Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Thank you for your comments and references, David. This elephant does not
show up in the CV piecelopedia, but does in piece descriptions within the
rules of both games you mention. How many others, who knows, but it seems
to be a logical 'new' piece. This does demonstrate how difficult it is
to come up with something truly new in the way of pieces. Hasn't stopped
anyone from trying yet, including me.
A comprehensive set of rules for shatranj variants is, based on just these
variants posted in 2005, very possibly doomed. Boards, pieces, setups and
even setup strategy all have expanded considerably. A shatranj
piecelopedia and a book on shatranj variants might be the best we could
hope for.

hey joe at this site here http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gpjnow/VC-GM.htm#F
the 'alfil + fers' is listed under the name 'Ferfil'!
there are a lot of interesting piece descriptions at that site.

My 2005-03-30 Comment on the Shatranj page ended with: [Also every Shatranj related ZRF that I have tested will record a 'bare king victory' without giving a chance to make a final move resulting in a 'two bare kings draw'.]

While my Zillions Version 1.3.1e will not run Christine's Zillions (Version 2?) implementation of Modern Shatranj, I have examined the code and suspect that the same problem exists relating to the bare king victory rule. The good news is: Peter Aronson's ZRF for his variant Gothic Isles Chess uses a complicated coding to correctly handle the rule: 'Bare King counts as a win, provided that your King cannot be bared on the very next move.'

Joe: Shatranj (and Makruk) variants are indeed popping faster then we can classify them. I am currently working on an 8x8 variant with Chinese Cannons added. One could also call it a sort of 'mini-Shako' variant, with the Bishops and Queens removed.

i like the rule if you bare the enemy king, you win, even if you can be
bared next move, it is more exciting, and makes for less draws he he.
i thought this rule used to exist first, but then got changed, is this
right?
i think i remember reading here on this site someone saying this
somewhere.

'Modern Shatranj' is worse than Shatranj anyway because of damage to Knight by powerful Elephant. [end quote]

If the statement is true, then it would follow that Chess, Xianqi, and Shogi are all lesser games than Shatranj... why? Because the knights have less relative value than they do in Shatranj. The Duke premise is that a weeker knight factor makes a game worse. Let us look at Fide Chess... We have Bishops and a Queen - these make the Knights even weeker than do Joyce's Elephants. But who would argue that Chess is worse than Modern Shatranj, which in turn is worse than Shatranj?

On another note, Joyces' Modern Shatranj made it into CV Tournament 3. How could this happen if it were a bad game? It had to be voted on. It obviously got enough votes. It is true that there are some similar games that already existed. But that does not make MS a bad game.

I also believe the idea of making a Short Range Alice Chess has much merit.

Keep up the great work Mr. Joyce. You are a very good game designer in my opinion. You recent critic's comments don't hold up to a logical review.

Link

George, many criticisms here contradict others you've been leveling at me recently. Where I haven't, as you maintain, properly attributed ideas or documented origins in other games, here I have, and for this I am a namedropper. Other games have been criticised for being too sketchy in their descriptions; here, where there is a discussion, I'm longwinded. Chieftain is too far from the FIDE standard, this is too close to the shatranj standard. Lol, George, if I were sensitive, I might begin to think your criticisms were more from ideology and even animosity than from a true consideration of the qualities of my games. I might even think you were trying to provoke a reaction from me! Fortunately, I'm not that sensitive. :-D Enjoy! Joe

Thanks for the comments, George. This is the third variant I posted, and the first one anybody played. It is a modest shatranj variant, and because it had a decent reception, it changed my area of interest from 4D games to shatranj variants. And I agree that it is very modest, but it does exactly what it advertises; it plays halfway between historic shatranj and modern chess. But rather than weakened chess, it is high-performance shatranj. 

The larger point is playability. A game can be good, and a game can be successful, but these are 2 different things. This is a decent game that is very playable. It is extremely easy to learn, and can be played with standard equipment. It corrects the major flaw of shatranj, that stilted awkwardness and lack of flexibility, with minimal change to the historic game. It gives the game flow. But it makes the game slow. Given that 99.9+% of people that play variants learned chess first, a game with a 2-square bishop, even if it is jumping like a knight now, and a 1-square queen, is just too slow for modern sensibilities. Would'a kicked butt 1000 years ago. But time has marched on, and shatranj bit the dust way before buggywhips. Still, for anyone looking for an easy way into variants, this game is one. Even if it is weakened FIDE. ;-)

Thank you for the comment, Orleanian. (Which one, btw, old or New?) That is a nice little intermediate step, with a piece I didn't think of. A minute's consideration shows the logic of the piece, and it certainly does fit neatly after Step 2. Hm, if I recall correctly, Jeremy Good made an icon for that piece, an elephant with an 8-pointed star on its side, that can be found in the Alfaerie: Many piece set.

