Single Comment

I agree that the Amazon can be easier to learn than the Cannon for players who only know Chess, but this consideration was never the basis for my decision to exclude games with Amazons. I have excluded games with Amazons for the same reason that I don't use Amazons in my own games. The Amazon is too powerful against the King. It can force checkmate against a King entirely on its own without any assistance from any other piece. In Chess, no piece can checkmate on its own. Even the Queen needs assistance from the King to checkmate the opponent's King. In any of the Capablanca variants, no piece can force checkmate on its own. Even the Archbishop, which can checkmate on its own, needs assistance to force checkmate against an opponent who is trying to avoid checkmate. In a good Chess variant, you control a team of pieces that must cooperate with each other to achieve the object of the game. But if you include Amazons in the game, cooperation between pieces is no longer as necessary, because an Amazon can win the game on its own.