Sam Trenholme wrote on Tue, Oct 6, 2009 08:09 PM UTC:
A lot of people like the Capablanca game. A 10x8 board with the RN and BN pieces is one natural extension of Chess. This is why it was proposed not long after Mad Queen Chess came out; this is why the strong player Bird endorsed a version of it in the 1800s, world champion Capablance endorsed it in the 1920s, and why the strong player Seirawan has endorsed an 8x10 version of it in the 2000s.
Betza didn't use these pieces together because his goal was to make a variant using the FIDE pieces that was as strong as the FIDE army. You can't have the RN and BN with the Queen if you want to do that. However, in CWDA, Betza added the RN to the “Remarkable Rookies” army and the BN to the “Colorbound Cobblers” army, so he obviously had no problem with the pieces, just with having too many of them on the board at once. Also, look at “Almost Chess”.
Speaking of Betza, I wonder about a Capablanca variant where the knights are different; one is a Betza Crab + Ferz; the other knight is Crab + Wazir. Instead of an Archbishop, we have a Crab + Wazir + Bishop; instead of a Marshall/Cardinal, we have a Crab + Ferz + Rook. Should be about as powerful as the Capablanca army, and allows 252,000 opening setups instead of “only” 126,000 opening setups.
Betza didn't use these pieces together because his goal was to make a variant using the FIDE pieces that was as strong as the FIDE army. You can't have the RN and BN with the Queen if you want to do that. However, in CWDA, Betza added the RN to the “Remarkable Rookies” army and the BN to the “Colorbound Cobblers” army, so he obviously had no problem with the pieces, just with having too many of them on the board at once. Also, look at “Almost Chess”.
Speaking of Betza, I wonder about a Capablanca variant where the knights are different; one is a Betza Crab + Ferz; the other knight is Crab + Wazir. Instead of an Archbishop, we have a Crab + Wazir + Bishop; instead of a Marshall/Cardinal, we have a Crab + Ferz + Rook. Should be about as powerful as the Capablanca army, and allows 252,000 opening setups instead of “only” 126,000 opening setups.