Allowing promotion to powerful pieces like Rook completely changes the character of the game. It really doesn't have a Shatranj flavor anymore. The strategic objective becomes promoting Pawns, like in FIDE Chess. While in Shatranj promoting usually gets you nowhere.

Upgrading the Queen from Ferz to Commoner might already have this effect, if the Pawns now promote to this type of Queen.

I think Muller is correct; still, in this game at least you promote only to lost pieces (or you can promote to General). Maybe make promoting to lost piece only if you have lost both, might be one possible subvariant, too?

I'm one of the few 0.01% (or less) who arrived here not knowing modern
orthodox chess previously. In fact, I never played chess, and my interest
on the subject was just recently ignited by a friend who is a chess
enthusiast. I began searching for the basics, the rules, the pieces, their
moves, etc., and I was quickly drawn to the historical origins and
developments of the game(s). From there to the modern variants it was a
quick step.

I can tell you that, from a neophyte point of view, Chaturanga and Shatranj
are easier to understand, but their weaknesses are evident. Modern chess,
on the other side -- or "madwoman chess", as it was pejoratively called
by conservative players five centuries ago, when the queen became a
bishop-rook --, though more agile and powerfull, is more difficult for
beginners to grasp. It appears to me that one needs to be always conscious
of the disposition of every pieces on the board, even the ones distant to
the piece one intends to move next, simply because, at any moment, a queen
or a bishop or a rook can come across from the other side of the board and
totally wrecks one's intended strategy.

Using the war analogies in which the games were originally inspired, the
wide movements of modern pieces are like missiles, whereas the ancient
battles modelled by Chaturanga and Shatranj were fought body to body --
except for the archers. (And isn't weird the absence of "archers" among
the Chaturanga/Shatranj pieces?). The most mobile subsets of any army in
Antiquity were the (mounted) cavalry and the chariots (dragged by horses).
So, it is logical that the most mobile pieces on Chaturanga/Shatranj were
the "horses" (knights) and the "chariots" (rooks). 

But even the wide range movements of the rooks, crossing several squares at
once (potentially an entire row), as recorded in (or infered by) the oldest
known historical Shatranj descriptions, probably were already an early
improvement in the game. It's not reasonable to suppose that any piece in
the game was originally more far-reaching than the horse/knight.

I think the greateast virtue of the Modern Shatranj -- specially the "D"
version, with one dabbabah-wazir in the place of the traditional rook -- is
to restore (and put a limit to) the short-range movements of the pieces,
according to the metaphore that inspired the original game. There was
nothing or nobody in any army that could cross an entire battlefield at
once in Antiquity, hence no piece should be able to cross the entire board
in Chaturanga/Shatranj in one move. Thus, the player doesn't need to worry
with distant pieces in the board, because only the ones close to the piece
he intends to moved can pose an immediate threat to it.

The other great virtue of Modern Shatranj is that, by augmenting the
mobility of the counselor/general and the elephants (but without expanding
too much their reach), it not only turns these pieces more "powerfull",
but it also introduces a beautifull *simetry* to the overall dynamics of
the game -- and here, again, the "D" version is superior to the "R"
version. Now each "army" on the "battlefield" has:

- two elements that can move only one square orthogonally or diagonally,
the king and the general;

- two elements that can move one or jump two squares diagonally, the
elephants;

- two elements that can move one or jump two squares orthogonally, the
chariots;

- two elements that can jump three squares "orthodiagonally", the
horses.

We can easy visualize this perfect simmetry by picturing the movement
diagrams of these four kinds of pieces superimposed: if it were possible to
put all four pieces in one same square, this would be the center of a set
with 4x4 squares, and each one of these 16 squares would be reachable via a
single movement of at least one of the four pieces put in the center! That
would not be any "falted" square, one that could not be reached by at
least one kind of piece put in the center of any 4x4 set of squares. This
doesn't happen in the original Shatranj game.

