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Missing Ox Chess. 4 distinguishable FIDE sets represent pieces starting with 24 different letters. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Aug 8, 2010 06:29 AM UTC:
Thank you for pointing that out. I wish that more people would point out errors like that. I have corrected it.

Anonymous wrote on Sat, Aug 7, 2010 02:20 PM UTC:
'=INFANTA, the compound of the Rook below and the Elephant above. It makes
any number of DIAGONAL steps in the same direction through empty
intermediate squares, or moves exactly 2 squares diagonally regardless of
what is on the halfway square'
-Probably, there should be written 'orthognal' instead (uppercase)
'diagonal'.

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Thu, Jan 15, 2009 06:30 AM UTC:
This is an interesting theory, but details of how the pieces were chosen belie it. Certainly part of the motivation was an exercise in choosing pieces subject to a not uncommon restriction, but I would hope the game more playable than one where each letter's piece were indeed chosen randomly.
	The criteria in the introduction rule out most combinations fitting the broader Duke criteria. Using 'as many FIDE piece types as practicable' restricts B, K, P, Q, and R to the FIDE pieces, while 'grouping piece types as much as possible with relatively few one-offs' also rules out vast numbers of combinations. Insisting on 'pieces representable by 4 distinguishable FIDE sets on 4 FIDE boards' rules out too many weak pieces, as pieces of which there are only 1 or 2 should be able to hold their own on a large board. Thus I have chosen to have 8 each of the 4 piece types least suited to being present in small numbers.
	All the same, any comment giving new ideas is welcome. I have been inspired to review my choice of pieces in light of additions to the pool since this idea first came to me, and replaced the Hood, which is really too short-range for a lone piece on a large board, with the long-range Harrower. One of the suggestions for A, Antelope, might be an improvement on Ambrose, both thematically and perhaps in terms of understandability. Coincidentally the Antelope has a subset of the Ambrose destinations but on an unblockable path - like the Nightrider relative to the Rhino. I am deferring highlighting the page as changed until I have decided whether to make that change as well.

George Duke wrote on Tue, Jan 13, 2009 07:29 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Gilman is fun writer of CVs, so he knows how to take this comment in his style of irony. You may get reminded of a little history and a little classicism in a typical ''Gilman,'' so each new one is as welcome as any other. But Missing Ox can be convenient object lesson too. Gilman writes, ''Orphan might have worked.... blah blah blah,'' as if his piece-types are carefully chosen. Sure, and sure enough. The lesson instead is mathematical. The assumption rather is that the agglomeration of pieces is really more or less random, and Gilman is being amusing, certainly not seeking to design something playable. Therefore, it is logical to ask, can we not find 10 piece-types beginning with 'A'? Alfil, Amazon, Antelope... And 10 with 'B'? And 'C'? Now if we find 10 for each letter, that makes in combinations 10^26 CVs. Earlier research at Comments of ''91.5 Trillion...'' shows 10^26 to be how many atoms (not cells) there are in body of animal like human or rhinoceros or dog, or any sizable craniate. That's a lot and the lesson is the superficality of the prolificist ethos. Then I am sure in a week I could find and devise 1100 piece-types beginning with 'A'. If we find 1100 piece-types for each letter, and just plug each combination into Missing Ox Chess (a project for up to a year), and perfectly respectable activity in the currrent fashion, that happens to be about 1100^26, which is approximately 10^80 -- which is how many atoms closely there are in the known Universe. Hopefully in finite time, the CVPage ethos will die a dignified death along with mediaeval counting angels on head of a pin.

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Jan 11, 2009 08:29 AM UTC:
It is true that many variants have produced one-off pieces beginning with O, but none were quite what I was looking for. Orphan might have worked, but at the time of writing it was off my radar - I only resorted to Joker out of desperation for a J. On the other hand Orphan has a strong resonance with Friend, and I was already using F for Foxhound as part of a larger family of pieces. Perhaps I could have had have an Orphan without a Friend based on the precedent of an Infanta without an Inquisitor. Hm, perhaps I'll add a subvariant with that, called Missing X Chess. It's probably not worth its own page.
	Having one of each piece would have violated my idea for full use of 4 distinguishable FIDE sets on 4 FIDE boards.

George Duke wrote on Sat, Jan 10, 2009 06:12 PM UTC:
Gilman says, ''Suitable pieces starting with two letters O and X eluded me.'' Now Gifford has an actual Ox, OX, in Odin's Rune. Gilman must have rejected Brown's Orphan, an important piece mentioned by Vukevich is his speech. And Gilman rejects as unsuitable Winther's Oxybeles hurling pieces over its head. That leaves at least Overtaker of Lavieri's Achernar and Altair, and also Orc, the diagonal equivalent of Shogi pawn, used in Evil Horde of Hatch's Fantasy Grand (FGevil has Ogre too). Both Overtaker and Orc would seem to fit. With so many piece-types, it is better to put only one of each. That is what we do in Complete Permutation Chess, having one FRNBKQ,Amazon,Marshall,Cardinal, and ''Winged''-R, -N, -B, -Q, -A, -M, -C.

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