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Anti-King Chess. Each player has both a King and an Anti-King to protect; Anti-Kings are in check when not attacked. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
gnohmon wrote on Sun, May 12, 2002 01:27 AM EDT:Excellent ★★★★★I do seem in general to have been influenced by Parton. I share his
interest in non-replacement capture; although in my case I came to Chess
Variant design from a general interest in games, and have looked at many
games over the years with many forms of capture.
<p>
But many of my games seem to owe somthing to Parton: Snark Hunt, Jumping
Chess and Interweave in particular.
<p>
But there could be worse models.
gnohmon wrote on Mon, May 13, 2002 09:58 PM EDT:> But there could be worse models. Should I have explicitly stated that the word 'Partonesque' is implicitly a compliment? I thought that would go without saying, like saying you've had an Einsteinian idea....
Oh, I took Partonesque as a compliment! It's just my regretable tendency towards weak statements that made it sound otherwise. I'm a big fan of V.R. Parton's work.
This indeed is a great game. I have played it for a few times now and my favourite way of mating is leaving the Anti-King unchecked with the same move as I check the ordinary King. Sort of a double check wich, as I interpret the rules leads to a mate. Good game Tomas
Thanks for the kind words, Tomas. And yes, if you manage to obtain double-check, your opponent must relieve both of them or it is mate.
Nice game. Getting accustomed to the Anti-King's role takes a little unlearning. Its much easier to keep thinking about checkmating or protecting the King. Isolating or keeping one's Anti-King under 'attack' takes more thought. At the begining of the game, one can get lulled into complacency. The end game certainly gets interesting as it gets harder to keep one's Anti-King under attack. The very effort to checkmate the opposing King works against one's Anti-King. Which will happen first? In a way, its a race to the finish.
Great game! Any plans to make PBM-preset for it?
Andreas, I have posted a PBM preset for Anti-King I and II. See the related links in 'See also'.
<p>Peter, take a look at the Anti-King II setup diagram and description on your page; I think there are errors. Is my interpretation for the preset right?
Tony, thanks for the presets! Yes, the locations listed for Antiking Chess II are those for Antiking Chess I instead of what they should be. Your preset is correct.
Thank you, Tony! Your PBM preset is very nice! I like especially Anti-King Chess II, if anybody wants to play it, please invite me to the game!
Anti-King Chess II is a very good game. It is nice, deep, interesting and the anti-king adds a new dimension to the game. As almost everybody, I prefer Anti-King II over the other variant, I suggest change the name of Anti-King Chess II to Anti-King Chess, and let the other as the variant II
I recently finished a game of Anti-King Chess II with Andreas Kaufmann. This game can be found on the Game Courier logs page. I like Anti-King Chess II a lot. It seems to be a very positional game. At the end of our game, only a Pawn on each side had been captured. From the first move, I followed the strategy of moving away any pieces that were attacking the Anti-King. Instead of focusing on material advantage, I was counting up tempos, making sure that I remained several tempos ahead. A tempo advantage meant that in a race to eliminate attacks on each other's Anti-King, I would get done first. As it happened, moving pieces away from the Anti-King also served the goal of piece development. Toward the end of the game, I was positioning pieces in a manner that I hoped would let me win with a move that checked the King and simultaneously removed the last attack on the Anti-King. But Andreas resigned before this could happen.
The game Anti-King II is very interesting, still it seems to be that Anti-King prevents development of pieces too much. Wouldn't it improve the game by having a 'transparent' Anti-King? All pieces and pawns would be allowed to move throw the position occupied by 'transparent' Anti-King, as if it would be empty.
That's an interesting suggestion, Andreas. Although I'd be somewhat
concerned that it might make anti-check easier, by making it harder for
the Antiking to trap an attacking piece. It might make an interesting
variant.
The problem, if any, would be that it is always the Anti-King which gets checkmated, and that the King is here only to prevent the players from discarding all their pieces or to lose by double check. So, if you want to checkmate the King nearly as often as the Anti-King, it's no use weakening the Anti-King by allowing the enemy pieces to jump it. Stronger armies, say with a Cardinal and a Marshal on a 10x8 board - not 10x10 which also weakens the Anti-King, unless you post the Pawns on the third line as in Grand Chess -, make the King more vulnerable, but the setups of Capablanca Chess or Gothic Chess make it also more difficult for the Anti-King to avoid mate, because the Cardinal and Marshal have less difficulty in escaping the zone of the Anti-King than Rooks, Bishops or Knights, and it might be better to report them on the outer files.
