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Ok, I had a thought.  Carlos, if you would be so kind, would you mind trying this?  Go in to the Engines\XBoard folder and delete everything underneath and then try running ChessV.exe again?

I included engines Fairy-Max, KingSlayer, and SjaakII.  When ChessV first runs, it will try to start each of those engines to determine their capabilities.  Perhaps one of them is failing and it is stopping everything...

Hi Carlos.  Thank you for the extra information.  Unfortunately, this does not make sense to me.  Do you know what version of Windows 10 you are using?  I know there is a "Windows 10 S" that can only run apps from the Windows App Store.  Other than that, I cannot imagine why it would not be possible to run a simple exe ...

Oh- ok- on further thought.  ChessV requires the .NET Framework while Winboard does not.  (The older ChessV used an older version of the .NET Framework.)  I would think you would get a better error message if that was the problem, but ...  Also, .NET Framework 4.6 is already installed on Windows 10 and should be compatible.  Does not really make sense.  Let my try something; I need to figure this out and I do not think that the problem is because there is no installer.

Greg:

When I double click on ChessV.exe it appears a window asking me if I agree the app makes changes in the device. After clicking "yes" NOTHING HAPPENS. It's disconcerting why does WinBoard 4.8.0 works while ChessV2.2 doesn't.

HG:

I already learned to drop pieces in Seirawan Chess. Thanks!

Regarding WinBoard 4.8.0, I don't know how to drop the Hawk and the Elephant playing Seirawan Chess against the Fairy-Chess engine.  After moving a piece, no menu appears asking you to choose which piece you want to drop. Could you, please, help me?

To gate in a piece you first select that piece in the holdings (by clicking it, so that the border highlight around it goes on), and then move the piece from the location on the back rank where you want to gate it in the normal way (click-click or drag-drop).

I have successfully tested on Windows 10.  What happens when you double-click ChessV.exe?  (It does not make button on the start menu)

Greg:

The same day you pre-released ChessV 2.2 I downloaded it but it does not work.

Recently I upgraded the OS from Windows 7 to 10. Save by the button sizes issue I still can run ChessV 2.1

I have archived the ChessV 2.2's 10 elements: 3 folders, 5 extensions and 2 apps, but Windows 10 may require programs to include an installer.

By contrast, some days ago I downloaded H.G. Muller's WinBoard 4.8.0 and I can run it perfectly; its logo appears listed in the Start Menu while the one of ChessV 2,2  doesn't, but the ChessV 2.1 logo yes appears listed.

I will look forward to the official release with installer included!

HG:

I will try to configure the Interactive Diagram as you say using the Bishop image for both Dragon Horse and Wazir.

Regarding WinBoard 4.8.0, I don't know how to drop the Hawk and the Elephant playing Seirawan Chess against the Fairy-Chess engine.  After moving a piece, no menu appears asking you to choose which piece you want to drop. Could you, please, help me? 

The new ChessV supports Symmetric.  You could give that a try.  I think I have also fixed your issue with the button sizes, although I can't be sure (since I could not reproduce it.)

In the Interactive Diagram images for the various piece types can be arbitrarily chosen. So there is nothing against representing the Dragon Horse and Wazir by the same image as the Bishop, so that the game state that determines how a piece depicted as a Bishop moves will become entirely hidden. But for the demo I wanted to make it clear what is actually going on.

For computer analysis the the conversion rule is probably not relevant for most of the game: the Bishops will both develop pretty quickly, and after that you are basically dealing with normal Chess on a 9x8 board. Most existing configurable multi-variant engines would allow you to specify an initial Wazir move on the Bishop, which would then enable you to set up the positions you want to analyze from the opening positions.

Thanks for your reply, HG.

What I'm looking for is an engine or computer program that allows me to analyze Symmetric Chess games with the idea of publishing them on YouTube, for which it would be very useful to have teaching resources such as those before mentioned: arrows, highlighting squares, etc.  

I think I could use the Interactive Diagram but I feel a bit unpleasant the fact that on the starting setup appear Dragon Horses instead of Bishops. Would it be possible to implement the Bishops Convertion Rule without the intermediation of neither Dragon Horses nor Wazirs? 

The Interactive Diagram basically is a table of piece images, where the table cells are made sensitive to mouse clicks, which then can bring about the desired manipulation of the images (e.g. move them to other cells) or background colors. Such a structure would not allow drawing of image elements that span multiple cells, such as the arrows in the video.

