Rated Comments

great article , this is definitely one of the best for young chess players to read and learn strategy.  If you intend on writing more similar content on this site be sure to check out our page with more inspiration for future posts

Is there any .ZRF file for this game?

What If They Castle Do they Tell you?

But why the limitation to set up queen and archbishop on different coloured squares, when they can change the square colour by moving like rook resp. knight?

I've been playing a lot of this game recently (via Ai Ai), partly for my own enjoyment and partly as inspiration for my own 16x16 experiments. There are relatively few modern Chess variants played on 16x16, and for me, this game is the best example thus far.

The variety of pieces presented here is at first intimidating, but one soon realises there is a logic to everything presented here, and shortly thereafter you'll find the piece movements become natural. The balance of the initial position is excellent, with every piece finding its way into the fight without too much awkward development. Games are long -- against AI at 2 minutes/move my games take at least 400 plies, with my longest so far at 695 -- but as a large Shogi variant fanatic this doesn't bother me at all. Throughout those long games one will find drama, excitement, and plentiful opportunities for subtlety and subterfuge.

If I were very picky, I might say that I'd like to see the Rook + Camel/Bishop + Camel compounds in here, which I find really fun on a large board. Also the basic leapers -- Camel, Giraffe, Knight -- feel less impactful in a game this size. Having said that, everything works well together, and I enjoy this game tremendously.

I've played the heck out of this via Ai Ai, and I absolutely adore this game. I prefer the greater piece density and the more interesting piece mix here to those of Grand Chess. The resulting play is interesting and nuanced both tactically and strategically. In my opinion Opulent Chess is one of the finest 10x10 variants.

My one complaint is the presence of Pawn promotion by replacement, but that's not particular to this game, I just dislike it everywhere. Promoting stuff is fun and interesting, so I prefer just being able to promote to any piece without restriction. After all I'm a Shogi player, and what can I say, we like promoting stuff! I also dislike some of the weird effects the rule can produce in rare circumstances, but that's more of an aesthetic objection. I do like the extended promotion zone though.

On the whole, a delightful game. Strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in decimal variants.

hi

For as long as I have known about the games with the Rook-Knight and Bishop-Knight added, I have agreed that adding just them unbalances the game even further towards the line pieces than Chess already is. This is the main reason I have made an alternate history where Capablanca looks outside of the modern descendants of the Western tradition for help in designing his proposed “next stage of Chess”. I made him look all the way to Japan simply because the first place I had thought to post the idea was the 81Dojo forum. However, the other idea I have always had was that he would simply invent a “Great Carrera” with the missing pieces (King-Knight, Queen-Knight and two step Knightrider). This game would have been possible to play with the King-Knight, two step Knightrider or Rook-Knight doubled if the players wanted.

The quality of the page has not been improved in more than one year. If everyone is happy with that, fine.

This appears to be a fine variant, in spite of the 2 unprotected pawns per side in the setup (that kind of helps make up for the 6 ranks distance between the initial pawn ranks, actually).

@ Greg:

Hi. One player mentioned to me that this preset doesn't seem to work perfectly. Namely only two-square K move to castle either side (i.e. not three-square K move to the queenside) has been allowed by it. Also, capturing by en passant isn't always allowed, I guess meaning if a 3-step pawn move is made by the opponent. Has this preset been tested for either of those possible problems? If not, please fix if you can, at your leisure.

K

This is a great concept for an army! I like how the Vouivre encourages tactical play with its forking capabilities and ability to do nasty smothered mates, while the Geese are more focused on strategic pawn play in the endgame; similar to how the tactical Knights and the strategic Rooks provide a variety of viable playstyles in the Fabulous FIDEs.

In your opening line, 2.Vg5 doesn't work because of Qxg5.

PS: If you're willing to upload this army to ChessCraft, I'd be happy to playtest them alongside my own Starbound Sliders.

Edit: Upon closer inspection, this army is actually very weak.

• Ouroboros: 2x5pts Although the Ouroboros is about Rook strength, it's the only one that's as strong as its claimed to be.
• Roc: 2x3pts+0.5pts colorbound pair bonus The Roc is colorbound and has limited range, making it weak and finnicky even by minor piece standards. Complicated maneuvres are less viable when the board is full of pawns, which further highlights the Roc's difficulty in movement. It is definitely not as strong as a Rook, though its ability to reach 12 squares means it may be slightly stronger than a Knight.
• Flying Goose: 2x1.5pts The Flying Goose has very little value, and also gives the Beautiful Beasts the very annoying trait that they can't castle without moving one of the three Pawns that will be in front of the King (unless they castle queenside and mave the a pawn). Granted, the Flying Goose is little more than a slightly stronger pawn anyway, but still.
• Vouvire: 9pts The Vouvire is reasonably strong for a Queen equivalent and it's great for tactical play, the problem is that there's nothing to play tactically against. Knights are fun to use because they're the weakest piece in the army (so when they fork something, you're in business!) while the Vouvire is the strongest piece so it can't fork anything that's protected. Also, it can't go to any of the 8 adjacent squares, which makes maneuvering on a crowded board surprisingly difficult.
• Total: 28.5pts CwDA armies typically range from 31.5 (Fabulous FIDEs) to 33.5 (Nutty Knights) with more complicated armies needing more value.

This is an interesting and logical approach to tackling how to have a double-move variant addresses pesky rules like check and en passant.  They always require special-case rules to address, and how it is addressed here "feels" right to me.  Marseillais Chess handles the check thing fine, but falls down on how en passant is handled.  You seem to have neatly solved that, too.  I also like how you are limited to one capture per move and cannot move the same piece twice.  This also helps to preserve the strategical similarity to orthodox chess. I guess Marseillais is more of a "let's make double moves and we'll end up with an interesting but totally different game."  Originally, it wasn't even "balanced" (white started with two moves.)  This is an ambitious attempt to add the property of double moves games being "balanced" while changing as little else about the game as possible.

Extra Move Chess also provides similar benefits.  You can make a second move, but don't have to, as long as it doesn't capture or move a piece that just moved.  If you make a second move, it can be a two-space pawn move (which a first move can't, except for white's first move of the game.)  This also neatly solves check and en passant.

