Comments by GlennNicholls

It seems a member trying to change his email address might not work - I've tried to change mine but have not received the necessary email to the new address with a link needed for confirmation.

Could somebody check this, and also a backup hasn't been done for some days now.

If somebody could kindly sort these two things out - thanks.

SAE Nicholls

Sorry to persist but I'm puzzled here - I've signed out and then back in but the former message is still showing even though the new email address has received mail from the CVP.

The message shows under person information.

The new email address seems to have worked and I would much appreciate the following messages be taken off when I sign in:

"Since this person's email address has been returning email, it has been marked as dead in the database to prevent more email from being sent to it. It may still work, but if you want to continue receiving email from us, you should change the email you have on record with us."

"For citational purposes, we keep records on anyone who contributes content to this site. Since Glenn Nicholls has contributed content to this site, our database listing on GlennNicholls needs to stay up. But if this person is dead or no longer interested in remaining active on this site, let us know, and this account can be made inactive."

Thank-you for your help

SAE Nicholls

OK, I've tried again with a different email address (still a hotmail one though) with the CVP address whitelisted.  I'll wait a while and see if anything is received.

SAE Nicholls

Fergus

It's late in the UK now where I live so I'll turn in.

Perhaps the easiest way is for yourself, as an editor, to simply change this email link (if this is possible for an editor) on the basis of the comments I've made and without needing any other confirmation.

I've whitelisted the change email address from the CVP.

Thank-you

SAE Nicholls

I've just tried again and here is what it says:

"Mail was sent from [email protected] to [email protected].

A confirmation request has been sent to [email protected], the email address you wish to change to. When you get the message, click on the link, make sure you're signed in, then click on the Confirm button."

But no email has been received by me and this is at least the third time I've tried this.



I can only say I did not receive any confirmation email and I've used the 'Change Email' link now and no confirmation email is coming through.

There is no way for me to know why the site is not sending an automatic confirmation email or, if it is, why I am not receiving it since I have other emails sent here without any problem.

The link in the email says a confirmation email will be sent and so does not report a problem.

Thank you for your quick reply

I have tried what you say but this did not seem to work - I'll try again though

There are messages when I sign in:

"For citational purposes, we keep records on anyone who contributes content to this site. Since Glenn Nicholls has contributed content to this site, our database listing on GlennNicholls needs to stay up. But if this person is dead or no longer interested in remaining active on this site, let us know, and this account can be made inactive".

This messsage seems to be because my email has changed to [email protected] but I cannot seem to edit my existing no longer used (and by now probably dormant or deleted) email to change it to this current and live one.

I would then ask that one of the editors kindly updates my email link address and is aware that I am certainly interested in remaining active on this site - indeed I have been keeping up with comments in the past few days and my latest contribution was this year.

Thank you for the help I am sure you will give.

SAE Nicholls

To Ben Reiniger

Thank you for your reply regarding Missing descriptions

I would much appreciate four being added - they are very straightforward descriptions but three of the games are not yet posted as they are awaiting review by a site editor - the games are:

LancerChess (this game has been posted)  - can you add the description - a basic Western chess game

QiPlacements (this is awaiting review) - can you add the description - a basic Chinese chess game

Arabella (this is awaiting review) - can you add the description  - a basic Arabian chess game

Storm (this is awaiting review) - can you add the description - a basic Capablanca chess game

Thank you for your help

Shaye Nicholls pp Glenn Nicholls

I am most puzzled - pages seem to have "Missing description" noted against them but I can see no way to enter a desription for a page's game - surely this is straightforward to do - I would like to add one or two to mine.

Also, how does one post a reference item ?

Shaye Nicholls pp Glenn Nicholls

To HG Muller

This is very intriguing - a forbidden word with regard to a Chess game - extraordinary, but I'll let this be, at least I seem to be right that there was talk of something.....

.....I always say Capablanca chess although I do know there were earler similar games like it, but thanks for letting me know this anyway.....

.....I agree It does seem to be an exaggeration that there are hundreds of Capablanca type games on the site, but although I am stating this from memory I'm sure that was what someone said, though years ago; I wonder how many games there are in total on the site now - does this run into thousands.....