Thus, the Modern Shatranj D allow the players to charge *full power* in the
"battle front" of the game, not worrying about any "missile" coming
from beyond the horizon. It seems to be the perfect balance between
mobility and elegance, dynamics and aesthetics, power and race in a
Shatranj-like game!

Thank you for the comments, HG, zzo38, and sairjohn. I actually think you're all essentially right in your comments. I did set out to change the nature of shatranj, to give it a modern flow, but without the modern style of game. I think I've come pretty close. 

HG, in our discussions of promotion and/as a geographic objective, I've come to see your point of view about the subject. I concede the initial point that the potential promotion to rook or even commoner changes the basic nature of the game - but where and how? Certainly not in the opening; no piece moves faster or farther than it ever did. The pieces are as slow, but move to more places. What I've done for moves is just remove one binding each from the alfil and the ferz. Yes, it changes the character of the game, because all the pieces are now deadly - like the modern game. 

This applies, of course, just to the R(ook) version. The D version was a retrofit, with the WD (warmachine, or Betza's woody rook) first used by me in Great Shatranj with good results, and added as an option to MS since it did work well in GtS. Sairjohn, your comment mirrors my thinking when I designed Great Shatranj and Grand Shatranj, rather than Modern. But while the warmachine is slow and awkward, it can mate in a K vs. K + WD. 

And I think the use of short range rook analogs mitigates the increased power and influence of promotion in the game. I will note that in all 3 games, the power of the pawn is significant, and they become something more than speed bumps, unlike in FIDE. 

I grant I've considerably changed the game, more by promotion than anything else, but would anyone really want to bring promotion back to only the ferz? The original shatranj must have been a rather drawish game, as it plays that way now.

Oh sure, I am not claiming that this change is bad. On the contrary. The original Shatranj is an excessively boring game. In self-play ShaMax draws more than 70% of the games (for FIDE this is ~32%, for Spartan Chess ~20% and for Capablanca Chess ~16%). On top of that it is slow (the draws take about twice as many moves as in FIDE).

Making promotion decisive greatly reduces the drawishness, which is good. I am not sure what you mean by the 'mere speed bumps' remark. It is generally agreed that in FIDE Pawns are 'the soul of the game'. The basic dynamics of orthodox Chess games is:

gain Pawn -> trade Pawns to create a passer -> push passer -> passer binds one of opponent's pieces -> use your piece majority to gain more Pawns -> etc.

In Shatranj there is very little to worry if you are two pawns behind, especially if they all promote to the wrong color. Pawns basically only have value in the King-Safety evaluation. This does affect strategy from the beginning.

Grin, and here I thought all this time you were trying to get me to design back towards the ancient game! ;)

The "speed bump" comment is merely meant to illustrate the difference I've seen between pawns in shatranj and FIDE. In the short-range games, pawns are actually fighting pieces, whereas, in the modern games, they act as a structure, a scaffolding to build your attacks and defenses around - essentially terrain.

I think you are greatly underestimating the role of Pawns in the FIDE game. What you say would be true if Pawns could not promote, or only promote to a rather worthless piece like Ferz or Reverse Pawn. But the fact that they promote to a decisive piece changes everything. The whole game revolves around positioning the Pawns such that you are left with a won end-game when the dust settles down.

Grin, allow me a little poetic license, HG. I will point out that my shatranj variants allow promotion to effective pieces, so promotion is important in them, also, and can easily be just as decisive, if not more. Further, especially in the D versions of MS and GtS, the pawns prove to be rather useful little fighting units in their own right. At least in my experience. 

I agree with you that pawns are the heart and soul of FIDE, but that is more true the better the player. And you see far more pawn moves in the openings of shatranj than you do in the modern game, from what I remember. Grin, could be wrong, as personally, I play way too many pawn moves in the beginning. Still, from the games I played, pawns could restrict the mobility of the enemy power pieces, and lock up anything moving diagonally. Further, with pieces that move only 2 squares a turn, a pawn that moves 1 and is backed up is a strong threat. Overall, pawns may not make more moves or many more, in the shatranj variants, but the moves are more effective, because the pieces are weaker, or certainly give that feeling.

Joe,

I find this Shatranj variant very interesting.

I created  preset which enforces the rules:

/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DModern+Shatranj%26settings%3Dcarrillo

The only difference in my implementation of the rules is that Pawns can only promote to Generals (to keep more of a 'shatranj-ness' flavour).