I'd like to add this to ChessV.  I think it's doable but I need to think some things through.  The thing I see that most concerns me is this:

Each position created by a two move turn is included in the count toward a draw by threefold repetition, or toward a draw by the Fifty move rule (or the Seventy-five move rule)

If I understand this, it would be difficult to implement and doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Are you saying that any move in a single move turn or responsive move turn should not count towards the 50-move rule, nor should they be counted toward any potential repetition?

This seems like a nice variant. I especially like the 32221111Q movement of the pawns. The falcons/bison are also fun to play with, their long leaps make for nice tactics.

Pretty much the only thing I'd change is that castling leaves the King too close to the middle. Instead, I would make it so that castling results in the King and the Rook swapping places (White king can go to b1 or i1, black king can go to b10 or i10; rook always goes to the f file) as this gets the King 1 space away from the corner. This would also fix one of the gripes I have with regular chess: queenside castling is usually terrible. Opposite side castling often leads to fun games, so making it happen more often seems like it would be desirable. Also, it would allow players to castle by moving the Rook first, as the ambiguity between O-O and Rg1 is removed.

I came on this page by accident. After so many years, the name of this game is still wrong. It is Doushouqi, not Shou Dou Qi at all. And the comment about jaguar for leopard is absolutely right. The solution to avoid a L is to call this piece a Panther, panther or leopard is the same animal.

I've only played this once, but it feels right somehow. The hexagonal board, oriented horizontally like this, gives a distinct chess experience that square boards generally lack. It feels more natural than square shogi to me.

I like the Stars, they present a naturally digestible identity, in keeping with the elementary makeup of Classical pieces. I would have invented a more relatable name for them, perhaps 'Sheriffs' or, something you know, that has a real life character, but nevertheless I praise you for their design.

Nice work.

A very well thought and pleasing out blend of a Capablanca's Chess and Shogi. I am curious about the rule against having identical promoted pieces other than promoted Pawns. I consider it a small wart on a otherwise perfect design.

Adding the frog on a Capablanca board is a very nice idea. I'd suggest adding an fil move to the knight's first move, preferably a just move power, so that it can occupy it's regular place in the orthodox chess repertoire. But I don't see this as a problem more as a small enhancement, maybe, also motivated by the fact that the knight in this game starts so far from the center. Overall an excellent game!

Adding the modern elephant on a Capablanca board is a very nice idea. I'd suggest adding an fil move to the knight's first move, preferably a just move power, so that it can occupy it's regular place in the orthodox chess repertoire. But I don't see this as a problem more as a small enhancement, maybe, also motivated by the fact that the knight in this game starts so far from the center. Overall an excellent game!

The idea of introducing two waffles (phoenixes) on a Capablanca board is a very interesting one. But the main drawback proved to the author to be finding a position where all pawns are defended in the initial position. This leads to a sole position where the waffle and knight share the best first move development field. To this gets in a way of the usual castling. To counter this a new way of castling is introduced. I don't like that because it requires to little effort creating a new problem of it's own. I'd approach this by offering the knight the forward fil moves when unmoved. Probably with just move power. This will help the knight further to the center without hindering the waffle's development. It can also go the other way around offering the field towards the center to the waffle by allowing it the two forward wide zebra move. This has the advantage of having the knight on it's orthodox chess spot after it's initial move, so orthodox chess openings can be used. This would help the game become more popular among regular chess players. Both solutions seem to be better than an arbitrary castling rule.

I have played this game extensively in the Ai Ai software package since adding it, and I feel it may be the best iteration so far of Jean-Louis Cazaux's series of 12x12 variants. The piece density and variety generate very interesting interactions on the board. The various Pawn- and Pawn-like pieces in the 3rd/4th ranks create a nice sense of progression, leading the board to gradually open up and allow more powerful pieces to enter the fray.

In a sense, the game reminds me slightly of a Chess equivalent to Dai Dai Shogi, which has a long opening phase that gradually expands into a delightfully complex middlegame. As a fanatic for large Shogi I consider this a plus :)

In any case, I highly recommend this game for fans of larger variants. In the future I hope Maasai might generate some similar developments of Gigachess and Terachess as well. I have experimented a bit myself with adding the two ranks of mixed Pawns to those games and the results were quite enjoyable.

Having implemented this variant in Ai Ai and having played it a bunch of times, I really enjoy this game. Being a large Shogi fanatic, the higher piece density of Yangsi doesn't bother me in the slightest :)

For me this game is an improvement on something like Sac Chess, as the pieces in Yangsi are more interesting to use. In fact I was inspired by this game to make what I called 'Heavy Shako', an extension of Shako that fills in all the gaps in the back rank with other pieces used in the larger variants by Jean-Louis Cazaux. The original concept was much improved by some excellent advice from Jean-Louis, and the resulting game has been a lot of fun.

I'd enjoy seeing an extension of Yangsi to 12x12 with a high-density setup, too.

I like this, it brings out a rural realm to the game. Well done!

I wish this game were more popular. It seems like an excellent design. The piece selection seems strange at first but after thinking about it I can see the beauty of it.

I imagine the aanca could have originated as an enhanced ferz, to go with the bigger board. Then the knights could have become unicorns by gaining a diagonal slide after their leap to complement the aanca. The crocodile is a fairly obvious addition. The giraffe and Lion both make knight-like leaps, suitable for the large board, and the Lion includes and extra 3,0 leap which removes it's color binding and forms a nice looking pattern.

The result of all that is eight pieces with a nice range of power and an aesthetically consistent set of moves. There are all of the 2,1 3,1 and 3,2 leaping moves, the rook and bishop moves, and bent rook and bishop moves (unicorn and aanca). The leaping pieces are differentiated in power by some of them having additional movements, but they don't ever feel like arbitrary combinations.

The initial setup is also elegant. The Pawns start as far apart as they do on the 8x8 board, and the pieces are all on the back rank. The promotion rule fits well with this setup and is another great innovation.

