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TamerSpiel. Modern large chess variant with elements of historic chess variants. (12x8, Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
David Paulowich wrote on Fri, Jun 11, 2010 10:56 PM UTC:

The Supercav moves as a Guard, or moves as a Cavalier in RennChess. So it is like a Griffon, but not an Aanca.


Anonymous wrote on Fri, Jun 11, 2010 11:08 AM UTC:
I am not clear about Supercav's move. Is it's move similar to gryphon and aanca?

George Duke wrote on Tue, May 26, 2009 06:36 PM UTC:
Another game with plural promotion opportunities, like Pocket Mutation, is Tamerspiel. The second promotion is the last though in the present work. For example, once promoting Vizier to Lion, Lion can then promote in its turn to Warlord (which is just new name for Amazon).  I think you have to go to the other citadel square for that second promotion.   The other opportunities are Firzan -> Eagle -> Queen, and Guard -> Champion -> Supercav; requiring going cross-board to the other citadel corner square to re-promote so. Supercav is Cavalier of nice Renaissance (he spells it differently) Chess plus King non-royal. There are other pieces restricted to promote once only, and the royal King himself can promote the one time to Tetrarch, who just adds the second square diagonally. Let's see: so-called ''Pocket Mutation'' is March 2003, and ''Tamerspiel'' is December 2002. If P.M. were called Citadel Promotion instead, it may have had small following. If Tamerspiel were even able to be called Citadel Chess, it might be more appreciated. Face it, ''Pocket'' is catchy. Pocket Knight Hans Bodlaender described as once his favourite CV in youth. You have to spend some time on naming; take some lessons from nomenclative masters Betza, Gilman, Gifford. We can easily imagine, beginning low, hundreds of permutations in the genre of *plural promotion*, and then gradually thousands, because of being able to vary board size from Pocket Mutation 8x8 to Tamerspiel big 8x12, and everything in between, altering piece mixes, one for each day of a 40,000-day life (Delphinidaean anyway). Now by plural promotion, or multiple, we mean the same cycle from one original piece, whereas some term like ''divergent promotion'' might refer to Shogi binding each piece to its own different promotee. That could be enough to get started on the first hundred CVs plurally promoting.  Name three others already existing.

George Duke wrote on Sat, Feb 16, 2008 05:53 PM UTC:Poor ★
Greenwood refers to ''award-winner'' presumably TamerSpiel. In 84-square Contest, among the judges I consistently rated Tamerspiel the lowest, as Peter Aronson in the group may recall. The least reason of all is the style of write-up. It starts ''Hi'', as if Rules thought up on spur of moment, and indeed the Entry just made or missed the deadline. The Rules are in fact still hard to sort out for bad writing. Other reasons generally are overcomplication in promotion rules, unoriginal piece mixes, and that one new Mutator, potentially interesting, not explained. For example, Guard promotes to Champion. Now it says in turn that Champion promotes to SuperCav. So, the intention is that there is double, or second, promotion allowed. First, that is not explained well or at all, and the reader must interpolate. Second, when re-promoting, presumably it must be at the other corner (Citadel) square. So, unfortunate players must keep track of where such pieces have been and are going. What a sorry morass. Contrast is great with nice Renaissance Chess two decades earlier. For all that, major reason to rate Tamerspiel 'Poor' is the ridiculously-high number of piece-types, over 20 counting promotees. Among several hundred rated CVs with specialization in Large CVs, TamerSpiel ranks within the lowest decile (-10%) with Omega. Notice that Game Courier TamerSpiel logs go uncompleted; there were other games of Tamerspiel dropped mid-play in the first year no longer recording, or deleted, as players ask, why be subjected to this? Two 'Excellent's for this game are by Greenwood himself and the 3rd of 3 by non-member ID.

Andy Maxson wrote on Tue, Feb 6, 2007 04:12 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
can tetrachs move into check then swap out?

💡📝Eric Greenwood wrote on Fri, Oct 10, 2003 08:10 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Hi All!

    My present e-mail address is:   *  [email protected]  *    the old
{tankyou}  address is not working anymore, so please send any personal
mail there.    Thank you! 

