Comments/Ratings for a Single Item
On a more chessic note: Why are you saying the Falcon does not have mating potential? I ran a tablebase for the Bison (a non-lame (1,3)+(2,3) compound leaper), and the KBiK ending on 8x8 is generally won (100.00% with wtm, 80% with btm including King captures, longest mate 27 moves). I think it should make no difference that the Falcon, unlike the Bison, is lame: to block any Falcon move, at least 2 obstacles are needed, and this is very unlikely to ever occur with only two other pieces (the Kings) on the board. In the mating sequence I looked at, the Bison is mainly shutting in the bare King from open space, the attacking King closing off another direction. I also cannot imagine that expanding the board size from 8x8 to 10x8 would make any difference. Usually it is the narrowest dimension that counts. So I really think King+Falcon vs King is a totally won end-game on 10x8, although I could not exactly say in how many moves.
I think this page does a very poor job in describing Falcon Chess compared to the compact description other CVs get on these pages. And this for addition of only a single new piece, for which the move rules could have been described (within the context of what can be supposed common background knowledge for visitors of these pages) with the in a single sentence: 'The Falcon is a lame (1,3)+(2,3) compound leaper, which follows any of the three shortest paths to its desination consisting of orthogonal and diagonal steps, which can be blocked on any square it has to pass over to reach its destination.' That, plus possibly a diagram of the Falcon moves and a diagram of the array should have been sufficient. As it is now, I could not even find the rules for promotion amongst the landslide of superfluous description. Note that my rating only applies to the page, not to the game. I haven't formed an opinion on that yet, it could be the greatest game in the World for all I know. I have a question, though: What exactly does the patent cover? As a layman in the field of law, I associate patents with material object which I cannot manufacture and sell without a license. Rules for a Chess variant are not objects, though. So which of the following actions would be considered infringements on the Falcon patent, if performed without licensing: 1) I play a game of Falcon Chess at home 2) I publish on the internet the PGN of a Falcon Chess game I played at home 3) I write a computer program that plays Falcon Chess, and let it play in my home 4) I publish on the internet the games this program played 5) I conduct a Falcon Chess tournament with this engine in various incarnations as participant, and make it available for life viewing on the internet 6) I post my Falcon-Chess capable engine for free download on my website 7) I post the source code of that engine for free download on my website 8) I sell the engine as an executable file 9) I sell a staunton-style piece set with 10 Pawns, orthodox Chess men, and two additional, bird-like pieces 10) I sell a set of small wooden statues, looking like owls, falcons, elephants and lions, plus some staunton-style pawns, plus a 10x8 board. ????????? And more specifically: would it require a license to equip my engine Joker80 to play Falcon Chess (next to Janus, Capablanca and CRC) and post it on the internet for free download? If so, could such a license be granted, and what would be the conditions?
Pardon the plug Mr. Duke, but I want to say your Falcon is welcome in IAGO Chess, if you want to play around with it there.
Talking about chess variants is more complicated than playing them! Back on [2006-04-03] Joost Brugh commented on this page that there is no forced mate, in general, with Wildebeest + King against lone King. But I suspect that such endgames usually lead to a stalemate victory in Wildebeest Chess.
Falcon Chess has the opposite problem: I have not seen anyone state that King and Falcon can force a lone King into a corner. But consider the following endgame position, which could arise after Black has promoted a Pawn to a Rook, or perhaps captured with his Rook:
White K(b2) and Black K(a4), R(a1), F(h7). After 1.Kxa1 Kb3 2.Kb1, the Falcon moves h7-e6-g3-d4-c1-f2-c4 checkmate.