I think the main weak points, if there are any, would be the pawns and the king's leap. It seems unlikely that the king would benefit much from a 2 square leap on such a big board with so much empty space; and perhaps modern pawns would be better. But overall this variant appears to be carefully designed.

Greetings, Thanks for doing this website. I don't see Commander Chess or Cờ Tư Lệnh in Vietnamese. This is not to be confused with the Vietnamese Chess listed here for zillions of games. Commander Chess was designed By Colonel Hải Nguyễn Quí and released in 2010. I think it's been adopted as the official Chess of Vietnam.

It's a modern warfare, sort of XianQi variant. Uses tanks, aircraft, a navy. Here's a link to the BGG for it:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191203/commander-chess

The Colonel has been trying to share his game with the world and I know for a fact they are about to release a new Commander Chess game set and online/mobile platforms to play online as well.

I'm working on making one of these with custom-built clay pieces!

Fun idea! Might I suggest the name ChiMPs?

You only need to checkmate/fork one King. In the standard-Rules version. Game play tends to be the same length as regular-chess.

Its one of the least complicated 3D-Games. Simply set-up 2-sets of chess-men.

The hardest part to explain is why its frowned upon to go on side-ways diagonals (in 3D) or that knights should not go in L-shapes without advancing or retreating from the opponent. I say frowned-upon, because of course you can change to non-standard rules. But you may find the game much longer, and knights to be as powerful as queens. Stalemates to be more attainable...

I have, as per Freeling’s comment, made a number of variants to Congo to address the issues brought up:

• To address the fact Congo looks drawish, I have adopted the “Ko Rule” in my variant: Someone who repeats a previous position in a game loses. This eliminates draws.
• To address the issue with river drownings making attacks harder, I have made the A, B, F, and G files of the rivers have “islands”: While the crocodile can move like normal on these squares, other pieces will not drown.
• I have made the pawns stronger: A pawn can not retreat until it is promoted on the 7th rank; on the other hand, pawns across the river can now move and capture sideways. A promoted pawn is more powerful: It can move or capture to any space one or two squares away (like Chess, a promoted pawn should win unless it can be recaptured quickly)
• I have made the elephants able to move forward like a Shogi Lance. They can also only move backwards one square.
• I have changed the opening setup from GMELECZ to ZCELECZ, removing the Monkey and Giraffe, and having a second Zebra (Knight) and Crocodile. This way, the game can be played with an ordinary chess board and pieces.

In my Zillions-vs-Zillions testing, the games are never draws, and Black wins more often once we give Zillions 30 or more seconds to think through a move.

My changes can be seen here: https://github.com/samboy/ChessVariantResearch

Look in the folder “Congo”. Full rules for this variant, along with multiple possible opening setups, is here:

https://github.com/samboy/ChessVariantResearch/blob/master/Congo/EBW-1.md

Out of respect for the copyright included with the Zillions implementation of Congo, I am not distributing a modified version of the Congo zrf. Instead, I am distributing the original version, along with a Linux/Cygwin script to change Congo to have another .zrf with the modified rules. I have also made from scratch board artwork representing the new river with islands.

(Admin: This is Sam Trenholme. If you have a chance, please update my email address to be “pbm” in the domain “samiam.org” so I can reset my password).

An interesting and very playable game. The figures are divergent pieces moving as the nominal piece and capturing as Querquisites.

Here's an animation of the game:

https://lichess.org/study/WjUgZzpG

I like black's idea on the final move (Rh2! hoping to provoke Kg1), however white called the bluff.

I'm pleased to see this game! One correction : it is a trigonal, not hexaxonal, chess variant. The cells are triangles, not hexagons.

That said, I think this is an excellent contribution to the much under-explored trigonal tiling. Apart from a couple of games contributed by Graeme Neatham and Christian Freeling, along with a couple of my own, I think this is a little-used tiling which has lots of interesting possibilities for play.

I dig this board. I tried writing a Zillions of Games .zrt for Masonic Chess last night.  I think it's about finished, but I can't seem to get through debugging to try it out.  Anyone here still messing with Zillions .zrt files?

The table in the center of this page has several mistakes in the description column

This is a very good game. Everything fits together well. The random setup provides variety without being completely chaotic. The brouhaha squares are a great way to add more pieces without making the board so big it feels empty. The promotion rule encourages more variety in promotion, which is something I look for particularly; and I like the auxiliary pieces used here. The Mameluk especially is fun.

I think I might slightly prefer the Modern Apothecary game, for it's Dragon and Griffin, which to me are more interesting than the Chancellor and Archbishop, but I like the Siege Elephant and Mameluk as auxiliaries, so it's hard to choose one game over the other. I don't know if I'd agree with the statement that the Joker can't defend well. It seems to me that it's ability to mimic an attacker's move makes it particularly good at defending and more difficult to use aggressively. I'm not great at chess (in any form), though, so I could be wrong about that.

I'm interested to see what the next games in this series will be like!

Excellent write-up, Eric. I actually didn't know Fischer presented 960 in 1996 - always thought it has been around for longer.

This looks fun

Where can I find an editor so I can have a piece set uploaded?

Really? Insufficient material? What if the opponent has insufficient material?

Metamachy is fun. The historical pieces are all interesting to play with, and the fast pawns keep the game from slowing down too much.

Fergus, in Janggi, if I want to swap both pairs of horses and elephants with each other, do I have to do it in a single action?

This looks like an amazing game! It combines shogi drops with a beautifully simple setup and set of pieces.

Reading the rules makes me want to play it; and also to design something similar, but it seems impossible to make anything quite as elegant as this.

I think it usually makes more sense to have pawns promote only to pieces in their own army.

I like very much short-ranges games, even with not very strong pieces, and this game falls into this category. Here the piece set (only of max 2-square range) is logical and works well, and the presence of 4 Kings, of which one must be checkmated (with the consequence of a unstoppable fork on several Kings being a checkmate), is here to help the outcome of the game. However, even with the 4 Kings, the game seems to take a very long time to finish; the two games in this website that had been led to a conclusion took 85 and (for the game that ended with checkmate) more than 110 turns, which seems too much for a game of that type. And I am a little bit sceptical concerning the mating potential: when most pieces have been exchanged, the four Kings can more easily prevent the Pawns to promote.

