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Airplane Chess. Airplanes move as queens any distance, capturing by landing just beyond an enemy unit.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Abdul-Rahman Sibahi wrote on Fri, May 18, 2007 06:37 AM UTC:
I like this game! The Airplane works surprisingly well with the other pieces.

I wonder how the game would play like without the Archbishop and the Chancellor and on a 8x8 board. OR with all the pieces lined up on a 12x12 board.

--

Btw, as the applet is working, pawns are Omega Chess pawns. I would've thought that the pawns were Wildebeest Chess pawns. Which way is it ?

R. Wayne Schmittberg wrote on Sun, Feb 11, 2007 10:35 PM UTC:

Grasshoppers capture by displacement, but airplanes don't--they capture the enemy piece, if any, on the next-to-last square of the airplane's move. Also, an airplane can jump over any number of men of either or both colors, making it much more mobile than a queen, but a grasshopper can only jump a single piece and so can be blocked.

The idea of buying an army with points definitely allows for a good handicap system, and it's also possible to equalize White's and Black's chances by giving Black a little more to spend.


Mark Thompson wrote on Sun, Feb 11, 2007 07:15 PM UTC:
The Airplane seems to be the same piece as the Grasshopper, unless I'm missing something. Airplane figurines would probably be easier to find than Grasshoppers, though, and less creepy. Oops, no it's not. Grasshoppers MUST jump something to move, and can't jump friendly pieces.

Mark Thompson wrote on Sun, Feb 11, 2007 07:09 PM UTC:
I love the idea of buying pieces for each game, and wish someone would
implement this on a server. (Wouldn't that be a terrific attraction to
add to the growing gamesmagazine-online website, for instance!) That's
the only idea for a CV I've ever heard that would actually merit being
forecast as 'the future of Chess.' 

The piece values and the players' budgets for hiring their armies would
have to depend on the size and shape of the board, right? And probably on
the relative strength of the players -- one thing that strikes me as
especially appealing about this concept being its usefulness for
handicapping.

R. Wayne Schmittberg wrote on Sun, Feb 11, 2007 01:57 AM UTC:

Airplane Chess was never marketed commercially (nor was any other CV I've invented). The opening pawn setup is based on Turkish Grand Chess; the knights were the clear choice to start on the second-rank.

It's been many years since I played it, but I checked my notes, and my estimated value for an airplane was 6.2 points (compared with 5.1 for a rook, 3.4 for a bishop, 3.2 for a knight, 1.0 for a pawn). However, this was apparently for an 8x8 board; values may change slightly on a 10x10 board.

Footnote: Long ago I tried to work out values for many unorthodox chess pieces for use in a generalized chess game in which players would be given points to spend to buy their armies, and the players need not buy the same pieces at all. Taking it one step further, pieces not purchased for a certain number of games would have their costs reduced by 0.1 points (perhaps in some central computer?), while pieces that are purchased frequently would have their costs go up--a supply and demand system to empirically determine relative piece values as closely as possible in time. Around the same time Ralph Betza had a related idea (Betza's Simple Army Chess) to test relative piece values by pitting armies of different piece types against each other and seeing which one wins.


Andy Maxson wrote on Sat, Feb 10, 2007 06:21 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
how is an airplane estimated to be worth? Great idea putting knights in the center of the setup it makes it so the the knights get to the action quicker. by the way did you ever market this commercially?

Andy Maxson wrote on Sat, Feb 10, 2007 06:25 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
you should add an entry for this game

R. Wayne Schmittberg wrote on Sat, Feb 10, 2007 02:11 AM UTC:
An airplane, which moves in all queen directions, can fly over any number of pieces of either or both colors before landing (stopping). If the last square passed over before landing is enemy-occupied, the piece there is captured.

Andy Maxson wrote on Sat, Feb 10, 2007 01:55 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I love this game it incorporates chancellors, cardinals, and airplanes which capture by amethod other than displacement so that they can ignore protected pieces and pieces cannot be directly protected :-) but can airplanes jump friendly units? any way it is one of my favorite games

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