Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for November, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Larry Smith wrote on Tue, Jan 17, 2006 03:13 PM UTC:
I recently tried this game with an alternate set-up pattern.

All the Swords are moved to the fourth rank.  The other pieces are
arranged left to right the same for both players. In other words, the
Serpent is to each players' right of their King, etc.

This offers an interesting opening game with only three rank between the
Swords to maneuver. This also shortens their distance to the promotion
rank.  With the available space behind the line of Swords, the player is
able to re-position power pieces with ease and increasing the depth of
play with the possible variety of introduction to the field.

An example of a powerful opening: advance Sword on 'f' file then slide
left-hand Advisor to its previous position.  This puts some serious
flanking pressure on the opponent early in the game.

Some might complain about the un-protected Swords of this set-up.  But
they can easily be defended with the advancement of the Queen or Serpent,
or by their simple development during the opening.  In fact, forcing an
opponent to defend these flanks can be a tactic to tie up one or both of
the major power pieces early in the game.

I am not advocating that this particular set-up replace the current.  Just
that it offers another interesting form of play with this game.

Edit Form

Comment on the page Pillars of Medusa

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.