Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

@H.G., I doubt that it's a common practice for opponents to move a single pawn several times in the opening stage. There's a disclaimer that it is not intended to be playable 'non-theoretically'. It's just an idea that I hadn't seen before, that's the most basic way to represent it.

And you think this website is the proper place to describe unplayable chess variants??? I am sure there are zillions of ideas we have not seen before. For most of those there is a very good reason we have not seen them before.

Moving a Pawn quickly to 7th rank would be the first thing I would do when playing against a far stronger opponent. And then protect it with as many pieces as possible. It can only be attacked by two Rooks and a Queen, after all; Bishops and Knights are trapped on their own half.

First, there are plenty of common chess variants which are actually unplayable to a bigger or smaller extent, like Shafran's hexchess, Capablanca chess, or some minor ones whose names are out of my memory.

Second, I didn't claim or post that this page is finished, which can be seen as a requirement, and I wanted to showcase the whole topic or a concept, since I tested different types of boards and found the whole concept to be playable. Anything that can potentially both work and being not described previously, can exist by default. Again, the proposed board is the most, default, basic way to represent that. It is an idea, and the description is unfinished.

There are not millions of chess variant ideas. In fact, they are limited. In a dramatic way.

Thrid, if not me, there would be someone to propose another original 8x8 modesty or something with RN and BN as new pieces and claim that it's the most revolutionary thing in the world which would solve world hunger and break the laws of thermodynamics if applied on a common level instead of orthochess. If it suits the intended way, I may step down.

Well, you brought this upon yourself by complaining that you could not submit additional chess variants because you used up your quota for unprocessed submissions. But if there are still unfinished submissions amongst those, you'd better spent your time on finishing those than on producing more of those. That people point out serious (not to say fatal) flaws should be helpful in finishing them. This is why CVP gives exposure of submissions already to general members, rather than just editors and the author himself.

Not sure what to make of "Anything that can potentially both work and being not described previously, can exist by default." It doesn't seem to apply to this website. Things that have been described previously can be described here, as long as the author properly credits prior art, and 'potentially' doesn't seem good enough. And a board with a long bottleneck only a single square wide through which most pieces could not even pass if the board were empty doesn't even deserve the qualification 'potentially'. As some other editor remarked recently, this website is not intended for dumping random ideas. To make this publishable you would have to address that in a more constructive way than adding a disclaimer that this might not be playable.

I am not very much interested in hexagonal variants, but that you claim Capablanca Chess to be 'unplayable' seems absurd. I have watched many high-level games of Capablanca Chess in the process of conducting the 'Battle of the Goths' tournament, and they were amongst the most interesting and exciting games I have ever seen. Why do you think it (or Safran'sHex Chess) is unplayable?

I agree that chess-variant inventors often highly exaggerate the quality and importance of their inventions. Editors would therefore do well to tune down any claims of the kind you are describing before publishing a submission. And there indeed is an over-abundance of variants embedding a BN and RN (and sometimes QN) piece in an orthodox set on boards of many different sizes. (Varying the board size alone would already provide an infinity of those, BTW, and you would ony have to go up to 1000x1000 or so to exceed a million...)

Too many submissions fail to meet any quality standard because they haven't been playtested even once, and have received only a minimal and sorely insufficient amount of thought. One cannot rely on peer review to fix all the flaws these have; this would catch only the most shocking ones. If someone would try to sell me a boat without a bottom, I would kindly decline the offer. But I probably would not notice if the shape of the hull was such that it is prone to capsizing in heavy wind, while this is just as lethal.

No one complained about anything. You are right in the statement that it is better to finish the previous ones rather than submit more, but I simply forgot about this variant. I tend to delete variants which I hadn't edited for a long period of time rather than mess around with them even if they can potentially work, since I tend to rise my own criteria. OK. I'll remove this. I have more interesting stuff to offer, but as you decline it, I'll become a good guy and will never post anything beyond 8x8.

Which one of my other submissions, except this one and Trefoil chess (I gave up on both), fails to meet any quality standard? It's extremely interesting.

Not sure what to make of "Anything that can potentially both work and being not described previously, can exist by default." It doesn't seem to apply to this website. Things that have been described previously can be described here, as long as the author properly credits prior art, and 'potentially' doesn't seem good enough.

That's why there are thousands of chess variants, and at least a quarter of them sucks. The bottleneck board is an attempt at originality, again, purely theoretical, but which can be remade in another way, but it seems that it is not encouraged. OK

My claim about Capablanca's chess is proved by the reason why there are so many RN-BN variants. It is beyond non-absurd. Ed Trice, the inventor of Gothic Chess, already described and analyzed the subject and why it is unplayable. In Shafran's chess, after the first and most obvious move, you can attack both opponents' rooks with your bishop. Aside from an array of other flaws which result from this, this is already something that sounds off.

I once promised myself not to post or sell to anyone any rectangular variants, in which I am as uninterested as you in the hexagonal ones. I made a mistake. Sorry.

Now you are overreacting. I never said nor implied that rectangular variants are a requirement. Just that as a matter of personal taste I don't like hexagonal boards very much, and as a consequence have never really studied the Shaffran's Hex Chess. So that I have no opinion on its playability. (Even though a first glance doesn't show up anything that is very different from what hundreds of other Chess variants have. There is nothing 'unplayable' about a hexagonal topology per se; it is just different.) Likewise I never implied that there is anything against larger than 8x8 rectangles even tastewise. (Even though I would probably qualify 1000x1000 as 'unplayable').

