Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
twixter wrote on Sun, Nov 11, 2007 07:04 PM UTC:
Rotary is based on Ploy, and constitutes an improvement over that game IMO.
I suspect that computers may solve Ploy some day, finding a specific
opening repertoire with smashing attacks. I believe Ploy is more
imbalanced than chess, although it hardly matters for casual play. Rotary
is much deeper and better balanced, and involves long-range planning and
strategical concepts which chess players can latch onto.

If you have a Ploy set and an extra set of pieces, you can add Rotary to
your box. You could grind down the direction pointers on 18 pieces to make
the pawns, and add a circular disk on the back to indicate a promoted pawn.
A photo of such a set is at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/267282

One nice feature of Rotary is that draws cannot happen due to insufficient
material. If just the two kings remain on the board, one will always be
able to force checkmate on the other! It's an interesting puzzle to solve
this 2-piece endgame. My solution, presented without proof, is at
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/237991 scroll down a bit for the
solution.

Here are the rules for this 2-piece endgame: The board is a square 9x9
grid. Each king is a circular disc with pointers in four directions, which
looks like an X or like a + depending on how it is oriented. A move
consists of either rotating without moving, or moving one space in an
indicated direction followed by optionally rotating. The only way to
rotate is to change from X to + or vice versa. You may not pass.

Edit Form

Comment on the page Rotary

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.