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Here's a little throwaway thought I had on the morning drive:
<h3>Card Chess Without Randomness or Hidden Information</h3>
People have used cards to add an element of randomness to Chess, probably
for centuries. I have no problem with this, but some people do, a fact
that led me to wonder if an interesting version of Chess with Cards
containing no random elements or other hidden information could be
constructed.
<h4>The Equipment</h4>
Each player starts with 16 cards, 15 of which contain all the possible
unordered combinations of two pieces, and the last of which is a wild
card. Thus:
<p>
PN, PB, PR, PQ, PK, NB, NR, NQ, NK, BR, BQ, BK, NQ, NK, QK, Wild.
<h4>The Play</h4>
To move a piece, a player must have a card with either that piece on the
card or they must have a wild card. Upon moving that piece, they hand the
card they used to allow the move to their opponent, who adds it to their
own cards.
<p>
If a player has no card that would allow them to move any of their pieces,
they lose. Other forms of stalemate are also losses.
<p>
Pieces give check even without their player having a card that would allow
them to move the piece.
<p>
If the King is in check, it may be moved either by playing a card with a
King on it, or by playing a card with a piece attacking the King on it.
If the King is in check and you have no card that would allow it to move,
then it is mate.
<h4>Chess with Different Armies</h4>
This scheme ought to work OK with Chess with Different Armies, although I
am not entirely sure what the consequences are, since the relative
strength of pieces from equivalent array positions differ (for example,
in the Remarkable Rookies the 'Bishop' is Rook strength, and the 'Rook' is
a minor piece; the Colorbound Clobberers are even more oddly distributed).
<h4>Comments</h4>
Since there are plenty of cards with each piece, openings ought to be
fairly standard. Things start to get weird when players lose all of types
of piece. If a player has no Knights, Bishops or Queens, then the cards
NB, NQ and BQ will never leave their hands.
<p>
Possibly there are too many cards with each piece on them.
I need to play with this. It's quite an idea. I wonder if the King shouldn't be like any other piece, even in check; if you're in check, have no card to move the King, and can't defeat the check otherwise it is mate. The concept will map with interesting results to a lot of variants that use the ordinary 8x8 and 32 pieces. The cards might even work best with a form other than orthochess. Peter, you think too much! :)
Just had another thought...a 10-card version with five cards each for King and Pawn, two cards each for others, with the Wild card. Or 9 without the Wild card. The optimum card mix, as you astutely noted, may not yet be known. KQ KB KN KR KP PQ PB PN PR (Wild)
I like your 10 card set -- it makes card hording more practical, while
allowing the Kings and Pawns reasonably mobile. And with 6 out of 10
cards showing the King, I agree the special King privilege to use the
attacking piece's card when in check is not in necessary.
<hr>
:: Peter, you think too much! :)
<p>
Well, 'Die Gedanken sind frei', I guess :)
An issue has occured to me -- under the rules I've defined, Black will always have one or two cards more than white, which is probably excessive.
<p>
Here's an idea to correct it:
<ul>
<p>
<li>
White starts with 1 copy each of all cards except the wild card, black starts with the cards white does, plus 1 wild card.
</li>
<p>
<li>
On white's first move, they use no card; thus black starts with the wild card and with one more card than white.
</li>
</ul>
Black starting with the wild card offsets white's first move advantage some, hopefully.
Does castling require one card, or two, as you see it? I vote one, a King card, since officially castling has long been viewed as a move of the King. But I could go either way. A 19-card set sounds like a plan...White with nine, Black with nine plus the Wild card, no card used on White's first move. I can see some potential for endgame draws, where mating material is hindered by a lack of sufficient cards to make the moves. :)
Castling as a King move is a good idea, I think. The endgame. Hmm. A K + Q vs K endgame could be stymied by the player with the bare King holding on to the KQ, PQ and (Wild) cards. I wonder if some additional mechanism is called for. Of course, it needs to be seen if this game comes down to situations like that. Pawns are relatively mobile, and because there are many cards that let Pawns move, they defend each other with greater effectiveness than other pieces. It seems to indicate that Pawnless endgames may not be as common as in usual Chess.
Mike Nelson wrote on Sat, Aug 24, 2002 03:21 PM UTC:Peter, It seems like another new game is about to be born in the comments system. It looks like a very good one. If drawishness is a problem because of hoarding cards as you suggest it may be, perhaps the answer is to use a stronger than FIDE army to compensate for the difficulites of moving. K and Amazon vs K should be more winnable than K and Q vs K as fewer moves are needed=card hoarding is less effective. But I would really prefer the FIDE army if the game is playable with it.
Another possibility is to use as a base game where material doesn't decrease over the course of the game, such as Chessgi. Of course, to some extent card hording is a good thing in the context of this game, as it allows some additional tactics, and using Chessgi as a base would decrease the possibility for this.
<p>
One could go for more radical modifications, of course, but they would be less Chess-like. For instance, if a player has no Pawns, and has no cards that would allow them to move any piece but their King, they may drop a Pawn using a Pawn card on any unoccupied square on their 2nd rank. That, combined with promotion, might allow more decisive endgames.
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