Five months ago this comment was posted: 1. c2-c4 1... n b8-c6 2. c4-c5 2... n c6-e5 3. c5-c6 3... n e5-g6 4. c6-b7 // PxP 4... n i8-h6 5. b7-a8; Q-a8 I just ran this sample game to verify that Pawns promote to Queens (and presumably other pieces) in this rules enforcing preset. Clicking on the [Rules] button takes me to the 'Falcon Chess' page, where a 'Find promo' command results in several comments of a general nature and one example of a Pawn promoting to a Falcon. I am confused - in a game of 'Falcon Chess 100' between the same two players, George Duke writes: // Right, in our 80-square FC, promotion only to RNBF, // because R or F is interesting equal choice, depending on // position. Here FC100 Queen promotion too if reaching that // farther zone(Rules).
I am adding words in [boldface] to correct some statements made on this page:
It is not possible [in general] to achieve checkmate with king and one falcon against the enemy king. The situation is [not] akin to the inability of king to [force] mate with only two knights or only one bishop against king. However, the rook and king together of course can checkmate opponent's king. Therefore, the rook becomes generally more valuable than the falcon in the end game. It is important to approach the end game bearing in mind this relative weakness of the falcon. For example, one must have at least king, falcon, and some one other piece to have [more than] a [slim] chance for checkmate against lone king.
Have you thought about this preset: frnbqkbnrfpppppppppp60PPPPPPPPPPFRNBQKBNRF Notice that all the pawns are protected. The 10X10 also is a lot more roomier for the extra pair of pieces.
Thanks a lot, Jeremy, for analysis of highlights of the Falcon model of coherent piece development. Remarkable the co-equality of Knight and Bishop on 8x8! Yet it breaks down by 9x8 or 8x9 where B>N, and smaller would be N>B. So, probably it is coincidental (like Sun-Earth-Moon 400 factor?). Competing philosophy is expressed by Larry Smith 22.March.04 under 'Game Design' thread: 'If a game was populated with pieces of near equal value, the advantage of exchange might not be significant. But if the pieces were of various degrees of value, enough to clearly differentiate them, exchanges would hold the potential of an advantage. Then a player can make sacrifices to obtain positional advantage.' There we developed formula M = 3.5Zt/(P(1-G)), where P = Power Density(Betza), G = Smith's Exchange Gradient[quantified by myself], t = piece-type density, and Z = Board Size in number of squares, used to calculate M, game length(number of moves expected average). [Mike Nelson named what Betza defined 'Power Density']
Fergus Duniho comments below that 'grandmasters who had extensive knowledge of opening theory' were interested in adding marshall and cardinal to 8 x 10. Fergus is right that they were likely trying to escape their narrow professional circuit into new frontiers, but the marshall and cardinal had been around for hundreds of years and different size boards, such as Turkish / Indian Great Chess were created to explore these possibilities. We are still exploring them today.
On an 8 x 10 capablanca random board, a number of new asymmetries emerge, distancing it from FIDE Chess. The bishop becomes more powerful and the power of the marshall over the archbishop is great.
What is the Falcon piece? Simply put: One of the greatest innovations to come along in hundreds of years for a board with a length of 8 squares in particular. The Falcon family of pieces perfectly complements the linear sliders as you can tell from this wonderful diagram George Duke created to illustrate their range:
Q D D D D Q D D D D Q
D Q S S S Q S S S Q D
D S Q F F Q F F Q S D
D S F Q N Q N Q F S D
D S F N Q Q Q N F S D
Q Q Q Q Q X Q Q Q Q Q
D S F N Q Q Q N F S D
D S F Q N Q N Q F S D
D S Q F F Q F F Q S D
D Q S S S Q S S S Q D
Q D D D D Q D D D D Q
One of the great charms of FIDE Chess is the competition between the bishop and the knight, which are roughly of equal value on that board. Or maybe precisely. In fact, IM Larry Kaufman assigns them the exact same value (3 1/4 compared to 5 for rook, 9 3/4 for queen) and argues this: 'In other words, an unpaired bishop and knight are of equal value (within 1/50 of a pawn, statistically meaningless), so positional considerations (such as open or closed position, good or bad bishop, etc.) will decide which piece is better.'
