Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

The author, David Paulowich, has updated this page.

Okay. Various material has been cut from this rules page. I spent the last two days reviewing a dozen years of comments on this site concerning:

bare king victory

stalemate victory

Zillions Rule Files and rules enforcing presets for Shatranj (and variants).

To avoid clutter here, I commented on the Zillions of Games file for King's Leap Chess page, pointing out some positive results. I sincerely hope my King's Leap Rule does not present any problems in implementation. Taking the rest of the night off. David

If you've replaced the Courier with a Dragon Horse and have named it a General, in what sense does the name Courier Chess VIII make any sense?

I can add that even though I am an experienced programmer, this particular code means absolutely nothing to me. It is not written in any commonly used programming language, nor in universally understandable (by programmers...) pseudo-code.

I also doubt the usefulness of including a string for pasting into the diagram designer. The idea is to provide a diagram, not to create conditions where readers would have to do that themselves. Contributors might have to know what a diagram designer is (although I consider even that a blemish), but readers should be kept blissfully unaware of it.

Using different symbols for the same piece in the diagram and the description is a bad idea. Using an ordinary bishop symbol for a piece that is not a bishop is also a bad idea.

Computer code certainly shouldn't be at the beginning of the Rules section. If it clarifies the rules in a way that is important, it might be okay to include it in the Notes section with some text describing what it illustrates or in the Rules section with a <DETAILS> tag. However, you should be able to describe the rules without referring to code, and for readers who are not programmers, it is best that you do so. You shouldn't really include code unless there is some overriding reason to do so.

I don't think computer code belongs in an article describing the rules of a variant.

Thank you very much for your comments. I will reply to them in reverse order.

I carelessly misread Murray's "One attempt, recorded c. A.D. 850, gives the Elephant a leap over a non-diagonal adjacent square into the one beyond ..." as an (AD) compound, instead of one piece replacing another.

There are a "zillion" reasons for including a few bits of code on this page. A full explanation requires a second Comment.

FEN code can be a great time saver - simply pasting rn1ke1nrpppebppp3pp22PP3PPPEBPPPRN1KE1NR into Diagram Designer and replacing the letter "B" with "Y" brings up an "Abstract 1" chess font which I would be quite happy to play a game with. Unfortunately, the elephant symbols strongly indicate a chess piece that makes diagonal moves only. Not a problem for me, as I have years of practice with elephants moving in eight directions (twelve in Opulent Lemurian Shatranj). But I decided that my readers might prefer the "Alfaerie 1" font with a drawing of an elephant. And that created a new problem for me, as the "Y = Crowned Bishop" symbol looks like an oddly shaped King to my eyes. With my not particularly keen eyesight, I have this perception difficulty with the "Crowned Bishop" symbol in every font except Abstract 1. So I did the best I could with the HTML coding for this page.

Few remarks:

• why using a Bishop in the diagrams and a different piece in the text explaining the General?

• the string "rn1ke1nrpppebppp3pp22PP3PPPEBPPPRN1KE1NR" should not appear in this page I think.

• why there is some part of a ZoG's source file inside the Rules section? Is that a rule?

• "the similar Alibaba (Betza notation AD) was used in India prior to the year 850" No, this is wrong. Murray was clear on this. You can check on his History of Chess, 1913, p59. In ancient India, 3 sorts of Elephants have been reported: A (like in shatranj), FfW (like the Silver in modern shogi) and D (by al Adli). No AD, never. So calling this piece an "Indian" Elephant is maybe not the best name.

My submission is ready for publication.

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Just like the medieval players of Courier Chess, I regard my diagonal moving piece as stronger than a Rook - perhaps equal on a 10x10 board. Adrian King calls the (BW) piece a Scirocco in Scirocco (revised) and has never considered it equal to a Rook on the 10x10 board. He replaced Rooks in his game with Chariots (R4) to make the Scirocco the most powerful piece in the initial setup. Computer analysis may end up proving him right.