Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Hey, I can't edit my own comments!!  Oh well... stop sending me information
please!!  I have already gotten two replies.

As for the game itself, I personally do not prefer CVs where non-pawns
start next to other identical pieces, like the bishops and camels. 
Therefore I propose a variant where each player has the option of switching
a camel with the bishop on the same color, sort of like the switch rule of
Changgi.

The basic idea of the game is that, as there are two simple sliders (B, R)
and one combination slider (B+R=Q), so in Wildebeest Chess there are also
two simple jumpers (Knight = (1,2) jumper and Camel = (1,3) jumper), and
one combined jumper (Wildebeest = N+C). I wonder how well the idea would
work instead with Knights and Zebras ((2,3) jumpers), and a combination
N+Z piece?

There is the idea that, as one of the sliders is color-bound, so perhaps
one of the jumpers ought to be also, hence the Camel. But it's not
obvious to me that rule makes for the best game. I'd be interesting in
knowing whether Wayne Schmittberger or anyone else has tried it. 

Actually, since the preset to enforce the rules has not been written for
this game yet, it would be possible to try playing this way, simply
entering Zebra moves for Camels and Knight/Zebra moves for the Wildebeest.

Mark Thompson and I have just started a test of his proposed game; see Game Courier under the name 'Zebrabeest Chess'. I have never previously played any variant with a Zebra, so I'm finding a little difficult to visualize the zebra-moves - we'll see how quickly I get used to it. I'm certainly curious ...

(having given ratings of Excellent previously and not wishing to overdo
it)
I note that the mixture of non-Pawns in this variant is one King, one
each
of the two strongest pieces, and two each of four others - a description
which also applies to Shogi. This has inspired me to add a subvariant to
my Bishogi family of
variants(http://www.chessvariants.org/shogivariants.dir/bishogi.html),
using the Wildebeest Chess mix of pieces (but two Pawns fewer) on a Shogi
board and called Wildebishogi.

Cazaux's Zillions implementation of Wildebeest Chess has a bug: 
when a pawn makes a triplicate step, an opponent pawn cannot 
capture 'en passant' if the bypassing pawn ends up on the rank behind.  
http://www.chessvariants.com/programs.dir/zillions/wildebeest.zip
http://www.chessvariants.com/programs.dir/zillions/cazauxchess.zip

Moreover, Cazaux's implementation of Bolyar Chess (in casauxchess.zip)
doesn't seem to follow the rules that appear on the Internet, and which I 
have recently implemented. Cazaux gives no source for his version of the 
rules. Instead Omega Chess is described. My Bolyar Chess:
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/bolyarchess.htm  /Mats

Cazaux's Zillions implementation of Wildebeest Chess is also missing the stalemate victory rule. See my comment here. There are even more comments on the 'Recognized Chess Variant: Wildebeest Chess' page here. As I stated there, we have very little information about the problems involved in forcing stalemate.

Two Kingdoms - by Nuno Cruz [2001] - uses the Gazelle piece.

'The Knights represent the Cavalry, moving as the usual Knight or as the fairy Zebra.'

R. Wayne Schmittberg last made appeared here 30 months ago, so I don't know if he will be reading this comment. After dropping the (Shatranj) Bare King Loss rule, there is one minor detail to take care of. Sample Position: White King(c1), Black King(a1), Black Pawn(a2).

Victory Rules Checkmating your opponent wins the game. Note that you require a king and at least one other piece in order to checkmate. Stalemating your opponent wins the game, except when you have only a lone King. Then the result is a draw.

Endgame Position White: King c1, Knight e1 and Black: King a1, Pawn a2, Rook e2.

1.Nc2 check Rxc2 check and Black has won in Shatranj by the Bare King rule, which has only one stated exception. The Zillions Rule File for Shatranj (correctly) scores the game as a win for Black.

2.Kxc2 stalemate draws the game in my two recent 'Shatranj Kamil' variants. R. Wayne Schmittberg has just confirmed that White wins in Wildebeest Chess. And so we all agree to differ.

The Missile Chess.zrf is available at www.zillions-of-games.com

Just wanted to add my 'Excellent' rating.  This game is right up there with Grand Chess.

I have a question for all you Wildebeesters.  Either side can deliver a smothered Fool's Mate on move 2 using the long leap of a Camel or Wildebeest.  This can be defended against in a few ways.  Does this cause opening variety to be limited, in anyone's experience?  Or is it more like Qh5 in OrthoChess, an aggressive move that tends to backfire if the opponent defends well?

One might add a one-space orthogonal step to the Knight (Wazir Knight) and
a one-space diagonal step to the Camel (Wizard from Omega Chess), and both
moves to the Wildebeest (Wildebeest plus King). This preserves the symmetry
between the riding and leaping pieces, and now the King is integrated into
it, having the moves which are shared by Queen and Wildebeest.

And the stronger pieces can be seen as a second advantage, if one feels
that the standard pieces are relatively weak for the big board.

Game Courier Preset with automation and rule-enforcement:

/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DWildebeest+Chess%26settings%3DWildebeest+Chess+with+rules

I'm mesmerized by it!

But I've noticed that if you change places of the rooks and knights, all leapers and all sliders will be on one side. I can make the game ore interesting.

Hugs!

The first and simplest is to allow the 'King swap' of Fergus Duniho's Yang Qi. This stops it mattering that Bishops start on the same binding, likewise camels, and allows this:

The second it to simply swap files e and g over, balancing each kind of colourbound piece with the compound of the other:

The third is to remove the King and its file, the results of which can be seen in my Notchess 100.