.....Chess 960:  I think randomisation is a technique rather than really being seperate games and this technique could probably be applied to numerous Chess games - I don't really use it on any of my own games though.....

Whilst Western chess and Chinese chess would seem to be the most popular of all Chess games (or variants if you like) I remember a comment on this fine site long years ago that there were many (hundreds of ?) games invented and posted here that were based on Capablanca chess and so by this measure perhaps Capablanca chess is right up there (so to speak).....and did I not read somewhere that there was talk of Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov playing Chess that involved extra pieces - what could this be I wonder.....  

Thanks, I'll come back and perhaps add some when I can

It doesn't matter too much as I write descriptions within the page anyway

Thanks for the answer

to Fergus

Yes I will add some descriptions at least

But where do I go to do this?

When I look at my list of authored items they are showing "Missing description"

How do I amend this?

To F.D.

Thank-you for your response.

Yes, of course this good site can determine its own definition of what is a Chess-variant and what is not, but then numbers of players of Chinese Chess might disagree that the Game is but a variant of.....what?.....what game on the site is not some sort of Chess-variant.....Western Chess it seems.  Can you let me know please what game is the Cornerstone of Chess on the site such that variants are determined to be so, or are there several, or many.

On Games - I suppose the popularity of Chinese Chess raises the question of whether it is really a variant at all and not simply a major Game in its own right, like Western Chess.

On Pieces - the somewhat popularity and awareness of the Capablanca pieces, and possibly other "variant" pieces, may hopefully perhaps eventually reach a level nearer to those of the well known Chess pieces e.g. the Western Chess Queen, Rook, Knight etc., but this, I think, is unfortunately a long way off.

I'm still curious - are the board and pieces of Xiang Qi (Chinese Chess) going to permanently stay as an image on the home page, or will this revolve with images of the other mentioned games such as Chess, Shogi etc.  I hasten to add that I don't mind some of the things as they currently are (or recently were) and I am still quite happy for others to eventually decide on these things.

I'm not too bothered on this point - as you say a logo is not a map, and yet.....although I live in the UK and my individual perspective of East-West is different in any case, so far as I know the arbritary deciding of East-West is by the Prime Meridian and this passes through the UK and perhaps this should over-ride other considerations.

I'm not too bothered on this point - as you say a logo is not a map, and yet.....although I live in the UK and my individual perspective of East-West is different in any case, so far as I know the arbritary deciding of East-West is by the Prime Meridian and this passes through the UK and perhaps this should over-ride other considerations.

I'm curious - are you happy representationally with the East-West positioning of the images in the top left logo?

I'm quite happy to let others decide on a new logo, But, I hope there is something of Chinese Chess in this - there seems to be a Cannon and Elephant at the moment.....most interestingly the website Ancient Chess.com states that this game is probably played by more people than any other board game in the world, including Western Chess (though I would think probably not played so geographically as widespread as Western Chess) - those of us, or some, of the Chess Variants site might want to keep this in mind.

To H.G.M.

Yes, it all depends, Chess-variant (capital C small v) might be used as in Chess-variant pages, this looks neat, I think, when the subject is used in writing about, but may not be striking enough as a Site Heading where a Person's eye wants to be drawn towards.....writing is somewhat like music, at least for me, and for example my own punctuation of five dots (.....) I use as a "drift" (this generally denotes slow movement) to a linked sentence, or even a linked paragraph, rather than a full stop (. I generally use to denote stop and start, or stop).

The recent comments regarding hyphenation of words and English Grammar are interesting.  I think these days there is scope for some subjectivity in the use of Grammar and Punctuation and I have in fact used some subjectivity in my pages here, e.g. my page and game of TigerChess is one word.....also in my first name(s) of Shaye-Alexander the hyphen does not actually denote only a single joined name but two possible stand-alone first names as well.  In this comment I have deliberately used subjective punctuation and so forth.  However, I think the term Chess Variants is best put as two seperate words for a Site Heading and used with capitals, though the capitals may not always be "correct" when writing about.  An alternative might be Chess-variants (capital C, small v) to emphasize that Chess is the primary noun of a joint description, if this is required - but 100% theoretically correct written English would require the attention of a Professor or expert in such, I would think.

