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The discussion of piece values and the purpose of the variant for
<a href='../diffsetup.dir/chigorin.html'>Chigorin Chess</a> reminded me
of a conceptually-related idea I had a while ago I called Rook-Level Chess.
<p>
<h4>Rook-Level Chess</h4>
<p>
The idea I wanted to explore in Rook-Level Chess is: how would the play of
Chess be affected if the Rook, the Knight and the Bishop all had
approximately the same value? It seemed to me that threats would be
harder at the very least. Anyway, drawing on Ralph Betza's work on the
value of Chess pieces I selected stronger Knights and Bishops that retained
some of the character of the existing pieces: for Knights I used NW (Knight
+ Wazir or Marquis), for Bishops I used BD (Bishop + Dabbabah or Bede).
These pieces retain the color behavior of the pieces they replace: the
Marquis is color-changing, and the Bede is colorbound.
<p>
I sent this to David Paulowich, and asked him how he thought this would
affect exchanges. He replied that we would still prefer a Rook to a
Marquis and a Marquis to a Bede, as you could mate with a Rook + King vs
King, but not with Marquis + King vs King or Bede + King vs King, and he
still though color-switching pieces more valuable than colorbound ones,
other things being equal.
<h4>Rook-Level Chess II</h4>
<p>
Given the above comment, I wondered if the powered up Knight and Bishop
could retain <i>different</i> characteristics of the base piece? So, for
Rook-Level Chess II I replaced the Knight with ND (Knight + Dabbabah or
Vicount) and the Bishop with BW (Bishop + Ferz or Dragon-Horse). In this
case I retained that the Knight was a strictly leaping piece not attacking
adjacent pieces, and I retained that the Bishop was a non-jumping piece.
Are these pieces of equal value? And could you mate with Vicount + King
vs King? (Dragon-Horse + King vs King is a win.)
<h4>Discussion</h4>
<p>
I've played around with Rook-Level Chess a bit with Zillions for what it
is worth, but I strongly suspect it loses somethings that Chess has. If
nothing else, weak pieces can be fun since they can harass stronger pieces.
<p>
Other versions are of course possible. Given that Ralph has settled down
to rating the Crooked Bishop (zFF) as equal to a Rook (there being a brief
point where he was rating it at 1.5 Rooks), a Crooked Bishop might replace
the Bishop nicely.
<p>
I should eventually add these as modest variants.
David Howe wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 03:28 PM UTC:It's an interesting idea, but would make for a more positional game with
more trading off of material. I would recommend these Rook-level pieces
perhaps for larger variants which would still include the usual knights
and
bishops.
Of course, there is the issue that on a larger board, since leapers are
weakened, most of these pieces are probably not quite Rook-level anymore.
One piece I do want to try in a larger variant someday is the NH (Knight
+ (3,0) leaper), since the H portion of the move would allow it to move
around a 10x10 board slightly faster than a Knight moves around an 8x8 board.
gnohman wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 04:01 PM UTC:Rook-Level Chess is a very nice idea. Of course, the Queen isn't R-level... As for K+ND versus K, confining the K is tricky but it can be done. Example: BKb8 WKc6, White ND e4, Black's move 1...Kc8 2. Nd6+ Kb8 3. Kb6 Ka8 4. NDc8+ Kb8 5. NDc6+ and 6. ND a6 mate.
Thanks for the end-game! I deliberately left the Queen out of the leveling
so as not to make thinks <strong>too</strong> uniform.
<p>
I wonder if the the <b>Rook-Level Chess I</b> army vs the <b>Rook-Level
Chess II</b> army would be a balanced form of Chess with Different Armies?
I would think so, but the <b>RLC II</b> army does have a significant 'can
mate' advantage. Does it matter?
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Apr 30, 2015 10:46 AM UTC:Interesting discussion. All mentioned pieces are indeed Rook class. Mating potential is in general worth only very little. I guess I can do more accurate testing of the BD value now that I have a derivative of Fairy-Max that takes account of pair bonuses and mating potential. The BW is worth about 0.25 Pawn more than Rook in tests that directly compare them, and based on the observation that pairs of color-bound pieces do not seem to suffer from their color binding, I always assumed that a pair of BD would be worth the same as a pair of BW.
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