There's a problem with the graphic for Anti-King Chess II: the Black piece at b8 is a King, but it should be a Knight.
RandomPrecision wrote on Mon, Dec 20, 2004 08:03 PM EST:Excellent ★★★★★Actually, when I play, the anti-King isn't always the one that gets checkmated. I think initiative plays a large role - if you can force the anti-King to move around, you can move your pieces in for a checkmate without obstruction, or at the very least, severely impede your opponent's development. I alternate fairly equally between which enemy king I checkmate at the end. An interesting case that can occur in Anti-King chess is a sort of checkmate of both the king and anti-king. In a game I played with the Java program, a pawn was checking the anti-king, but I moved it forward to check the king. The pawn wasn't protected, so the king could take the pawn, but that would leave the anti-king without check. Inversely, the anti-king could have moved into check, but the king would still remain checked as well. This, of course, demonstrates that a single pawn can force mate. Quite an interesting game.
Though V.R.Parton is mentioned in 2002-2004 comments and the write-up, Anti-King is extreme form of his CONTRAMATIC Chess 1961, not yet cited: (Summarized from p.70 Pritchard's ECV) (1)One's own move, that puts or leaves enemy King in check, loses. (2)If opponent's King is in check, a player must move to remove that check. Of course Aronson's version has King too and required continual checks for A-K etc., but it looks like special case with new array from among Parton's Contramatic games.
Well, I'm afraid I don't see the Contramatic King and the Anti-King as being the same thing at all. The Contramtic King is really the <em>opposite</em> of the Anti-King, if anything. Actually, it looks to me that you have the combination of two conditions here:
<ul>
<p><li><u>Condition 1:</u> Is the checked piece owned by player being checked or their opponent?
<p><li><u>Condition 2:</u> Is the piece checked when attacked or when not attacked?
</ul><p>
Thus we have the following combinations for when a player is in check or equivalent:
<font size=-1>
<table cellpadding=4 border>
<tr>
<td><i>King is</i></td><td><b>Attacked?</b></td><td><b>Not Attacked?</b></td>
</tr><tr>
<td><b>Owned by Self?</b></td><td>Orthochess King</td><td>Anti-King</td>
</tr><tr>
<td><b>Owned by Opponent?</b></td><td>Contramatic King</td><td>Anticheckmate King</td>
</tr>
</table>
</font>
<p>
(The Anticheckmate King is from Anticheckmate chess, which Ralph Betza discussed in the comment system, and shows up as the Prisoner in <b>Prisoner's Escape</b>.)
I guess the large bold-face type and spacing convey emotion...or power? Seriously, the 2x2 matrix of alternatives is logical and useful, Peter. Here is even simpler more chess-like logic: in 1961 Parton's Contramatic Chess invents the contrary-win condition, that if the player who has just moved gives check, he loses. Anti-King Chess sets up initial arrays in which both players have that very losing condition imposed at the start. So, inevitable logic (without adding new element beyond the specified array) is that the one who removes that condition for himself, wins. That is how Anti-King derives from and is special or extreme form of Contramatic Chess. Nothing wrong with that: for ex., en passant added to FIDE-like rules is special case or possible logical extension. Four-fold table of most interesting instances for win in this obscure chess byway is absolutely worthwhile.
<blockquote><i>
I guess the large bold-face type and spacing convey emotion...or power?
</i></blockquote>
<p>
Or in this case, an odd interaction between the forum HTML and the posting HTML. All the text was the same size when I previewed it. Hmm.
I've got a question considering mate. What happens when a player mates the other player in the same move its own anti-king gets unchecked (thus being mate too). Who wins then?
'The rules of Anti-King Chess I are identical to those of FIDE Chess, except for the addition of an Anti-King for each side, the movement of the Pawns, the King's special move, and the initial setup.'
'The Anti-King is a King that is in check whenever it is not attacked by opposing pieces. If a player ends their turn with their Anti-King not attacked, they are checkmated and lose.'
It would be simpler to state that it is illegal to make a move leaving or placing your Anti-King in 'check', that is, not attacked by opposing pieces.
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