The Eagle's move (is this the Griffon's move?) could be reversed here so that instead a Rook's single move is then followed by a Bishop's unrestricted slide - I did use similar pieces in my game of Citadel, but I kept both Rook and Bishop unrestricted slides in both pieces ( I called them Tiger-riders); they seemed about as strong as the Chess Queen - I had the original idea from the Giraffe of Tamerlane Chess and based Citadel very loosly on this Game.

Sometimes I think it is more important to consider the Plausibility of a piece before other factors.....There is in this page, at the end and with a move diagram, a modified Character (piece) called the (Northern or Sumatran) Tiger-emperor and he is a little bit more powerful than the Character called the (Northern or Sumatran) Tiger-prince that he is a modification of.....But, he is not quite so logical in his moves as the Prince and so I have not included him in any Games here - the Prince appears in the Games of Tiger-strike and Tiger-crossfire.....I think the Emperor is Plausible enough in his moves though, and I think Plausibility needs to be considered with the moving and capturing abilities of Chess Characters, or the Game and its Background and Representational aspects can lose sense - this is of course only my personal opinion.....The Emperor combines the moves of just two Chess pieces i.e. the Rook and Knight.....despite this, he seems to be fractionally more powerful than the well known three-piece compound of Rook, Bishop and Knight (usually called a General, or Amazon or other name).

Thanks Fergus.....I think the WYSIWYG mode might sort it out - I'll try it later on.

Whatever I do the spacing on the text always comes out as one line on this Page - does anyone know why - I would be very obliged for any advice or help on this.

Thanks Fergus, its working now.

I don't seem to be able to upload images....they are just the usual JPG images and are under 100k - does anyone know why this is?

I can only speak for my own Games on this site here, but this may well apply to some of the thousands? of other variants, and that is, although I have done some testing, I cannot guarantee that every Game I have on this site would "work".....they all seem Plausible, but Plausible is the word, and in any case no Money has been paid me (and none are for sale at all anyway) and so I owe no duty that the Games do in fact "work". BUT they MAY be good.

10 x 10 Variants are IMHO hard indeed to invent, even Capablanca settled on a 10 x 8.

Thanks for the reply.  I'll give this a try, but its late here in the UK, so tomorrow maybe, or when there's time.

I don't think this page should have been messed up like it has been.  Changes should not just be made that do this.  What great purpose has been served by the change anyway.  Posting in Word was at least straightforward and it worked and was simple.  I think someone should put things back to how they were.  There are in fact a series of Games on this page, and not merely one, and they often link together, and there are other items connected with Chess and Chess variants that some may find interesting, items that are somewhat of novelty value.

Thanks for the reply, but I don't have this sort of knowledge and I'm far too busy to sort all this out.  The page is readable with effort and so if someone wants to read this page it is down to them to make the effort I'm afraid - the page has been up long enough.  If you or anyone else can tidy it up without further confusing the page, fine, otherwise I'll leave it as it is. Nobody should change things that mess up other Persons' pages without letting everyone know first in simple language.

This page was posted by using MS Word and took a great deal of time and effort to make reasonably tidy and readable.  It is now something of a mess. I would very much appreciate knowing what to do to restore the page.

For Chess-playing ability and hard work, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, and Magnus Carlsen have my respect indeed, and I have no doubt their Chess ability would manifest itself in any sensible Chess-variant given the proper time to learn and study such Game.  As I have said before, let's drop the word "Variant" for any sensible Game e.g. Capablanca-chess, since these Games are still Chess. Yes, sensible is subjective, but top Chess-players would, I think, form a consensus of opinion on any particular Game or Set of Games.

As an aside I think that Bobby Fischer's ELO rating of 2785 achieved in July 1972 is, in reality, the highest achieved and that there has been, as former world champion Anatoly Karpov has stated, inflation of ELO ratings. 

I made this aforesaid comment because an encirclement or trapping and then capture of a Queen (King in my variants) is a rare (at high level Chess) occurance, and one that I find very exciting in a game.

Of course the straightforward capture and loss of a Queen (King in my variants) means a loss of the game almost as certainly as that of the "Prime" Royal-piece - other perhaps than total beginners.

Just to add a note to my previous remark on Most popular pieces:

I've just looked at Fergus's Gross Chess and a lot of the pieces do indeed include those of Western Chess, Chinese Chess and Capablanca Chess.