This is charming because the bishop and the knight are two such disparate pieces and that there should be an underlying symmetry behind this polarity is surprising. There may not exist a single piece in Falcon Chess with equivalent value to the falcon, but when playing with the Falcon piece, one feels a similar pleasing feeling of polarity, of playing with a unique piece that can be competitive among disparate pieces. So it amounts to a great contribution.
The Falcon multi-path piece is one elegant solution to a problem implicit in one of Betza's observations: 'The second rule is that a forward leap which is half or more the height of the board is too dangerous. For example, a piece combining the (0,3) and (0,4) leaps would win heavy material in just a few moves from the opening position.'
Fergus Duniho does not note this but I think George Duke has a leg up on the great Jose Raul Capablanca and eccentric Henry Edward Bird when it comes to designing chess variants. The latter two gentlemen are rightly credited as great classical chess players, but unlike George Duke, they were not chess variant experts and they contributed very little original to the development of chess variants, except mainly to lend their prestige to a lazily constructed 8 x 10 variant that was hundreds of years old. [Added note: This may have been unfair. H. E. Bird probably was something of a chess variant expert. He was certainly a historian of chess development. ]
Usually, unprotected pawns are seen as a liability. In Falcon Chess, they serve to permit the dynamic Falcon piece to play a more interesting part in the opening.
I rate this game excellent and applaud George Duke's initiative in bringing the Falcon piece forward. It has enriched our chess variants world considerably. It is one of the few variants I consider enjoyable enough to be well worthy of serious study. It marks George Duke as one of the greatest contemporary chess variant inventors.
I've been looking at the starting setup of Falcon Chess, and I haven't managed to get a satisfactory setup on the 10x8 board where all pawns are protected. And where Bishops don't face Rooks. This is the major annoyance to me in most 10x8 boards, because it prevents a fianchetto. The only setup I found, which satisfied this condition, FRNBQKBNRF, Cheops Falcon Chess, I think, has a major problem. The Falcon pawns are only protected by Knights (which are bound to move,) and they're originally attacked by Bishops, which can easily lose a Pawn and force the Rook to move (prevent castling) from the get-going. So I thought of considering other boards than the 10x8. [[ Edit: After some examining, my favorite setup on the normal 10x8 board is RFNBQKBNFR . Even though the Falcon Pawns are unprotected, they are not vulnerable to quick attacks, and easily protectable after natural Knight moves. However, a player should be careful while advancing them because they expose the Rooks. What Mr George Duke calls Tamplars' Falcon Chess, RBFNKQNFBR, is also good. However, since Bishops and Knights are not on adjacent squares you can easily forget about Standard Chess opening theory, no Ruy Lopez, for example. Also, Bishops face each other in this setup, so it's difficult to avoid early exchanges which might lead to some kind of awkward openings. But I believe it's perfectly playable.]] One idea is the 8x8 board, in the setup I used for Energizer Chess. r f b q k b f r p p p n n p p p - - * p p * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * P P * - - P P P N N P P P R F B Q K B F R Castling is as in normal chess. The squares marked by * may or may not contain pawns. Or the same setup on a 8x10 board. Just add two ranks in the middle. Pawns move as in Wildebeest chess. -- Another idea is the board used by Templar Chess. f - - f r n b q k b n r p p p p p p p p - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - P P P P P P P P R N B Q K B N R F - - F A crazy piece to add here would be R. Wayne Schimttberger's (excuse my spelling,) Airplane. The board and setup I propose are, A is for Airplane: a f f a r n b q k b n r p p p p p p p p - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - P P P P P P P P R N B Q K B N R A F F A I am not sure this will be a workable setup, though. It's also possible to add here Capablanca's two pieces. A is for Archbishop, M is for Marshal. m k q a r f n b b n f r p p p p p p p p - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - P P P P P P P P R F N B B N F R A Q K M No castling on these boards is allowed. A promotion square is where the pawns can't move. OR you can use a similar promotion rule to the one in Falcon Chess 100. -- Or the nice old 10x10 board. r n b f q k f b n r p p p p p p p p p p - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - P P P P P P P P P P R N B F Q K F B N R Pawns move as in Wildebeest Chess. Here, it would take the Knight for ever to go checkmate the King, making the journey worthless. I am sure, though, Mr Duke has the 10x10 board in his notes. I wonder why he didn't use it. -- Btw, to Jeremy Good. The Coloring of the Falcon Chess 100 preset is, in a word, awful. I have created another preset. If you like it, I hope you post it instead of the current preset: /play/pbm/play.php?game%3DFalcon+Chess+100%26settings%3Ddefault