One solution would have been stronger 2-square range pieces, in a game closer to a short-range version of Sac Chess, with a KNAD being the strongest piece (or at least Centaurs, or KADs). The presence of the KNAD, able to force checkmate without assistance, would obviously make the game faster and more decisive, but in the same time maybe less balanced and tactically interesting. (In Metamachy, the power of the KNAD/Lion is well balanced by powerful long-range pieces.) And I wouldn’t suggest a change in the piece set of this game; it works well as it is, and a like it.

Another idea is making a game with 2 moves per turn. With the same pieces and victory condition, not only this would make the game shorter, but also the attacks more dangerous and less easy to counter (and the possibility of double check with two pieces). This solution seems to me more interesting, while keeping the character and the concept of the game, than to have stronger pieces.

Thank you for pointing that out. I have now reviewed Pritchard's encyclopedia myself and agree there is a resemblance to Jabberwocky chess, but with fewer circles and no Queen (the King becoming the most powerful moving piece). I think we are getting closer to the origin story here of this board.

Arne Basse, from what I understand was a furniture designer, not known for chess boards. But he or whoever came up with this game could have been influenced by Parton. The timing would have been right as the board was produced in 1966. I wish there was a way to find out more about whether there is an archive of his designs somewhere, presumably in Denmark.

Thank you Fergus, you spotted our problem right!

New information on this thread: Another copy of this chess set has been found in an online posting on Board Game Geek!  Follow this link and scroll down to see the photo and comments: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/276021/item/7825120#item7825120

Sadly this set is also missing the rules!  But I am attaching my most recent ruminations on what the rules were when I played the game in my youth :-)

Viking Chess Rules as best as they can be remembered – November 28, 2020

The goal of the game is to checkmate your opponent's king as in regular chess. 

Board: The board is made up of "rings" linking "crosses" (the spaces).  There is a centre space, the “star”, in the middle. 

Pieces: There is a king, 2 rooks (flat tops), 2 bishops (spikes) and 4 pawns per side.

All pieces start off the board.  

On their first turn (white goes first) each player places their king anywhere on the board on any space except the centre space (I believe that no piece could start on the centre star because it gives too much of an advantage to start there - but I am not 100% certain of the rule). 
In the second and subsequent turns, each player can either move an existing piece on the board or bring another piece onto the board as per turn 1.  

Different pieces move differently as follows:
-	Pawn moves one space in any direction 
-	Rook moves up to 3 spaces up or down, or one space to the side
-	Bishop moves up to 3 spaces around one of the rings, or one space up or down. 
-	King can move up to 3 spaces in any direction up or down

Once placed on the board a piece can enter the centre space or through it.

A player takes an opponent's piece by moving a piece into their opponent's piece's space.  Once a piece is removed from the board it cannot return.  I do not believe there is a rule to promote a pawn to a Bishop or Rook.

The King is the strongest piece on the board combining both the Rook's move (3 up or down) and the Bishop's move (3 around a ring in either direction). 

If the King is taken/mated the game is over.

very interesting have noticed this when i was collating material on renaissance chess some time ago , didn't realise there's an actual different version of chess, thank you for the page Renaissance Chess

Thanks a lot

This is a fantastic game and one that I regularly enjoy playing both with friends or on my own. When playing on my own I change clothes after each move, speak in a different accent and have a different personality/backstory to give the appearance of separate players. Anyway I digress, a fantastic game, enjoy.

It says KisO4 in the list, which is correct, but I didn't update that one. I had guessed that it defaulted to that based on the board size. But I didn't put the king on the board either - it starts there (if that matters.)

I updated those values and now castling works correctly too.

This is VERY impressive. It is now possible to make presets for typical variants with no writing of GAME code at all. Thank you for making this!

I once had a CV of my invention (Wide Chess) gently criticized for my adding to the standard chess army of each side (on a 12x8 board) 4 pawns, plus two pairs of leapers that were somewhat similar to each other, in that they both had an alfil movement as part of their powers. Namely, it was thought said leapers weren't divergent enough from each other.

In the case of (10x8) Royal Court, a pair of leapers plus 2 pawns is added to the army of each side. The leapers have the same movement powers as knights, plus they can also move like a man (often called the Centaur compound). So, I can see how this addition of leapers to the standard chess army might be gently criticized, too (at least they are very powerful leapers, which might relieve any perception of slight redundancy).

Recently I had a couple of ideas of my own about adding pair(s) of fairly knight-like minor pieces to the FIDE army, although I may have rejected these ideas too quickly, partly due to the previous critique (of my Wide Chess). Namely the ideas involved adding either a pair of fibnifs and/or a pair of horse(mao)-wazir compound pieces (depending on the board size I would use). Besides Wide Chess not yet proving popular on Game Courier, I'd add another inhibition I have is that I've seen very few examples on this website of the FIDE army plus pair(s) of pieces added to them, where the pair(s) were not strikingly divergent in some way from other piece type(s) used in the chosen armies. Indeed, Wide Chess and Royal Court are more or less the only counter-examples I've noticed.

https://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/fibnif.html

https://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/mao.html

The design of this game makes no sense to me. The Rook is upgraded to a Dragon King. The Knight is upgraded all the way to an Amazon. The Queen is upgraded to the most powerful piece I have ever heard of. But the poor Bishop is downgraded to a Wazir - a piece that moves only one step horizontally or vertically. One problem is that the board has so much power that it will be a tactical smash-fest. Another problem is that the Wazirs will never move. I cannot imagine any circumstance in which a player would waste a move on them, except possibly to get them out of the way to allow castling, and probably not even then. With all the nightriders, castling will likely be impossible anyway.

This is an excellent chess variant, and is one of my favorites. I think it plays better than either of the games from which it is derived. The starting position is carefully considered, allowing a wide variety of different openings.