So we come back to these three games and their pieces once again.

But the Chancellor and the Minister are still the most popular of variant pieces and I would ask why people can all be so wrong?

Best wishes to the Chess Variants site and its Editors

Is there a problem with uploading images?  I have one or two to upload but I can't seem to upload them.

I have a page nearly ready for posting but it is a word document.  How do I keep the formatting when posting it to the Site.

I know what you mean but all my games link together and so my pages cannot properly be read in isolation.

If you want to make a start the best place to go would be my page titled Games by Groupings.  From here there is a heading for a group of games called Springboard which lists the more basic games roughly upwards in order of difficulty. From here go to a page called Summary of Game variations, Clock times.....where each individual game is listed roughly downwards in order of difficulty with basic information and a note on the page in which a full description can be found.

Thank you for your interest.

Glenn Nicholls

Charles Gillman

The 'Ironic' comment was, as I have already pointed out, made by another person called 'Frank'.

Charles Gillman

Referring back to your original comment that you fully understood the page after three readings, this seems entirely reasonable to me, how long did this take? About an hour or so I would guess and again this seems entirely reasonable: it is not unknown for a player to take this long making a single move in a game.

I have had another look at the page and the presentation again seems entirely reasonable bearing in mind that I am not by profession a computer expert.  The gaps after the diagrams take a second to scroll through, if that, and the whole page can be scrolled through in twenty seconds. I have tried to reduce the gaps even so but this unaccountably leaves a red line beneath the diagrams and so I am going to leave them as they are.

I am puzzled as to what the problem could be that has this second response of yours which also answers another person (Frank) and which veers about from mostly one irrelevance to another, but then (and you seem to be inviting criticism) the same could be said about much of the Man and Beast series.

Charles Gilman
  I think we have had some discussion before on presentation and I recall saying then that this is a matter of personal style and preference; nevertheless there is always room for improvement and here are the reasons to answer your points. 
  The page that these CVs derive from is a Word Document which has formatted and coloured headings etc. which obviously make reading the page easier, but all this seems to be lost when loading onto the Chess Variant Pages;  if there is a way to keep the colouring and formatting etc. I would appreciate knowing how. 
  In all my variants the names I use are never duplicated for different pieces and are always chosen to suit the particular game they appear in.  
  The reason for the changing of roles for the Royal Couple is as I pointed out years ago in TigerChess i.e. the idea of a medieval King sheltering in a castle whilst his Queen goes into battle is not sensible and also the standard names of some pieces such as Rook and Pawn I simply find out of keeping with the idea of Chess and so I never use such names. 
  The gaps between the diagrams have come about because each diagram uses one page on my Word Document and the text then continues overpage.  I would be quite happy to reduce the gaps but the original images have them so as to expand to fit on one page of my Word document.

With regard to the business side of variant chess.  Yes, the actual market for chess variants is currently very small, but no, the potential market is very large.  Hundreds of millions of people play chess and are very enthusiastic about the game and I am sure a good percentage of these players would find preferred games amongst variant chess; unfortunately most (virtually all?) are not aware of alternative variant games and this, I think, is what is holding back progress. How to solve this problem I do not know, but I think it is necessary to gain the attention of large numbers of players - If, for example, the next edition of the largest selling chess software, Chessmaster, were to include a few good variants properly programmed then this might start some momentum.  There are other possibilities but they would require the interest of the right person(s) and this is very difficult to bring about.

G. Nicholls

A reply to Charles Gilman: Whilst I do not intend to go back over ground already covered, it seems that you are wondering about one or two things…..

I wrote this game (with reference only to the standard games of Western and Chinese Chess) in its basic form several years before I was aware that this website existed, and the first I was aware of another game/article featuring Forest and Storm pieces was in your comment.  I do not know whether you thought of these names before myself and I do not even know in which of your many games/articles they appear.

If you are saying, as you seem to be, that Sultan’s Elephant Chess is not a spoof then why should Dragon be so.  Or, put another way, if you think Dragon is a spoof then surely you must expect such thinking about Sultan’s Elephant Chess.

Presentation is largely about form only and is a matter of individual style and preference.  In any case it is always possible to re-write such games in a different format or order.