Ideas that don't work, no matter how original, are not really of interest, IMO. If they could be made to work in another context, then just present those ideas in that context. If they are really worth persuing, that should not be too difficult. There is also a large difference between small flaws, (like a slight imbalance, participation of a piece that isn't very useful, spurious rules that in practice are never invoked), and fatal ones (such as a guaranteed draw or win). And indeed, a lot of variants here suffer from minor flaws. But that cannot be an excuse for just allowing anything to pass; it means we have to be even more careful then we were in the past.

I don't think the existence of many sub-variants prove there was something wrong with any of those, though. On the contrary; their existence indicates how successful the original was. Being imitated is a complement. Many people with not too much imagination try to share success that way, and I am pretty sure that others just joined in to annoy Ed Trice. Ed's analysis on Capablanca Chess is flawed, btw: it is based on incorrect piece values (it assumes the difference between RN and BN is as much as the orthodox exchange, R vs minor). So his line that is supposed to provide a winning advantage for white in practice just leads to equality. (The open file created in the Archbishop for Chancellor exchange is enough compensation for the tiny difference in piece value.) Statistics on computer-computer games has shown that the white advantage in Capablanca Chess is not larger than in orthodox Chess.

Although I am an editor, I don't really consider it my task to referee and publish submissions; I was mainly made editor for upgrading existing articles with Interactive Diagrams. That doesn't stop me from commenting when I suspect to be a major flaw when I stumble across one, though, like any contributor can.

I never said that hexagonal topology is unplayable, my note was of the initial position, which makes that setup unplayable. I mentioned it as an example that even a common variant cannot be free from flaws, which makes it extremely difficult to invent a chess alike game that would be as good and interesting as orthodox chess. That's the sad truth, why chess variants are not as popular as they should actually be, like the variations on any other sport. I know from my playing experience that if a good player cannot do it well on hexagons, he's not a good chess player.

By mentioning 8x8 I didn't mean 'larger'. That's also a problem for this medium, and I don't like large variants except for Gross Chess and a few others.

I meant, 'different'.

Ideas that don't work, no matter how original, are not really of interest, IMO. If they could be made to work in another context, then just present those ideas in that context. If they are really worth persuing, that should not be too difficult.

That's not the idea that doesn't work, the setup which was the simplest way to show that, together with the others, and there was a disclaimer on it. That's what I wanted to do initially. That was just a live idea in a dead way which I thought to be the most simple.

By the way, if something works, I'm not interested in how difficult it is for someone if the difficulty comes from the natural organization, not just an attempt to make a really big playing field. That's not the case for this one though. Forget it.

Since I already explored most of the possibilities of hexagonal tesselation, I want to explore new spaces. As many as I can. The Wild West of chess. That's what drives it. If it is not what works here, I may leave.

The problem with Capablanca chess is the fact that on the first move, I can attack the unprotected black pawn, which leads to forced progressions. Ed Trice showcased them quite well. It may not be a flaw, but it is definitely a problem. People will simply exchange their chancellors and everything continues on the same, but worse, playing field.

Well, enlighten me. I don't see anything wrong with the setup of Shafran's Hexagonal Chess. That is most likely due to my inexperience with hexagonal variants. But I don't read any remarks to this effect from others that it is an 'unplayable' variant either.

The problem with Capablanca chess is the fact that on the first move, I can attack the unprotected black pawn, which leads to forced progressions. Ed Trice showcased them quite well. It may not be a flaw, but it is definitely a problem. People will simply exchange their chancellors and everything continues on the same, but worse, playing field.

In Tenjiku Shogi you can even threaten checkmate on the first move. And this does indeed lead to a forced sequence of opening moves. So what, if after this the position is about equal? Most players of orthodox Chess use the same trodden opening lines over and over again as well. I don't even see a short forced opening line as a problem. It might be a difference, but then it isn't a very big one. And whether you like it one way or the other is mainly a matter of taste.

This is incomparable with, say, cases where a royal piece is made so powerful that it can never be checkmated in practice. That would be an objectively establishable flaw.

This page can be removed.

This page can be removed.

Before I do that, I might want to move some of your discussion about Shafran's Hexagonal Chess to the new page I have made about it.

Before I do that, I might want to move some of your discussion about Shafran's Hexagonal Chess to the new page I have made about it.

I do not mind that, although I don't think my lame English will be worth it.

Besides Shafran's chess, another remark deserves to be added to Brusky's chess, which in my opinion is the closest possible translation of chess to a hexagonal board. The problem with it is the fact that the number of pawns there is not equal to the number of major pieces, and the fact that there are also forced defensive progressions from the very first move, which makes this variant unsuitable for high-level play. The pawn's movement rule was also slightly modified to make the variant stable.

It can be forgivable for Capablanca Chess or that Shogi variant revealed by H.G., but they are not as significant as hexagonal chess by their nature, I cannot see them being independent of Western chess and Shogi respectively. I'm not a shogi player again, I know nothing about it.

We are interested in hexagonal chess variants because they are played on a fundamental tesselation. As can be expected there are not plenty of tesselations available. So it should not be regarded as a variant of chess, but rather, another chess. To get the idea, I do not play chess because it is fun. I play it to find fundamental feelings of mathematics, or at least an illusion of them since chess by itself is an extremely artificial game, with plenty of questionable rules. But still, the roots of it are still fundamental, we can get them. A search of something initial.

So I would try to end my search for hexagonal chess on Glinski's chess. Yes, the pawn is a problem, but at least, this variant is not flawed. If chess was already full of artificial rules, the modified pawn can be seen as a slight extension (at least, there's no castling anymore).

I moved three comments that were mainly on Shafran's Hexagonal Chess, and I provided some context in an Editor's Note. I'll now go ahead and delete this submission.