The rook should still be worth slightly more than the bishop on this board but it is very close. I performed the mobility calculation. With a 30% board occcupancy, the rook's average mobility is 9.8 whereas the bishop's is 9.2. And the mobility of the rook increases faster than that of the bishop as the board clears out.

This page is 100% going to crash soon due to traffic from SUSD viewers!

Very similar to Wagner Chess: https://github.com/brianthetall/wagnerChess

You should be able to do this by defining Pawn and Ferz as the first two pieces, setting maxPromote=2, promoZone=1, and promoChoice=W (assuming W is the ID of the War Elephant). It might still want you to indicate the 'choice' by clicking on the War Elephant in the table (which will then be highlighted in blue). But it only requires a choice when the table is opened anyway. If the table is closed it always promotes to the default piece, which is the first ID of the promoChoice string. If there is never any choice, there is no reason to open the table.

The Play-Test Applet doesn't offer an opportunity to specify a maxPromote parameter different from 1. In western Chess variants it is very rare that there is more than one promoting piece, and in the cases I knew the promotion rules for the non-Pawns are then often special. (E.g. more Shogi-like, where there is a fixed promoted form.) The Play-Test Applet has no provision for defining Shogi-type promotions (which would be controlled by the diagram parameters maxPromote and and promoOffset, rather than promoChoice.)

Such mixed promotion rules are not really supported by the Diagram proper; the Diagram can be augmented with a user-defined JavaScript function WeirdPromotion to handle such cases. This is what I used for Chess and a Half: as far as the Diagram is concerned only Pawns promote, and it enforces the promoChoice setting on those. Promotion of the other pieces is handled by having WeirdPromotion recognize when they should promote, and return the promoted version in that case. I also use that for implementing 'contageon' in Maka Dai Dai Shogi.

It is always a hard call what to include in an interface to keep it user-friendly; I don't want to deter prospective users with an enormous list of options they would almost never need.

I have been thinking for how the need for using a custom WeirdPromotion script could be reduced. I could for instance introduce a parameter contageon that would decare a list of pieces that should be treated as contageous, and by default make royal pieces immune to that. (Or also introduce a parameter immune.) And I could make mixed promotions standard by having the Diagram obey the promoChoice parameter for the first piece (presumably Pawn) even when promoOffset is non-zero, if the promoChoice is non-empty or different from a single +.

I updated this page heavily...

• Added graphic of setup (was just ASCII)
• Updated intro to provide detail about chronology of invention
• Changed format to be more consistent with other game description pages
• Added information about Game Courier play/computer play
• Added interactive diagram

I've made several updates to this page. The HTML had a number of issues, (unclosed tags and the like), although they mostly weren't obvious to readers. I also reformatted it to better resemble our typical game descriptions and edited the text to be clearer. The Computer Play and Equipment sections have also been updated to reflect what is (and is not) currently available.

I will try to post a more in-depth review when I have some time to write one, but for now, suffice it to say this game plays very well and I do not hesitate to rate it Excellent.

I have 2 questions about the brouhaha squares:

1) What is the advantage of allowing a capture on a brouhaha square? Spontaneously, I find this strange: I understood that such a square hosts a piece until it is activated and enter into play, then the square disapears. Then, this square is not part of the play area really. So, I wouldn't have allowed a capture on it at all. Maybe there is something I don't see.

2) Why this name of "brouhaha" square? At least in French a brouhaha is a surrounding noise. Those squares are more like a fog, brouillard in French. Brouhaha/brouillard, is there a linguistic confusion there? 

Welcome to our two new editors. It's great to see some new blood. 

Next step : see some new blood in terms of contributors, not just editors, too. I'll try to find time to design a new variant or two myself, if I can get some letup from my 70-hours a week job, but I'd also love to see a lot more game designers get on board.

Great idea. I have always loved Fischerrandom Chess, but I really don't like the way it gives players no control over where their pieces start. I also consider Fischer's castling rule to be cludgy and it's hard to believe that a man of his genius came up with that. Your project fixes those shortcomings. 

One tweak I'd make if it were up to me is to require both players to enter ALL their pieces before making any other moves. White would enter a piece, followed by black, and they'd take it in turns to enter pieces, one at a time, until the first and eighth ranks were full. Of course, Bishops must be required to be on different coloured squares. 

Thank you very much. I have been able to upload all diagrams and the process was very lean. 

Yesterday, it was my mistake for the size limit. Instead of uploading the jpg diagrams I have made for my own website, I uploaded instead the source images coming from the board painting tool, which are much heavier. Thank you for your help.

The texts still says: The antelope is a (3,4)-jumper, i.e., it moves (with or without taking) four squares horizontally and five vertically, or five squares horizontally and four vertically.

It should be corrected as:

The antelope is a (3,4)-jumper, i.e., it moves (with or without taking) four squares horizontally and three vertically, or three squares horizontally and four vertically.

Btw, what is the name of the (2,4) jumper?

Pieces are never attacking friendly pieces or I miss something

That is the answer to my question. So if a virgin King is on h1, a black Bishop on h2, and a black Knight on g4, the King can move to h3. If his own Bishop was on h2 instead, he could not.

Some people would say pieces can attack the square a friendly piece is on. They obviously cannot capture it, but that doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as being attacked. E.g. when my King stands next to an enemy Pawn that is protected, does he attack that Pawn?

Personally this rule strikes me as quite illogical; to pass through a square it should be empty, and if you don't pass through it but jump over it, you shouldn't have to worry if you are attacked there. And I wonder how much this rule actually affects the game; it seems very hard to attack any squares next to the enemy King before he moves away to safety, as he starts buried behind 2 or 3 ranks of pieces. Especially if he can jump.

In general I like your variants a lot, because you do not only feature super-strong pieces (much stronger that Rook), but also Knight-class pieces. Most variants suffer from an over-abudance of Queen-class pieces. The middle of the strength spectrum is still a bit under-populated, though: almost none of the pieces is close to a Rook in value.

Looks great

I think this game is OK, but I do not care for the promotion rules.  The game does not have a queen, so promotion to queen would already be the strongest piece.  The amazon seems excessive and most games that feature that piece are not very good IMO.  The amazon attacks in 16 directions while the next strongest piece - the rook - only attacks four.