Editor Charles, Why don't you re-Rate Falcon Chess from 'None', its having half a dozen Poors and nothing else from your most active readership, surely really a compliment. Or why do you bother to solicit a favourable rating from me more or less outsider with one Poor-Average game under byline? Is it a taunt on your part? (Technically I realize you cannot rerate because of not using your CVP-identification, the same as Ralph Betza used to do with 'gnohmon')I can tell you that you have a Poor game to play in Armies of Faith, and I will give you the courtesy of analyzing why in a long paragraph later, the way I Commented systematically on 400 Large Chesses in 2004 and 2005, whereupon my privilege for unscreened Comments was revoked by your people.
I am interested in posting a variant using your Falcon piece and, knowing your feelings on some of your reactions to other uses of it, have decided to seek your approval. The variant will be the first in a series of 3d variants themed on battles between various ancient mythologies. The piece would appear in one army as part of a group of animals with whose heads Egyptian deities are depicted, also including my Ibis and Jackal. All armies throughout the series will have the standard King, Rooks, Knights, and Pawns. I look forward to reading your comments either way. I will check the page for this variant before posting, but if you have any comments to make on another variant of mine in the interim please feel free to give or deny permission there.
an interesting thought, I wonder how the game would play out allowing some mutators? like Suicide, Atomic, Extinction, Alice, Magnetic .. etc .. I issued an invitation for Suicide Falcon Chess .. just to try it out. I really wonder if there are any lost openings to begin with.
i am one who is particularly offended by chess variant patents. i will tell you why. but firstly, the patent for falcon chess does not worry me as much as other patents because i cannot see that the falcon piece is really any good. to me it looks like somebody wanted to own a patent and then set about achieving it, rather than somebody invented a great game and recognized that it needed legal protection. i may be wrong, but i cannot see how there could be a sufficient demand for this game to warrant any legal protection, and so any patent for falcon chess looks to me like a 'bad business investment'.
i myself have many ideas for chess variants. sometimes my designs will be too flawed to pursue, but sometimes i will think of something good. i currently have one variant which i am very excited about and i would like to tell the world and get it play-tested. but unfortunately, recent months have taught me that there are business-minded vultures in the chess community who seek to exploit chess for anything they can get. this is why i will keep my best variant a secret. i want it to be public domain, because i am not an american capitalist. i just want people to play my game and for a few people to remember i introduced it. but i fear that i now need to cover every base. for example, to stop somebody tweaking my game in a minor way, i need to somehow account for all possible combinations of starting set-ups and rules. this represents millions of possible permutations. the credibility of my game is virtually destroyed by such an action. but the worst thing is that i will need to ensure my game is given wholly into the public domain. i wish this was easy and that i could talk about it openly. if somebody suggests an improvement to my game, i would not mind at all. but if somebody found an improvement and claimed sole inventorship over my game, i would obviously feel somewhat aggrieved. like Carrera would feel if he knew about gothic chess.
why are chess patents allowed? unfortunately they do exist and unfortunatley they weren't bought in order to help promote those respective variants, or chess itself, but to line the pockets of american capitalists. these individuals are choking the future of chess evolution in my opinion. i think the most insulting thing about people who own chess patents is that they all claim to have made something better than chess, and do not recognize previous similar variants. gothic chess for example was undoubtedly influenced by the Carrera family of variants, but nowhere in the patent document could i find the relevant acknowledgements. i thought that the 'background of the invention' would have mentioned something significant, but it doesn't. why is that? i fear it is because the 'inventor' did not wish to tell the patent reviewers how unoriginal his game is. and instead, heavily implied that he invented the archbishop and chancellor pieces.