Thank you, Jose, for the comment, rating, and especially the preset. Modern Shatranj is my simplest and in many ways most successful design. Grin, there's probably a lesson there. As for the shift in promotion rules, I consider games to be a collaboration between at least 2 people, the designer and the player(s), so "adjusting" a rule to suit the player(s) is okay with me. Just means someone is interested enough to try a game. Thanks again.

A promising game that might be worthy of upgrade to Excellent pending play-testing, which I will now try with Jose's new preset.

Reading through the comments, the promotion rules seem to provoke the most disagreement.  I must admit that I don't like the promotion rules as written.  I can see both promotion only to general, or promotion to general or to any lost piece as reasonable options, both leading to good although different games.  For myself, the part I find troubling is this:

At most, only 3 lost pieces may be regained: 1 rook, 1 knight, and 1 elephant, even if the player has lost both of any type.

The problem with this is that it is no longer possible to look at a board and know what moves are legal. You'd have to also know about all past promotions.  This makes the game much more difficult to program.  Chess has this issue too with castling - you have to know which rooks/kings have moved, although when the game has progressed enough that these pieces are no longer on their original squares it becomes a non-issue.  Also, Chess has established standards for how the castling information is preserved in the FEN game notation.  If we wanted to notate positions of Modern Shatranj with FEN notation, (certainly a worthy goal), new notation standards would need to be invented.  I would question whether the value of this particular rule justifies the significant added complexity.

Hi, Greg, thanks for the comment and rating. And it's nice to see some of the old gang around. To fully answer your comment, I think we'd need the 3rd shatranjeer, David P. He was the one who said it was a variant if I added promotion rules!

I've always considered games to be a collaboration between at least 2 people, the designer and the player(s). While I designed it to be a bridge between shatranj and modern chess, and so split the difference between no promo to lost pieces and unlimited pieces of any non-royal type, I certainly have no objections if people play it with promotions only to general. The only real effect it would have on the games is to extend the games with promotions a bit, because the generals are slow compared to the other pieces. 

Finally, grin, how do you tell from the current state of the board if a pawn can be captured en passant? ;)

Promotion to General already solves the problem with promotion in Shatranj, namely that the promotion piece would be virtually worthless, especially if you get them on the same square shade as wehere you already have some of them. The General in Modern Shatanj is a Commoner, which does have mating potential.

Promoting to stronger pieces is actually of little help only, as almost always the opponent can sacrifice one of his minors to prevent such a promotion. So in practice a promotion gains you a minor.

I therefore agree that there is little need to sacrifice the simplicity and elegance of the game by introducing complex promotion rules.

Thank you for the comment, HG. It seems to be unanimous that promotion should only be to general. Vox populi, vox Dei! It is changed. ;)

If you don't mind modern shatranj is an inspiration allong with shatraj kamil for my own 15x10 I shall complete and publish in a few months or so, actually I'm thinking on the name great modern shatranj. Are you ok with that, Joe?

Aurelian Florea wrote on 2016-09-11 None

If you don't mind modern shatranj is an inspiration allong with shatraj kamil for my own 15x10 I shall complete and publish in a few months or so, actually I'm thinking on the name great modern shatranj. Are you ok with that, Joe?

Full circle! A decade ago, I emailed Christian Freeling 2 game write-ups, asking if I could use the name "Grand Shatranj" and copy his setup, as his variant Grand Chess had inspired me to create 2 games where I'd only seen one muddled game before. He was very courteous and friendly, and thus Great and Grand Shatranj were posted together here, direct outgrowths of Modern Shatranj. Grin, so if Christian Freeling approves of your game, I'd be happy to have it named great modern shatranj. ;)

Seriously, thank you for the compliment. I certainly have no objections to your use of the name with the caveats that your game should bear some resemblance to mine and further not be significantly offensive to the social mores. Without actually seeing what you're going to post first, that's about as close as I can come to saying I'd be honored. It's always nice to hear that someone appreciates your efforts. And I wish you the best in yours.

I see a game design that's intended to be played as a collaboration between the designer and the player(s). I've been lucky enough to see a couple of my games become what passes for moderately popular on this site. That people modify the games to suit themselves is a good sign, in my opinion, that the games have some merit. But the games I post here are public property. Anybody may do whatever they want with them. So I truly appreciate, in more than one way, that you asked. Take your ideas and run with them. Enjoy!