   Also, thank you to all who took the time to write and comment on here,
and special thanks to those individuals with the complimentary remarks! It
is truly appreciated.  :D

    Eric V. Greenwood

Paul E. Newton wrote on Wed, Jul 30, 2003 04:08 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Eric, 

I wanted to congratulate you on your placing in the 84-Spaces Contest, it
is, in my opinion, well deserved!  I very much enjoy historical variants
and newer variants that have an 'old-fashioned' feel to them, and your
TamerSpiel is a thoroughly enjoyable game!  I like the way the play
progresses and the choice of pieces gives the game a very broad range of
strategy options.  Nicely done!

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Fri, Jul 4, 2003 02:12 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
I am on turn 12 of a very nice game by e-mail. I am a fan of ancient games and modern games with an ancient theme or quality. This is one of them. I really like the use of the Vizir and Firzan in such an active way. It adds a certain depth of the function of the Pawns in the opening. The opening has another dimension before the minor pieces get involved and the game goes into the middle game. The wide board also provides more room for deciding where to focus the attack, King-side or Champion-side! The Lion and the Eagle are nice additions too. The certainly fit the theme, but more importantly, they add another level to the opening and early middle game. Instead of the battle being just between Knights and Bishops, a player must decide whether to commit and risk these stronger pieces--similar to committing the Rook in Chess. I am enjoying the game. Very nice game.

Glenn Overby II wrote on Fri, Dec 20, 2002 07:06 AM UTC:
The ZRF is done, except for debugging the King/Tetrarch escape-swap. It should be ready by the time judges are assigned.

Eric V. Greenwood wrote on Sun, Dec 15, 2002 05:46 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Thank you for your questions!  Let me clarify:

  1. Good catch! In my last-minute scramble to enter, my first letter of
submission got canceled, and missed this in #2 entry!

  Double promotions ARE allowed and encouraged! The catch is, one
promotion per citadel per piece-you must enter the other citadel to get
your piece promoted twice!  :)


  A. Correct interpretation.
  B. Also correct.
  C. Correct--and a correction! (another leftout on the recopy :{ ) :

   Any pawn promoting on b7 or k7 (b2 or k2) has the option of promoting
to Guard--However, no further promotion is allowed for the Guard/Pawn.

  This rule is in place to prevent Stalemates by hiding the king in the
citadel-now the promotion is Checkmate.

  Email address?  [email protected] ALL comments! Nicer comments
are probably more appreciated for some strange reason...


  just had to give it a rating-sorry... :)

Glenn Overby II wrote on Sat, Dec 14, 2002 04:55 AM UTC:
Two questions:

1.  May a piece which promoted move out of a citadel, move back in on a
later turn, and promote again?  There are three possibilities for this:

Firzan--Eagle--Queen
Vizier--Lion--Warlord
Guard--Champion--Supercav

2.  Let's see if I understand promotion zones:

A.  Either citadel on the enemy side may be used by any piece which has a
level to which to promote.

B.  A bishop may also promote on the square orthogonally adjacent to an
enemy citadel.  (In other words, a colourbound bishop still has two
promotion spaces.)

C.  A pawn may also promote on b2(b7) or k2(k7).

3.  The ZRF is barely started, but if you want to send me your email addy
(mine is on the feedback page) I can send you a screenshot or two of the
graphics I did for this.  I went with an unchequered board to supplement
your historical feel.

Glenn Overby II wrote on Fri, Dec 13, 2002 04:05 PM UTC:
Just posting a comment to let everyone know that I'm working up a ZRF for this one, so efforts don't get duplicated in the push to get ZRFs for the contest.

Glenn Overby II wrote on Mon, Dec 2, 2002 11:48 PM UTC:
'Tis fixed. :) Looks like a promising game, too.

Eric V. Greenwood wrote on Mon, Dec 2, 2002 03:37 PM UTC:
Great job, Hans! :) Only change I would ask is that the Lion's move and promotional abilities be separate, and not a part of the Eagle's Description, as it is now. Thanks! :D

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