Thanks a lot. I didn't know about Lioness, very good.

Very good information! What is not clear for me at the moment if that Asakura shogi is a reconstruction of a possible step in the evolution of shogi, or if that form of game is really asserted and supported by historical proofs. I may ask a specialist that   I know. Thank you again.

I came on this page and I am horrified to read what I read.

"In H.J.R. Murray's History of Chess, page 181 states that the Alfonso manuscript was published in about the year 1211" >> no, not 1211! Murray wrote it right: 1283. 

"which on page 346 is said to have used algebraic notation, and to have described a chess variant that included the modern B and Q": not at all!
That chess variant wich used algerbric notation and modern move is another one, from India, written in Persian and dated 1796-8. It is reported quite clear in Murray page 181 for who has eyes to read!

Page 348, Murray gave a short description of Grant Acedrex from King Alfonso X.Today this is better known thanks to the PhD work of Sonja Musser. I worked a bit with her on this, this is reported in my book A World of Chess (McFarland, 2017). In few words: what was called Unicornio in medieval spanish was clearly a Rhinoceros. So the Rhino was a piece first jumping like a Knight, then going away like a Bishop.

It was the counterpart of another piece moving one step diagonal then moving away on rows and columns. That later piece is called Aanca in the manuscript. It's an Arabic word, not Spanish, designating a giant Eagle or prey bird, from oriental legends (able to carry elephants). This was mistakenly traduced by Gryphon by Murray. This is unfortunate as the Gryphon was a very different legendary animal. This is why I prefer to use the name of Eagle in Metamachy and not Gryphon to avoid replicating that mistake.
 

"Not described there is a piece which makes a one step Rook move and then continues outwards as a Bishop. For lack of a name, I'll call it the Aanca." 
No no no please! Aanca is the Giant Eagle, or the Gryphon if you want. Do not give that name of Aanca to a piece which is different and is more like the Unicornio / Rhinoceros. This is a very very bad idea. Stop adding confusion, I wish one is more careful when reading the work of Murray.

I don't usually like games with different armies, but this is an exception. You've put a lot of thought into making a game whose different armies are not unevenly matched. For sure, the Spartan side lacks a Queen and its army appears to be slightly less powerful, but that is compensated for by the presence of two kings, both of which must be checkmated/captured. 

I can't believe this game hasn't been reviewed yet. This is the best game I've played that includes an Amazon. I normally leave the Amazon out of my games, because it has the power to force checkmate by itself, and that has the potential to wreak a game. However, that hasn't been a problem with this game. This game includes several other weaker compound pieces that help make it unsafe to move the Amazons out too early. To get to the point where you could use an Amazon to force checkmate against a King, you have to do lots of maneuvering of other pieces. Furthermore, the potential of the Amazon getting a bead on the King means that position is sometimes more important than material advantage. You can't count on winning just because you are ahead materially. If you find that you can't stop your opponent's Amazon, you may lose even if you're materially ahead. This makes the game more dynamic and exciting.

Hi, thank you for your comment.

Raphael mentioned his comment to me. Loving / Preferences are individual choices.

I have a clear conflict of interest here. 

Is the fact that the recognised variants section wasn't updated from 2006 means that the administrators of chessvariants haven't found any new / recent variant worth to be added ?

Just to mention that recently, there was many things new concerning Musketeer Chess: Jocly website went down so your website, mine and HG Muller work are the only websites where it's possible to play this variant.

Many engine programmers become to have growing interest in it. The major one is for sure Stockfish that recently released Musketeer Stockfish. There are a total of 6 Programmers that already made engines for Musketeer Chess, which is not an easy variant to program due to the rules that concern the Piece selection and the "Gating Selection" = squares where the pieces will enter the game.

This growing interest is for sure for me a good thing. The majority of these programmers tried to play the game and loved it. 

Have you an idea if there are other variants that are currently commercial ?

I runned tens of thousands of engine games and played myself hundreds. 

My conclusions based on these tests are as follows: The game seems to be balanced as there are almost equal winning chances comparing black and white chances, and the draw percentage is low (less than 8%). Seirawan Chess that Inspired Musketeer Chess favors clearly White for example.

Thanks again for your comment: PS working on a wiki page and i mentioned your Game Courier in it. A really nice tool.

I hope also that Lichess will add it to their server.

Well hey, apparently I never commented on this!

I quite like it! The interplay between needing pieces on the arena/safer on the enchanted squares is quite unusual.

Creating your own army is fun, and ensures no game start will be quite the same.

This is a very cohesive & well thought out variant.

Very good, well-thought out game, with pieces which compliment the board--some require elevator movement, some use the empty shafts, and the ox can use them to capture. Nicely done.

I will say the rules allowing the flying pieces to go 'up, through an elevator trapdoor' feel very unintuitive; especially if playing with a physical set. It makes more sense to me to allow flying pieces to go either up or down through the empty shafts only; this would also make it impossible to threaten an identical piece without also being in danger.

Still, a very good variant!

This looks like a decent 10x10 variant; it has the basic Chess pieces--with more mobile Pawns-- and well-known Knightriders & XiangQi Cannons.

The King game-winning 'promotion' rule could liven up the endgames without totally changing the game.

However, I am confused as to the logic behind the apparently abitrary initial setup. The Rooks have an open rank (like Grand Chess) which is fine.  But the Horsemen (modified Pawns) are more mobile--but start very close to each other.  So close, in fact, they can't use their forward most moves initially without being captured.   Except the Horsemen on the far ends; they start one rank farther back for no discernable reason. 

The forward pawn lines leave a bunch of space to the rear; considering the vast area there aren't very many other pieces.

Also, the Knights are back a rank from the Horsemen, consequently they cannot move forward as the first move. They are protecting Horsemen, but it seems like there ought to be another way to do this.

Xhess is quite playable, but I'm left with the impression the starting setup could use an overhaul.

This is a really good idea, the only problem being it really needs a custom Chess set.

