Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
George Duke wrote on Thu, Oct 2, 2014 11:55 PM UTC:
8x10 is the best solution in preserving Pawn spacing of 1500 years.  Minimalist 80 squares of Capablanca size stay elegantly under Shogi 81 and Xiangqi 90. Solve the board first and then get half a dozen Next Chesses suitable on it -- of course separately plus Gilman's AltOrthHex for hexagonal "something different for a change."

Last message points out Sibahi chooses here Alfil plus Dabbabah compound in lieu of Capablanca RN and BN. One piece-type of Sibahi, versus two piece-types of Capablanca.  The July comment cites too one-piece-type solution of Winther's Mastodon on 8x10.  (RN and BN are from 1610s, and Mastodon originally from 1890s; not sure offhand how long ago someone compounded A + D before Sibahi.)

Orthodox Chess is in trouble for 90 years since Lasker-era draw death and founding of f.i.d.e. in 1920s standardization, shutting out variant speculation.  Still in denial of their Draw death, fundamentalists have now to rationalize also 1997 IBM Computer beating Kasparov.  It's time for a change to another standard on larger board.  http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/contest/nahbi.html.  Let's add more solutions.  Nahbi above linked can scale back to 8x10 and drop Camel as Next Chess candidate.  
Falcon since it is one of the four fundamental Chess pieces is one obvious simple solution on 8x10 (mentioned the July comment).  There can be 6 or 8 alternatives on 8x10 accepted as requiring proficiency.  Sissa adaptable to 80 was also put forth last time.

Settling on 80, the further bssis is just the question: one piece-type or two?
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSlemurianshatra -- Adding another new one, Lemurian Shatranj is serious solution when expanded this time to 80 squares, the Bent Hero and Bent Shaman. Or add plain vanilla paired Shogi Lion as one-piece-type solution since its reach is not all the way across the normal board 64 or 80.  Just give up on little 64 squares and broaden to Cuban World Champion Capablanca's natural 80, still more than 10% smaller than long-time Xiangqi.  Then Computers will lag a decade or two, when they start to catch on or up,  do something else.

Edit Form

Comment on the page Shatranj al-Sultan

Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.