George Duke wrote on Mon, Apr 12, 2010 10:08 PM UTC:
The Contingency Pawn cannot move until her piece has once. Cont. Pawn
cannot even capture before of course by the rule, necessitating a look at Rank 3/8. The 8x10 array is
Bison-Gryphon-Bishop-Knight-Amazon-King-Knight-Bishop-Gryphon-Bison,
covering all Pawns thrice, twice, or once at least. The Cont.-Pawn Mutator
exponentially speeds development in having each piece come forth first and
his Pawn sometime second. There are no real immediate mate threats or
likely fool's mate because of adequate counterplay by familiar leapers Bison,
(partially) Amazon, and Knight. It is peculiar that Bison, Gryphon, and
Bishop are unprotected in the starting array, like Rook is not in RNBQKBNR;
but it does not present a problem, because Knight's first move opens
Amazon to guard Bishop. Next, most rank-three squares are protected even without
Pawn's one-step diagonal (capture) by those leading leaping back-rankers.
Only a3, b3, i3, j3 need rationalization as unguarded. Well, once Bison leaps, Pawn-a2 inevitably immediately covers b3-kindreds by the very mutating-rule itself, like Scylla and Charybdis or like proverbial Horse and Carriage. That is ex post protection enough, being in just one move only. And it leaves only a3-counterparts still to consider explaining away. 'a3' is far off to be worrisome to King. So this question is just matter of cheap exchanges. Now opposite Bisons cannot reach the (empty) a3, or a6 or j3 or j6, in two moves. Perfect. Nor can Knights. Only Amazon can. So, if 'Amazon 1 ...e8-d6' threatens vacant but somehow awkward a3, with all the ramifications, if any, of occupation of same, requiring to be sure in the real world hypothetical follow-up same-side supporting cast anon for full effect -- simply '2 Bison j1-g3(!)' from the opposite corner! Then if Amazon were dare to try the empty post by 'X ...d6-a3', '[X+1] Bison g3-d5' would fork King and Amazon, potentially only on the third, or even second move if White were the one starting off provocatively that way instead! In fact, those earliest possible cases would actually be the obligatory fool's mates to find too. So that in overview, no, there do not appear to be any highly or even moderately deficient spaces, not even one, among the 30 squares a1-j1, a2-j2, a3-j3. Cont. Pawns as one Way/Wave/Grave of the future, are any two CVs alike?
Thankfully, like snowflakes, of course not. Any one CV of CVPage 1000 CVs could and should warrant its own library of 10000 volumes in analysis one per designee.