I'm guessing it would require similar bluffing strategy like Stratego. I can see myself thinking "hummm, that faux Pawn can't be anything valuable, it's too exposed.... unless that's what he wants me to think....or, he could be counting on me to think that's what he wants me to think...."

:-)

This actually has a decent chance of commercial success, in my opinion. It's got 'wow' factor, but close enough to normal Chess to feel familiar.

Great idea.

Today played a game of Rotary with a set of pieces I made myself. It is a very nice game. The rotational element adds a nice layer of tactics. Only thing that feels weird is the promotion rule 

In my opinion, this is not a very good Grand Chess variant.

Grand Chess is built upon two main ideas; getting rid of castling by freeing the Rooks in the back rank, and introducing the two 'missing' compounds to be additional high-value pieces--the Cardinal & Marshall.

Euchess moves the Rooks back and re-introduces castling, and then doubles the number of Cardinals & Marshalls--but, inconsistently, keeps one Queen.

Ignoring the lack of numerical consistency, this is really bad from a playable perspective--the sheer number of power pieces diminished the value of Knights & Bishops significantly.

Euchess is much too top-heavy, power wise, and significantly dimishes the point of the open back row. (Marshalls, with their Knight move, don't need the room to be developed.)

I think there is room for some interesting variants of Grand Chess, but this isn't one of them.

I have to comment it for having simple yet original rules, promising a good entertainment, perhaps even well commercially-sold.

Happy 25th anniversary, Chess Variant Pages!

Kevin!...

About game courier just ask me and I'l' do it. It is fine for me!...

I'll also teach you how!...

Yes that type of elelphant it is the lieutenenat of spartan chess. Or "the captain" I'm not sure. I like it because it is closer in value to the knight. Also the non square nature of the board helps. An alternative for another game (as you used in wide chess which we have played once) is the waffle. I think a lieutenant game and a waffle game would be more interesting than the 12x8 one! That is my opinion.

About Vao: maybe Dawson gave that name because it was phonetically from the same family than Pao, and the V because this letter is made of diagonal strokes. Maybe it is not that, but it can be used as a mnemotecnic mean. Remark, it could have used Xao as well, that would have been looking more Chinese.

Below is a link to a site apparently written by the inventor of Grand Chess (and other variants); in it's coverage of that variant, it mentions that the inventor strove for 'completeness' (by adding the Archbishop and Chancellor piece types that he felt were missing from FIDE chess) - similar to the inventor of Amazon Grand Chess, I kind of feel logical completeness might mean including an amazon piece for each side (possibly the inventor of Grand Chess rejected this simply due to having an odd number of pieces in each army as a result). Note in my 10x10 variant Sac Chess, which has had a lot of testing, having 2 amazons per side (though on a crowded board initially) doesn't seem to hurt the quality of the play in games much at all.

Anyway, for a variant idea I'm still considering, I came up with an alternative setup to that of Amazon Grand Chess (I thought reverse symmetry for the setup can be used, to make the odd number of pieces per side seem less asymmetrical, IMO). On a seperate website from the one below I saw some posters wishing that Grand Chess used normal promotion rules, as in chess (so that the board's edge is made use of for one thing), and also that it allowed a king to leap up to 3 squares once per game, to make up for the absence of castling, so I'm considering these as possible refinements, too. I'll also mention that one thing I don't quite like about the Amazon Grand Chess setup is that the amazon and queen of each side are doubled on a file (albeit behind a pawn) before play even begins... Now, here's the link I mentioned:

http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/how-i-invented-games-and-why-not/chess-variants-are-easy

[edit: Here's a link to a discussion I alluded to, about how Grand Chess might be improved:]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AGrand_chess

[edit2: Here's a diagram of a CV idea of mine that might be called Grandiose Chess, which I'll study at leisure (pawns would promote on last rank to any piece type in the setup, except for a king, and an unmoved king that's not in check can leap up to three squares away to an unoccupied square on the first or second rank that's not under attack, regardless of any pieces or enemy attacks that may be in between):][edit3: I'm not liking this so much just now - perhaps it's a worse version of Grand Chess, or even of my own Sac Chess:]

I see that a new study of historical sources on Tori Shogi has been published: https://www.amazon.co.jp/禽将棋についての研究-禽将棋の背景と系統的位置づけ-MyISBN-デザインエッグ社-松本尚也/dp/4815014205/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_ja_JP=カタカナ&keywords=禽将棋&qid=1575339500&sr=8-1

I wonder if any Japanese have read the book and can comment on what new discoveries this book reveals.

It seems awful to have the Queen (a non-jumping piece) starting trapped in the corner; you now cannot develop it without breaking the Pawn shield, so j-side castling becomes very unattractive. Two-step castling sucks anyway, on 10-wide boards.

Hi all,

I'd like to share with you a project. Creating a classification of Chess Variants using "pragmatic methodology" to compare them.

Please share with me your thoughts here, or at the following link: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-variants/a-system-to-classify-chess-variants

Very handy tool! I was able to check the end games of most of my variants. 

I do have a question on King vs Royal Wazir + knight. How do I check the winning percentage for the King? It gives me an error when I attempt 3men K.WN, whereas WN.K is a sure 0% win.

Alternative pieces that I have questions with:

how could I define a unit that cannot capture at all?

how could I drfine a unit that cannot move at all?

thanks

Prussia

I've been racking my brain lately trying to come up with a good 12x8 variant (or maybe even larger) that besides having the FIDE army per side includes the Archbishop and Chancellor piece types (as Sosarian Chess does, here), with very few other piece types added as well. Eric Greenwood wrote on his ArchCourier Chess rules page that he couldn't make these criteria work together for him (on 12x8), to his satisfaction.

I've noticed that there are 3(!) presets for Sosarian Chess, each with slightly different setups. The one I prefer (as apparently does Greg, based on a comment in a game of his with Jeremy Good) is the setup with White: Q on a1, A on f1 and C on l1, with Black placed similarly; this particular preset is called 'SosarianChess' (no space between the two words).