i know this message won't get posted, but i thought i would try anyway. i have had good correspondence with Fergus in the past and i trust his ability to decide what should be published on his website or not. if Fergus would like me to write a better essay about chess patent immorality, then i would be willing to do so. i understand that this site was not made to discuss patent morality issues, but it is one of the most popular discussions for some variants and i feel it's a subject which needs to be addressed. i may write my own chess variants site one day, and if i do i would not include any patented chess variants, no matter how good they are. i would not wish to promote any variants which were invented for the purposes of raising money for greedy entrepreneurs. people who probably have little genuine interest in any other chess variants.
As far as Roberto's analysis, he is going to lose his first Falcon Chess in Game Courier because he cannot castle. The first ten moves in that game have been the ugliest ever(out of hundreds of games since 1992)when he unexpectedly advanced four central Pawns(for which I do need to think of a better defense in future). It has been a formless opening with no piece development. What Black is doing is good enough to win because some nasty forks are brewing. So 'weakness' of Bishops' long diagonal comes about because of the bizarre, imprecise opening moves that should backfire. Sorry this comment belongs in Kibbitz.
Just wishing to amend my oversight by appropriately placing a 'poor' rating here as well. Please check-out related comments of interest: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/listcomments.php?itemid=FalconChess100
Why it takes so long to describe all this? Too much redundancy in this page, sorry.
This game is nothing but original. The so-called Falcon is just Camel+Zebra from fairy chess. I used a similar Buffalo (Camel+Zebra+Knight) in my CVs and many inventors did in these pages on this website.
Also good to know is that a certain Karl Schulz from Austria invented a Falcon-Hunter Chess in 1943 where the Falcon is moving fw like a Bishop and bw like a Rook. This variant is reported in many CV books like Parton's, Boyer's or closer to us, DB Pritchard's. Basically, I think that patenting a CV is a very bad idea because you just encourage players to go away. What is the goal of the inventor, what does he want to protect really ? And if the patent is unavoidable it should be preceded by a serious anteriority research. This patent has no serious claim, it's flawed.
i can concur with Michael Nelson's second message (dated 12/04/04). in particular i am in agreement with his third point. i believe it is immoral to choke the natural evolution of chess (and variants thereof) by monopolising new aspects of it. i myself have ideas for chess variants and chess rule modifications but would prefer it if other people were allowed to modify and improve my ideas.
the falcon may indeed be original and the basis of the patent, but is it morally fair that nobody else is allowed to attempt to improve falcon chess or other chess variants by employing the falcon piece?
i would like to know how profitable falcon chess is as an enterprise. i would also like to know why the designer bought the patent. is it so that nobody else may attempt to improve falcon chess (or other chess variants by employing the falcon piece)? is the name 'falcon' protected? for example, may i invent another different piece and call it a falcon? or, am i allowed to alter the name and/or appearance of the current falcon piece found in falcon chess? are any monopolies moral?
if falcon chess is a profitable enterprise then it might be worth considering how it could be made more popular if other people were allowed to promote it. if it were made more popular, would it not then increase the value of the falcon chess enterprise? having a monopoly on the falcon piece and falcon chess in general does introduce a choking aspect with regards to the popularity and future of the game. it is this then that leads me to believe that chess (variant) patents are bought for personal financial reasons only. and it is this that most people consider to be immoral and/or abhorent.
For:
1. The inventor's mistaken belief that this is the best chess variant ever invented.
2. Patenting a game whose distinguishing difference from Chess is a lame Bison with an improved movement--an innovation, to be sure, but a small one.
3. His desire to prevent anyone else from using the Falcon in any game (no matter how unlike Falcon Chess).
51 comments displayed
Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.