The fourth is to put in an extra file with some unrelated piece on it. There has been much discusion here about how the Zebra might be added to this variant. Rather than try to make it part of a two-pairs-plus-their-compound group - which I have done in Wildeurasian Bestiary but which makes for a far more complex game than the one here - it could be a one-off rather like the Diana Knight. I would suggest the following array, to even give balance between the middle two pairs of files:

I review 'New Rules for Classic Games' by Schmittberger in earlier comment this article, http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=18367. Wildebeest is ranked high as current number 15 at Next Chess; Next Chess is on track to be turned into article more accessible than its connected threads.
http://www.chessvariants.org/hexagonal.dir/glinski/contest2001.html.
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=920

One of my favorite large board games. Playing it gives a kind of breathy feeling, if that makes sense. Like on a wide open field; your limbs seem elongated...it's like playing chess on Pandora... In a way.

A lovely use of the otherwise powerful jumping pieces included, by having them on a rather long board.

I'm making an Interactive Diagram for this game, but it is currently not showing the moves of pieces. It did initially, but then it stopped, and restoring the HTML to when it was working didn't seem to help. Also, how do you use Betza notation to specify castling for this game?

It did initially, but then it stopped, ...

Was this on a mobile device? On my PC that Diagram seems to work fine. But on my tablet it didn't.

I had a similar experience with one of the Diagrams in the 'huge variants' subject thread, when I tried to show it to a colleague on my Samsung tablet. Initially everthing worked fine, but then during the demonstration it suddenly stopped being responsive to touches on the board and on the piece names in the table. Opening and closing the piece table still worked under those conditions, though.

Now the touch screens use a different event for manupulating the pieces than on a PC ('ontouch' rather than 'onmousedown'). That they behave differently would suggest the problem is in the touch-event handler. I am not sure they really behave differently, though, because the Wildebeest Diagram now works again on my tablet as well. (While I am certain that earlier this morning it didn't.)

It is very strange that this problem does not manifest itself consistently. One hypothesis would be that there is a name collision between the Diagram script and some of the JavaScript that is loaded on behalf of the advertizements that appear on the same page. So that it depends on which ad gets loaded.

Also, how do you use Betza notation to specify castling for this game?

You have to specify each castling possibility separately: KisO1isO2isO3isO4 . (In the comments there already was a Diagram that uses this.) For the isO1 it will highlight the Rook amongst the King destinations, and take the one-step castling when you click that. (It would also have used that highlighting for isO5, but since that is not allowed here there is no ambiguity.)

In the betzaNew.js version of the script the move entry would work differently: after selecting King the square next to it would be highlighted by a cyan star to indicate there is an as yet ambiguous move to that square. When you then click that star, it would highlight the square next to King with the yellow circle, and the Rook with a castling symbol, and a third click would be needed for resolving the ambiguity by clicking one of those. An initial castling highlight on the Rook would then always mean isO5 castling. (Or, on other boards, castling where the King ends up in the corner.)

Was this on a mobile device? On my PC that Diagram seems to work fine. But on my tablet it didn't.

No, I do all my development on my desktop. I am using my Fire tablet now, and it is working.

Its a very strange matter, that it sometimes works, and then without any changes, stops working.

BTW, your Diagram doesn't use the correct move for the Pawn; it should be fW* to allow it to always move up to the midline (even from 3rd rank).

I put it in a table, and it seems to be working now. I also copied some things from your earlier Interactive Diagram in the comments.

A question about editorial policy:

I noticed that you used Alfaerie in the new diagram, while the original diagram used the 'small' (Utrecht) set. In the Interactive Diagrams I inserted as main diagram in existing articles I always respected the design choice of the author, trying to make the Interactive Diagram resemble it as closely as possible.

Should there be a systematic effort to eliminate all piece representations other than Alfaerie?

In the Interactive Diagrams I inserted as main diagram in existing articles I always respected the design choice of the author, trying to make the Interactive Diagram resemble it as closely as possible.

That is usually appropriate, especially when the author is still active on the site.

Should there be a systematic effort to eliminate all piece representations other than Alfaerie?

No, but it's usually appropriate to replace Utrecht with Alfaerie. The Utrecht style was frequently used on pages, because it got a head start on other sets. It was created by the site's founder, and he created some JavaScript code for displaying diagrams on pages. Since then, David Howe and I produced some better looking sets out of Chess fonts. David's Alfaerie set became particularly popular, and many people added new pieces to it. When I make a diagram, I choose the most suitable set for that game. This is sometimes Alfaerie, and it is sometimes not, but it is never Utrecht.

I think it is somewhat wrong because Utrecht is a part of the CVP's history. I'm visiting this site since about 2012, the time when I didn't speak English, and this theme is largely associated by me with it. It's something like a brand because Alpha is widely used on other chess websites.

Alpha is the font that Alfaerie is based on, but Alfaerie got its start here and has almost as much history here as Utrecht does. Before Alfaerie came along, Utrecht provided more images of different Chess variant pieces than other sets did, which was important for representing many Chess variants. But Alfaerie does what Utrecht did, and it does it better.

It is not as much about history or a utilitarian purpose, but rather a design that gives the website its distinctive style. This set is a sort of symbol since Alfaeire's base chess font Alpha is used commonly, so it is more difficult to associate it with this particular website. That's the idea, there's no need to use Utrecht anymore, but it would be right to preserve it on the very first pages.

I have never thought of Utrecht that way, and although you have shared that you do, I still don't.