prefers is disliked by Maack, in favor of the type C "neue" pawn which includes the forward-and-vertical capture.

Please make good use of this primary source, which, it seems, no one until now has found.

I don't seem to be able to find HG's piece values for this game. Can someone help?

Excellent! Thank you very much

I'm always a little wary about large piece-packed variants. Have you played this?

Not every visitor will understand the Betza notation; and while the interactive diagram helps, you should additionally include plain english descriptions for pieces.

The full-file rule seems clunky, but I guess it won't come into effect often. Maybe just allow no pawn creation in those rare cases, instead of making it an illegal move?

I would move all the "represented using ... from the second chess set" to the equipment section, leaving the Pieces section cleaner.

A couple of descriptions could use clarification. The "cannot be placed in check" description for the commoner might be misread to mean the opponent can't move to attack it. The knightrider's consecutive moves require empty intermediate square.

I have, but not very much. I'll add descriptions of the pieces.

I suspect 'cannot be placed in check' was intended to mean 'is not subject to any checking rule'. Why else call it a Commoner?

I would avoid calling the Nightrider a major pieces, as this term usually indicates pieces with mating potential. I suggest to use the term 'heavy piece' instead.

The full-file rule strikes me as odd: it tries to 'solve' the problem that on a full file there would be no room for a new Pawn, so that you could not capture a heavy piece in it, by merely making that same problem occurring earlier, when the file still has one empty square. It still seems to be a never-happens situation, but if this rule is just added for completeness, it would seem best to make it such that it only has to be invoked at the latest possible stage, i.e. that you cannot capture a heavy piece on a completely filled file. If the idea is that this gives the game an interesting twist, and should actually occur in games, it should already kick in on more sparsely filled files. E.g. half full, or when there is no empty square on your own half of the board.

As a matter of fact, I had had only a minor contribution in support of Eric Silverman and I cannot be considered as a co-author. Just "inspirator" if I may say.

I have myself designed and published a similar CV which aim is indeed to complement Shako, it is Pemba, https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/pemba

In addition if you want to make the lineage with my games, it would be important to respect the choice of names and icons I've made for them and that I use in all my games. This matters a lot for me. Eric S has respected this in the Heavy Shako he made available on AI AI.

You could use the "alfaerie for Metamachy" set for that, it has them all.

Your Zebra (which plays AND and not Z) should be a Squirrel, Your Castle (WD) should be a (modern) War Machine, Your small queen (=Leo) should be a Sorceress, represented by a star, Your Lance should be a Crocodile (=Vao), Your Unicorn should be a Buffalo (NCZ).

Thank you

How are the descriptions now?

This game has the same problem with the knight as the Rex Chess with king and Glinski's variant with the pawn.

It would be great if someone could find the remaining ones, who have the same trouble with the bishop and queen. At least, you're free to invent them.

I like very much the concept behind this game. I'm eager to play it to see how it goes.

I knew that Heavy Chess was far from being original, being strongly inspired by Sac Chess. But yesterday I realised that Kevin Pacey had even proposed exactly the same variant several years ago under the name of Royal Bevy Chess.

Therefore, I feel sorry and I have modified the text of this page to better credit him.

Indeed, using the original pieces would be ideal, but I do not know where the pictures are located. However, I can get pretty close to it using the path for Alfaerie pieces provided by the Interactive Diagram Designer.

If I can get the path of the directory for the Alfaerie for Metamachy set, that would allow me to use the intended piece graphics.

Is there any .ZRF file for this game?

I've changed the full file rule to be simpler and make more sense, clarified how commonners interact with check and renamed the major pieces to heavy pieces as suggested.

I've also done some editing cleanup as suggested by Ben Reiniger.

I believe that makes this ready to publish.

So, if I want to use the falcon in a commercial game, can I do it or should I pay money for it.

My submission is ready for publication.

Long ago I overheard a game being proposed where one of the players is not allowed to resign. As someone promptly mentioned, in real life a player could 'resign' by simply getting up and walking away from the game. Nothing can really avoid that, unless somehow said player suffers some sort of penalty, say in a rated tournament situation, or at the least suffers a social stigma of some sort instead.

A bit belated response to the comment by Stephane:

'Hello Kevin The aim of your game against oneself is not clear to me ! you should be more explicit about it from the start. You can always give advantage to one side !'

I thought it was clear enough solitaire dice chess could at least be played by using chess, or other standard CVs, for starters. Note that any given CV may not give equal chances to all the sides that play, but in spite of that I'd observe that in a solitaire game of any sort, it is possible to easily cheat, if one is the only player playing oneself.

Kevin