Ratings & Comments

Hi David,  thank you for your reponse.  Then, this rule (10.10) may not
involve any check's.  I really thought it revolved around checking the
King.  I guess not...    ...thanks again.

It could be introduced an page on your historical variants pages about the
diferent nuances of medieval chess, its evolution and particular rules to
this or that country through the centurys, wich are now not in use or used
diferently...

:-)

The following verbose text appearing on every message and on evry item in
the whatsnew page makes things hard to read when viewed with lynx.

'
  [13]NEW! This item is a game information page, It belongs to
   categories: Two dimensional, In a category all its own It is a 2
   player game. It was last modified on:
'

Too much extraneous gbage makes it hard for the eye to scan for the useful
info.

If we put the WK on e8 and the BK on e1, and K may not capture, and you win
if you make a move that ends with your K not in check, is this a known
game?

The page was not index so I'm writing the comment here:

Here's a modest variant:

immortal pawns:

Pawns promotes on the owner's last three ranks. 
Promotion required on last rank only.
Pawns promote to captured pieces only.
Pawns are return to the owner to be dropped, if captured.
Dropped pawn drops only to the first four ranks of the Pawn's owner.
Drops takes a whole turn.

Comments:

These changes are motivated by the desire to make it possible 
to resurrect any piece and have after some captures to restore 
back on the board the full 32 piece complement, and to do so with
minimal change to the rules. It seemed tweeking promotion as the 
simplest way to do that

Have you any plans to do anything else with this, Ralph?

If I remember right, a german description of Ultima
was once published in Spektrum der Wissenschaft (sister
journal of Scientific American). Since I cannot retrieve
the reference quickly here is my question: What are the
names of the Ultima pieces in german?

--JKn

Sorry, I hadn't been listening. Apparently, anticheckmate chess might be a
new game.

It's precisely what I said: WKe8, BKe1, Kings may not capture, all else as
per rule zero except that if you ever make a move that ends with your K
not in check you win.

Clearly, 1. f2-f4???? Ke1-f2 is the shortest game. 1. e2-e4? Ke1-e2! is
also bad.

Reference Racing Kings.

This is such a simple idea I thought it must already have been taken; and
you can tell without playtesting that it works well, with a feel similar
to Racing K.

This is such an obvious idea.

After years of tinkering, and several months of fairly intensive work, I
have completed a working version of Optima.  It's a very complex chess
variant using orthodox, semi-orthodox, ultima-like, and highly unorthodox
and original pieces.  It's a 10x10 variant and each player has one rank of
pawns, one rank of guards, and one rank of pieces which can be the same
for both players or different for each player.  It uses a variety of
capturing methods, including replacement, proximity, airplane, rifle, and
snowplow, and also includes pieces that immobilize or convert enemy units.
 There are also pieces with special abilities to resist a particular form
of capture, immobilization, or conversion.  There are 53 pieces so far
defined, one of which is the king, one of which is the wizard and can only
be obtained by pawn promotion, and 51 others, of which either 9 will be
used for an equal armies game, or 18 for an unequal armies game.  More
pieces are being considered for a future release.  There are also
alternative pawn and guard rules.  Ralph Betza once said on these pages
that there are a billion chess variants.  Well, Optima is either one chess
variant, or, if my math is correct, 42 quadrillion chess variants (not
counting different startng arrays and alternative kings).  I've done a
great deal of Zillions vs. Zillions playtesting and have not yet been able
to find a broken scenario, although of course some armies will be much
stronger than others.  The 'choose-up' rule takes care of that nicely.  If
anyone is interested, email me at [email protected] and I will email you the
zip file containing the ZRFs, the graphics, and the readme file.  I'll
send the game to the editors, but it may be a while before a page goes up.

The Lùotuoqí project is well under way and will take many months to be
completed.

I was wondering whether it might be a nice idea if the chess variants
management could please consider running a second event for a
committee-designed game, under similar but different rules, just for fun. 
No prizes, other than the pleasure of the finished game being available on
the chess variants website.

If the management would be willing to run such an event I suggest the
following format.  However, please change it around if you wish.

1.  The game follows a suggestion and voting procedure similar to the
Lùotuoqí project, except that suggestions and votes are in the open and in
the comments of a web page about the event, thereby producing an
interesting record of the project.

2.  The whole process is to be completed by the end of Monday 23 December
2002, that is, just over a fortnight from the time that this suggestion is
posted.

3.  The starting point is that the number of spaces is to be decided
amongst the participants during the event.  The game could perhaps be
called Winter Chess as a working title to start, but the name could be up
for voting as well.

4.  The game would not necessarily be played with an orthodox chess set,
that too is part of the design process.

5.  The whole process will be fast track, maybe a vote each day next
week!

6.  This is intended to be just a magnificent piece of fun.  However, it
might perhaps give an insight into the way that a series of five votes
iterates into a final result, bearing in mind that the result of one vote
could perhaps mean that some of the choices for the next vote would then
not be possible.

7.  The participants could perhaps have the fun of designing the
illustrations for the final web page, a Zillions file and maybe producing
a few sample games, so that the final result is available at the end of 23
December 2002.

How do readers, both the management of the chess variants website and also
potential participants, feel about this please?

I recommend to everyone who wishes to enter this incredible site about
Meditation and that carries out a marvellous program of food distribution
for the homless of New York; philosophy, enlightenment, wisdom. This site
has given me so much, I hope it will give you too. www.har-tzion.com

The 2003 edition of the Chesmayne Chess Dictionary is now available at:

http://chesmayn.valuehost.co.uk/

I have come up with a CV I'd like to call Chess Plus.  And since it appears
no one has used that name yet on these pages, I'm here to call dibs!  It's
an 8x8 game using orthodox pieces, Marshal, Cardinal, enhanced knights,
enhanced bishops, and two additional pieces that depend on what variant
you select -- basic version uses Dukes, which are
ferz+wazir+alfil+dabbaba.  I'll send the game to the editors for posting
as soon as I can slap together a rules file.  I've already built the ZRF.