I guess that in theory it should be possible to break up the arrows in cell-sized 'puzzle pieces' of straight parts, corner parts, arrow heads etc., in all possible orientations, and synthesize cell-spanning arrows from those pieces. The Chess pieces are actually displayed as cell background image, and have transparent background themselves, through which a background color for the cell shows (which I then use for highlighting). So technically the cells are empty, and just show a background. Images of arrow segments could be put inside them, and the non-transparent parts would then cover the piece images in the background. But this would require the images of the arrow segments to exactly fit the cell (or the browser's display algorithm would just enlarge the cells to fit the image). So it would require a different set of arrow segments for each conceivable square size. And it is a bit hard anyway to make images fit exactly in table cells; most browsers want to take some margin between the image and the cell edges, especially at the botton. So the arrows might look more like dashed lines.

Of course there still would be the problem of how a user should indicate where he wants arrows. Or other types of highlights. All in all it would not be very easy.

The current diagram already records all moves you play to make them into a game history. And on a page with a diagram you can request presence of buttons to step through a thus recorded games. For the diagrams I post here I never included such buttons, because they just serve the purpose of illustrating the piece moves and initial position. But you can see them in operation at my turn-based server, which uses the Interactive Diagram as user interface..

HG:

Your Interactive Diagram is undoubtedly an excellent resource to show easily the various ways of moving pieces.

Given your obvious computer skills, I wonder if you could develop a software that serve as support when analyzing chessvariants games just like many bloggers do with standard chess; features such as arrows indicating piece movements, highlighting squares of threatened pieces, soon return to the basic position after seeing one or more variants. For example, please take a look at this YouTube video. 

I mean to add said features to the Interactive Diagram. Or are they more typical of a video editor software? 

Thanks, H.G., for your posting. I will comment something later. Rightnow I'm leaving home.

Treating the Bishop conversion rule as a piece-type change in the Interactive Diagram through a custom function WeirdPromotion() embedded as JavaScript in the HTML page:

  function WeirdPromotion(x1, y1, x2, y2, promo) {
    var piece = board[y1][x1]; // moved piece
    var type = piece & 511;    // strip off color and virginity bits
    if(type == 6) {            // convertable Bishop
      promo = piece - 3;       // demotes to Bishop
      var partner_x = 8 - x1;  // start location of other
      if((board[y1][partner_x] - piece & 2047) == 0) // contains same piece (igore backround color flags)
        board[y1][partner_x] = ((x1 ^ x2 ^ y1 ^ y2) & 1 ? piece - 3 : piece + 1); // demote partner to B or W
    } else if(typ == 7) promo = piece - 4; // converting Bishop always promotes to Bishop
    return promo;
  }

Today, five years after having released this variant, it’s opportune to recapitulate what has happened and make a sort of balance.

There are 119 finished games recorded in the Game Courier database, of which 114 are games that I played with different opponents, while the remaining 5 were played by other people (although some of these 5 are plaged with illegal moves).

1 Сергей Бугаевский – per hommerberg [per31-cvgameroom-2018-230-424]

2 Сергей Бугаевский – per hommerberg [per31-cvgameroom-2018-230-425]

3 Play Tester – per hommerberg [per31-cvgameroom-2018-235-544]

4 per hommerberg – Play Tester [per31-cvgameroom-2018-247-532]

5 per hommerberg – Aurelian Florea [per31-cvgameroom-2018-342-417]

My performance against my various opponents is the following:

In view of the little interest that there is in chess variants, I would say that 119 games in 5 years is not so bad; they are almost 24 per year, that is, 1 every 15 days!

Anyway, in order to attract more fans I just created a channel on YouTube where I will regularly upload videos showing games that have been played here in Game Courier so that viewers can easily and conveniently see in a few minutes the full development of a game. For optimal viewing I recommend see them in full screen mode. I have started with the first two games of the long and endless match that I have with my dear friend Kevin Pacey.

Carlos Cetina vs Kevin Pacey (Game 1)

Kevin Pacey vs Carlos Cetina (Game 2)

The interesting bishop's conversion rule makes this variant tricky to handle in the opening stages. On a 9x8 board, bishops are only clearly slightly better than knights, the development of which can also be tricky to decide on. The extra queen per side make this a variant rich in possibilities.

My tentative estimates for the piece values of this variant would be: P=1; N=3.5 approx.; B=3.75; R=5.5; Q=10.25 and the fighting value of K=3.5 approximately (though naturally it cannot be traded). Note that a N has slightly less excellent central squares on an empty 9x8 board compared to on a 10x8 board (in Capablanca Chess I rate also rate a N as worth 3.5 approx., but actually a little less than on 9x8 when not rounding to the nearest 0.25), but the 9x8 board being somewhat smaller seems to at the least offset this IMHO, as a N can have a slightly easier time getting from one extreme flank to the other.

• Experiments in Symmetry

• Ultrachess
• Active Chess
• Ministers Chess