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ABC Chess. A variant with 8 armies of pieces generated by combining 1, 2 or 3 simpler pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Andrew L Smith wrote on Thu, Aug 18, 2022 02:10 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

I like the idea of making an army using various combinations of a few building blocks, though I do have two critiques.

1: Balance. A combination piece is usually wirth more than the sum of its parts (eg: a Queen is worth more than a Rook and a Bishop; a Mann is worth more than a Wazir and a Ferz) which means an army with A+B+C=7.75 is likely to be completely overpowered. For example, look at army 1:
BNW=10, NW=5.25, BW=5.25, W=1.25, B=3.25, N=3.25, BN=8.75 (total: 37).
This is over a full Rook stronger than the regular chess army.

The more equal the components are, the more powerful they are when they work together. For example, army 2 (where one component has most of the value) is only about 2 pawns stronger than the regular chess army. So, armies with wildly unequal component strengths will need to have stronger components than more egalitarian armies to compensate for this.

2: The components should be versatile enough to be fun to play with on their own. For example, an Alfil can only reach 1/8 of the board which is un-fun to play (both with and against). One solution to this would be 'ABCD' chess, with 4 components arranged like this:

AB  CD  AD  ABC   K   BC  BD  AC 

By adding an extra component, one can eliminate the need for components to survive on their own, and can make weak components without having to worry about un-fun Alfil play.


(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Dec 3, 2012 02:42 AM UTC:

I prefer symmetric game, although I like your pawn promotion rule.


Shi Ji wrote on Fri, Dec 10, 2010 04:52 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
I think the rules should allow players set up positions of major pieces freely. Let players find out best setup for each army. 
Tutti-Frutti has a ABC combination of rook bishop and knight, which is much too powerful. Armies in ABC chess are less powerful than that of tutti-frutti, which is better for cwda design. Players can define more armies with balanced power for ABC chess.

George Duke wrote on Sat, May 8, 2010 03:50 PM UTC:
Tutti Frutti Falcon Utti was name Aronson proposed for Complete Permutation I scotched. I guess as the other comment today says this ABC could include old 1970s Betza's Tutti Frutti as one comparable form. Then on top of that ABC lets itself become a different Armies like Different Armies also of Betza and Fantasy Grand of Hatch, the latter happening to be #15 at Next Chess project as of now. CVs as chiefly artwork since their play is bound to remain minuscule are like a wishing well or like the new song 'If I Were a Boy' having the lines ''put myself first And make the rules as I go.'' Any song is possible of infinite variations as any poem and any CV. And as Different Armies, ABC alone becomes hundreds of different CVs fast. More repetition is inevitable in accepted fashion of making CVs. Maybe Cavebear knew Betza notation and nothing of Tutti Frutti. Sheer speculation but since T-F is 1977 and ABC 2001 before proliferation, when there were only couple hundred pages yet to look at, Cavebear was probably looking right at T-F and just does not acknowledge it anywhere. I am sure Ralph and Philip knew Tutti Frutti, which is in 'ECV', to be lousy game to play on the little board with pieces of so much power, but considered it adequate concept CV. All Cavebear's Armies 1 to 8 are of lesser piece-power than their R,N,B,RN,BN,RB,RNB. Cavebear's is potentially more useful for play than Betza's and Cohen's for that reason. The beauty of all these is the simple 7+1 from the combinations of compounds to just fit on 64 squares with the King.

Anonymous wrote on Sat, May 8, 2010 10:32 AM UTC:
It's generalized Tutti-frutti chess... How about generalized Capablanca chess, without ABC piece? However, original variant is good, because can be played on normal board...

Tom Cook wrote on Thu, Dec 11, 2008 02:27 PM UTC:
Where are the graphics for this file for zillions?

Daniel wrote on Wed, May 9, 2007 03:05 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Cavebear Stroud is one of my teachers, and you know he taught me everything
i needed to know about chess. Mr Stroud has always been for me in the good
time and the bad times. Now let me tell you people this variant is quite
awesome, even though it might sound very sketchy. Mr Stroud was born in
California, and moved to Canada, and then Switzerland, and then Japan. One
day he asked his friend to buy him a 9000-yen chessboard. But instead his
friend bought him a chessboard that's worth 90000-yen chessboard. This
chessboard was made out of the finest Japanese wood. Mr Stroud has thought
of many new and awesome variants with simpler army building strategies.
He's a man of his genius. Mr Stroud is one of my business teachers, and
write now we're doing many database assignments. I think that Mr Stroud
is one of the best teachers in the world. I had a lot of other comments on
this page, and he told me to delete them, but i couldn't because I’m not a
member.

P.S Mr Stroud is rated 2200, which is quite awesome.

Your Student Daniel Rozin

David Paulowich wrote on Wed, May 9, 2007 03:20 AM UTC:

Army #2 has the [Rook+Alfil+Ferz] compound. This interesting piece cannot be found anywhere else. Eric Greenwood's variant Archabbott Chess has the[B+D+W] piece.

I like Jeff Stroud's piece name 'Y-Rider', used in Army #8. The name 'Falcon' is used in Gary K. Gifford's new variant Gryphon Aanca Chess.


Peter Aronson wrote on Tue, May 8, 2007 04:58 PM UTC:
Student comments deleted at author's request.

Anonymous wrote on Thu, Nov 16, 2006 09:18 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Is F2 (FnA) or (FA)?

Derek Nalls wrote on Sun, Feb 13, 2005 05:07 PM UTC:
[Comment voluntarily deleted.]

Jianying Ji wrote on Wed, Jan 22, 2003 09:48 PM UTC:
Quite interesting variant. With simpler army building then standard
CWDA, since only three piece types define a army rather than four.

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