There's also a setup that was unintended to be used (again based on a comment by Greg in said game with Jeremy Good), a preset that has 2 A's and a C (no Q) per side; this particular preset is called 'Sosarian'.

Finally, there is a preset with White: A on a1, Q on f1 and C on l1, with Black placed similarly; this particular preset is called 'Standard'.

The reason I prefer the same setup as Greg (to the 'standard' one) is, in addition to his one, in a comment to Jeremy (that the Q helps guard an edge pawn again, in the setup), I like that an A on f1 can discourage the Black C (on l8) from developing to k6, since White can push the pawn in front of his king, as soon as move one, if he wishes to. Thus the setup helps keep the Chancellors from always developing to the k-file by a knight leap, followed by an unfortunate exchange of these pieces on said file, which could be a waste of their presence in the setup.

So, aside from agreeing that the SosarianChess preset has the best setup, and should be preferred, I found the choice of Lions as the added piece type (compared to 10x8 Capablanca Chess, etc) interesting. I'd quickly estimate the piece type to be worth about 4.75 on 12x8. Its ability to leap 2 squares orthogonally (besides 3) comes in handy, as it can go to the third rank and still be protected by a pawn. Since it also moves like a ferz, it usefully guards pawns in the setup.

One thing I've been undecided on is whether to have some sort of fast castling rules (as in my earlier 12x8 Wide Chess) for any board that's wide - no one has recently commented on whether they like such a rule, but for my 12x8 variants so far people seem to have voted with their feet (unless some other features were unattractive, alternatively). Anyway, Sosarian Chess deals with this issue by having the rooks each one file closer to the centre, and then retaining Capablanca Chess style castling rules (I observed this from a comment by Greg to Jeremy, when I was seeking confirmation). Based on Greg's (longer) game with Jeremy, the latter was on the verge of actually castling at one point, and so it seems Greg's way of handling the castling issue may be fully feasible.

No one has played this variant in a long time, maybe partly because of confusion about what the setup position should be (a tidying up of the presets at some point would clear that up, unless there was meant to be a choice offered if players preferred). It looks like it could be a very fun game, albeit one with a lot of powerful pieces and kings that may feel insecure often at the start. That's in spite of the queen(s) possibly being a little buried for a while at the start of a given game, with my favourite setup being used.

[edit: Here's a link that currently includes the 3 presets I mentioned above for this variant (Sosarian Chess):]

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/settings.php?author=mageofmaple

[edit: Here's a link that gives all finished games of Sosarian Chess (regardless of preset used in a given game):]

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/logs.php?game=Sosarian+Chess&age=0&stat=finished

A very interesting game.  And you have the interactive diagram using our signature Alfaerie pieces and colors!  I love it :)

Hi, it's always good to hear criticism. And i think you've got it right.

Personally i give you the pieces i much like when playing Musketeer Chess: Hawk, Unicorn +++ and my favorite is the Archbishop combining Bishop and Knight abilities. I much like sacrificing my Queen for an Archbishop !!

Musketeer Chess idea was to get rid of the big amount of draws and also opening learning (long theoretical lines). The idea is also to give black a more important role by deciding the final combination of pieces, adapting his strategy to white's choice which will lower for sure the importance of white's advantage as the side who begins the game; But this needs for sure a precise play.

You pointed out the fact that the Board is overcrowded. Of course it becomes a problem if you choose to gate you r pieces whithout a prior clear strategy and this will hamper you from exploiting the huge potential of the new pieces.

The newly added pieces are strong and they bring so much excitment and tactics from the first move ! So the slightest lack of attention can be punished (more spectacular wins) but also if you lower your attention even with a huge material advantage on the board, your opponent can surprise you and mate you using the newest pieces whom some can mate alone.

Yes, Musketeer Chess is not a perfect game, but Classic Chess became mostly a game of "knowledge" and opening learning and is for sure less attractive for average kids and players that want to improve their level but are frustrated by this learning.

Elite tournaments are less spectacular and games most usually finish with draws.

I think it's a fusion between Wildbeast and Xhess not XChess. XChess is a variation with an hourglass.

Chris

I am currently playing a game of Odin's Rune Chess, and I really like it, as much the rules and gameplay, as the runic theme. The Forest Ox is a terrific piece, maybe too powerful... I like the rather strong Pawns. I generally appreciate modern variants that use non-conventional Pawns, it effectively renews the dynamics of a chess game. And their initial colorboundness isn't a default at all, for me.

I was wondering if Pawn promotion could be integrated in this game - even if it is not necessary since Pawns can go back and the need for new material is less crucial, since the vulnerabiliy of the Kings without moving possibilities makes situations of insufficent material less likely. Promotion possibilities should be limited, since Pawns can reach the last rank in only four moves; for example, they could only promote to previously captured pieces of his own colour; or there could be limitations to the maximum number of pieces of each type present on the board (4 Valkyries, and 4 Forest Oxen, for example - which is already a lot). One can also think of the opportunity to permit the promotion to King (here too, the maximum number must be limited or promotion be only to previously captured Kings). But the game plays already well, I don't think it needs a promotion rule. I was just wondering how promotion could affect the gameplay, and if it could be interessant as a variant.

Edit: my comment about the possibility of promotion wasn't very pertinent. Promotion doesn't make much sense in this game.

Just played this very interesting game. A single Knight won the game when White was at a larrge disadvantage being down a bishop and a rook. 

(note b2=P means b2 is flipped and a Pawn is revealed. Pawns are desginated P and there is no short-form notation)

1. c2=P   c7=C
2. Pe2-e3   ....

Otherwise Cc7xc1 #

2. ...       Cc7xc1 (xB)
3. Ke1-e2 Cc1xa1 (xP)
4. g2=N    b7=B
5. Ng2-f4  Bb7xh1 (xR)
6. Nf4-e6

After a careless capture at h1, which yielded a rook advantage (rook is the strongest unit on board at the start), Black resigns at this point, since Nxg7 or Nc7 are both checkmates and no possible move could defend both squares. The King could not move as its only revealed piece, the e7 pawn, is blocked by the white Knight. Other unrevealed p