I'd tentatively estimate the relative piece values in Modern Shatranj (current version) as: Pawn=1, Knight=3.5, Rook=5.5, King's fighting value (noting it cannot be traded)=4, General=4 (noting it can be traded or put what be 'in check', unlike a K, but I've judged their value in action to be similar enough), with the Elephant=3.125.

Thank you for the comment and rating, Kevin. Regardless of the exact value of the "minor" pieces, they are all within a point of each other, allowing fairly free exchanges among the pieces, and sometimes giving the end of the game a "different armies" feel, where a pair of elephants face a knight and general, for example.

In shatranj, there are 3 "levels" of even exchange, between pawns, between minor pieces, and between rooks. Modern chess adds the queen exchange for a 4th level. There are several "queen-level" pieces, from the R+N minister to the B+K dragon bishop of shogi. What are decent rook-level pieces? DO they need to be short range, more "area-effect" pieces to keep them rook level?

Hi Joe.

My own calculations for my invented game of Sac Chess place a 'Missionary' (aka a promoted bishop, in Shogi) as very close to a rook on that game's 10x10 board. On the other hand, what I called a 'Judge' (aka a Centaur, i.e. a piece that's a Knight+General compound, in wikipedia's & many other people's usage) I rate as being worth a pawn better than a rook, in that game's fairly large 10x10 board. So, I'd say either long- or short- range pieces can be roughly in rook class as far as value goes. However, I don't know enough fairy chess piece types yet by heart, in order to name several already invented rook class pieces. Regarding the values of the knight & elephant in Modern Shatranj, for a knight I used the value that the late Dutch player Euwe (former chess world champion) gave (i.e. 3.5 pawns), on chess' 8x8 board (to try to be consistent with my placing a knight at 3 pawns on a 10x10 board). Using his value proved to be a good thing since I believe like you, at least for now, that an elephant is worth a shade less than a knight in Modern Shatranj, and by my own rough methods of calculating estimated piece values for chess-like games, if I set a knight to 3 pawns on an 8x8 board, an Elephant I would work out to then be worth a knight exactly. :)

P.S.: Fwiw, for those interested, on chess' 8x8 board, I'm agreeing with Euwe's having a Rook=5.5 pawns, too, which I also gave it for on Sac Chess' 10x10 board, since for that game I have the short-ranged piece (knight) reduced to 3 pawns in value (in my estimation), at least as a way to take into account that game's slightly bigger board.

[comment edited to include diagram] I have a question about the rules of this game, based on an unlikely situation. If a player A's king has just been bared, but the following move he stalemates his opponent (Player B) by using his own king to do so, what should the result of the game be? Below is an example, i.e. if 1...Pb3xa2 (baring White's king) 2.Kc3-c2 (stalemating Black immediately after White's king was bared), what is the result of the game?

P.S.: To write again of examples of what a rook level fairy chess piece may be, I seem to recall others before me have valued a nightrider as worth about 5 pawn units. That's besides the superbishop (aka promoted bishop in Shogi), which also happens to be placed in the same piece type class as a rook by the inventor of the popular 8x8 variant Pocket Mutation Chess.

[edit: Note to editors of CVP: I have a submission I gave to CVP last week that's to be reviewed.]

Good question, Kevin, and as far as I can see or find (so far), the answer is undetermined. There was little standardization of stalemate rules until a couple hundred years ago. Different areas did different things, and I suspect that in the situation diagrammed, all 3 possible outcomes were, at some place and time, accepted.

With rook-level pieces, in the spirit of shatranj, I find the knightrider stylistically wrong. Of course, I find the NN an awkward piece, and I am terrible with awkward pieces. To me, ches should be fighting with your opponent, not fighting with your own pieces. That being said, the NN is a limited piece, far more in keeping with the limited pieces of ancient chess than the modern versions of strong pieces. I see it as a sort of limited missile, able to strike across the board, but with restricted targeting. It seems like a piece for a very large board with lots of pieces worth a range of values.

At this point, the hero ands shaman pieces (D+W) & (A+F), or the bent versions (D+/-W) & (A+/-F), while more powerful, or possibly the Oliphaunt (AF+AF) or Lightningwarmachine (DW+DW) seem to me to be the best fits, being very roughly worth around 5 or so pawns and short ranged. Pieces like the half duck (HFD) or scout or other such pieces seem more awkward, to me. ... Hm, I guess there's a giant shatranj variant lurking somewhere in my head.

