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Passed Pawns Chess. A Decimal Falcon Chess Variant. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝George Duke wrote on Tue, Sep 15, 2009 04:31 PM UTC:
Chessbase in its current rare foray into CVs is incorrect in its assessment respecting 10x10 Knight-to-Bishop valuations. Actually Chessbase recently raised coverage of Chess960 and we can hope for more growth from them. CVers have learned to keep Knight equality with Bishop as boards increase. There are obviously four basic chess pieces -- three of long standing, since Bishop replaced Alfil 500 years ago. The other fundamental pair Falcon-to-Rook pretty well take care of themselves as conveniently and interestingly equal in any size 6x6 through probably 12x12. Beyond 144 to bizarre sizes, of course Rook has long-range advantage become harder to compensate naturally chiefly by starting array and strengthening of Pawns. Well, Knight too we have found stays close to Bishop in boards 9x9, 8x10, 9x10, 10x10, 11x11, 12x12 -- that same general upper middle range. The reasons are several, and there has to be implementation of the principles, or Bishop will indeed gain toward 3.5 to 2.5. Such as uncreative Capablanca Chess 10x10, his original idea for sizing, does show 3.5/2.5 hurting the Knight. We usually try to avoid any such disparity and keep Knight worth 3.0+. Firstly, we rarely do as Omega Chess(MacDonald) and let piece density slide too low on 100 squares or close to it. With 50% piece density Bishop is not particularly more mobile, and it is harder to coordinate the Bishop pair, so the two actually lose that tandem advantage held at 8x8 or 8x9. On 100 squares it becomes more important that Knight reaches every square and one Bishop only his mere half. With close to 50% density, Knights often get placed in the second rank initially and even centrally. That alone mostly solves the problem of divergence of value. Another reason Knight keeps approximate parity with Bishop on greater than 64 squares is that Pawn enhancements benefit Knight relatively. Almost automatically there is unmoved Pawn three-step when ranks increase. Stronger Pawns keep Bishop (and Queen) muted and help oblique Knight maneuvres. All the above reasons do not even consider occasional adding Camel or else Zebra to Knight; when either is done, ''Knight'' considerably exceeds Bishop in value. So, there are the two astonishing corresponding equalities that can be generally counted on holding, so long as board sizes and shapes are close to normal and design is appropriately reactive. http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=17227

Fundamentalist wrote on Tue, Sep 15, 2009 01:59 AM UTC:
'And every variantist knows and understands well by now there are four
fundamental chess pieces.'

Two, actually.  Ferz and wazir.  To call falcon fundamental is
self-congratulatory.

💡📝George Duke wrote on Mon, Sep 14, 2009 11:52 PM UTC:
At the present time Chessbase has some interesting wording on the equality of Bishop and Knight in referring to 10x10 board. Good heavens, do they know what they are in store for? Mere mention of previously taboo topic of 10x10 opens a whole can of worms. Just take a look at the last 12 years after Brown's Centennial solemnly coins ''the holy grail'' of decimal chess. And who of course has a head start of at least 100:1 over any ''expert'' they can summon.
http://www.chessbase.com/cbm/cbm131e/cbm131-09/kramnik_khalifman.htm 
I put this here because, true enough, it is an amazing equality of Bishop and Knight. And every variantist knows and understands well by now there are four fundamental chess pieces. The other equality may be even closer, or the same anyway, between Falcon and Rook. Incredible that in point value on boards from 6x6 through 8x8, 8x10 to 8x12, and ugly ones like 10x10 included, even Knight holds his own to Bishop, within a factor of just strengthening slightly Pawns to Knight's advantage on the larger ones. Throughout all those sizes, most of the time, whatever the mix or rules set, your basic fundamental Falcon equals your solemn fundamental Rook, the eternal four set off as if by perspicacious gamester goddesses' design. Analogue in physics might be equal masses of neutron and proton. It's conceivable even Chessbase could get with the program eventually. More likely it will have to have been forced on them by whoever plurally happen to act appropriately first.

💡📝George Duke wrote on Tue, Jun 22, 2004 04:35 PM UTC:
Inspirations for Passed Pawns Chess, helpful in elucidating Falcon move, are French Revolution Chess, Upside-Down Chess and Patt-Schach, as they all have pawns advanced so that pawn capture by pawn is impossible. /a>

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