My own suggestion would be that for the diagrammed example, for Modern Shatranj, let the stalemate=win rule override the bare king consideration - the 'logic' being that the stalemated king will perish if the stalemated side attempts to move, whereas the bare king has freedom still. In any case, I don't know how Jose's rules enforcing preset for Modern Shatranj currently would handle the diagrammed example, after the final move is made. [edit: the preset's rules say a lone bare king is an Automatic Loss (if the other side's king isn't immediately bared), so I think I ought to take that at face value, even for the example situation I gave.]

P.S.: Alert again to CVP editors: I have an aging CVP submission awaiting review.

I've edited my previous post.

I, too, have a CVP reference page submission awaiting clearance.

Since stalemate was sometimes a win for the stalemated side, and "bare king" is immediately obvious to everyone, I lean strongly toward the bare king rule winning out. Your argument, Kevin, cements my position.

Now, who's got stuff hanging? Contact me.

I've noticed that in Game Courier play of the reputedly drawish Shatranj there's been 2 draws in 55 games thus far, while there's been 7 draws in 33 games of Modern Shatranj so far, if I've counted correctly. It's possible the opponents were more evenly matched in more of the Modern Shatranj games, but I'm wondering if the Generals in the setup position for Modern Shatranj might make for even greater defensive resources than may be available in the game of Shatranj. A case where more test playing of Modern Shatranj is needed to reach a firm conclusion? In my case, I take a variant that may be tougher to avoid drawing (i.e. win) at as something of a challenge, if I'm not so happy with the idea of drawing before a game begins. Fwiw, chess played at a high level still has a far greater drawing rate on average than 7 out of 33 games.

>>Kevin Pacey wrote on 2017-01-25 EST
>> My own suggestion would be that for the diagrammed example, for Modern Shatranj, let the stalemate=win rule
>> override the bare king consideration - the 'logic' being that the stalemated king will perish if the stalemated side
>> attempts to move, whereas the bare king has freedom still.
>> In any case, I don't know how Jose's rules enforcing preset for Modern Shatranj currently would handle the
>> diagrammed example, after the final move is made. [edit: the preset's rules say a lone bare king is an Automatic
>> Loss (if the other side's king isn't immediately bared), so I think I ought to take that at face value, even for the
>> example situation I gave.]

Forgive me for my late response... Better late than never! At least I'm still responding in the same year as the question! :-)

As currently programmed, for the given (unlikely) position, the result of my preset would be a win for the bare King.

I need to check the logic to account for this strange position.

I agree with Joe, it should be an automatic win for Player B, as Player A was bared prior to the stalemate, and the rules only allow for the disadvantaged bared King to play, if he would bare the other king in the next move. Nothing is provided for the case where the bare King could stalemate the opponent on his next move.

I guess this position must have had a lot to do with both stalemate and bare kings (by insuficient material) being draws in modern Chess, to avoid this dilema.

Agreed.  The Bare King rule is clear and it only permits another move if the opponent can bare the other's king on the next move.  Stalemating would require allowing another move where there is no indication it should be allowed.  This is how ChessV is coded and I've confirmed that when 1...Pb3xa2 is played it immediately decalres black the winner.  So all is good :)

I fixed the preset. Now it will correctly give preference to a win by Bare King over Stalemate, and will correctly give the win to Player B in the position that Kevin had sugested below.

The additional move for the lone King will still be required for this preset, but the Bare King rule precedence over Stalemate will assign the win to the correct player.

I would expect the White player in the center position to resign, rather than to play, but if he plays the preset logic will now award the win to Black (no matter what White plays), and formally end the game.

Note that, despite the clever construction of the position, this is basically a non-issue: irrespective of the rule precedence the given position is always a win for black, as he can also bare by Kxa2.

Hi H.G.

I thought about trying to find a position with a stalemate by bared K created by a series of forced moves (such as in a problem), but it seemed unnecessary at the time, as even though the 'stalemate' can be prevented in the initial position I gave, there's still the possibility of the 'error' I selected as the only line of play, which at least shows that such a final 'stalemate' could possibly arise by legal moves in a real game (and I've seen some pretty bad legal moves played over the years...).

Question for H.G. (or any who might know):

Are two opposite-coloured FA (ferfil) elephants on average worth more than one FA plus N (or worth more than 2 Ns) on 8x8, according to computer studies?