Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

The reason why this form of 9x9 variant will never become popular is because it's too slow, and that's why it's difficult for white to develop an initiative, something which makes the game drawish. Should the Chancellors be exchanged, then it's nothing but a slow and drawish standard chess. This is, however, better than Maura's Modern Chess in that the black squared bishops are retained. Horne's proposal, where the game is played on a 9 by 8 board, is better I suppose.
/Mats

I did a complete study of all select opening setups with minimized asymmetry upon the 8H X 10W board using the 'Chancellor Chess piece set'.  I am referring to games designed with an architecture analogous to how Janus Chess and Archbishop Chess are based upon 2 archbishops but with 2 chancellors instead.

I discovered this to be the single, most stable opening setup possible:

R-B-N-C-Q-K-C-N-B-R  mirror I
R-B-N-C-K-Q-C-N-B-R  mirror II

I will name it 'Chancellor Chess 8H x 10W' and post it to the ZOG web site soon.

One interesting variant is one where we have one chancellor and two queens. Then the following setups look interesting: RNQBCKBQNR and RQNBCKBNQR, with me preferring the second setup, since the knights are more likely to be used.

Of course, it may make more sense to have, on an 8x10 board, no queen, an Archbishop, and then, from Shogi, have a 'Dragon' (Rook + King) and a Horse (Bishop + King) piece. Here, the archbishop is the most valuable piece, and the power balance on the board may be better. One possible opening setup is RHNBAKBNDR.

On 8x8 and 10x8 and 10x10 boards, I estimate: 
[1] Archbishop (moves like Bishop or Knight)
[2] Dragon King (moves like Rook or Ferz)
[3] Bishop and Knight and Pawn
to have the same value.  My opinions have not changed much 
since my [2006-08-12] comment on the SHAKO Page.  I may not 
always be right, but I am consistent!

C-R-N-B-Q-K-B-N-R-C  mirror I
C-R-N-B-K-Q-B-N-R-C  mirror II

The problem with opening setups where both chancellors are placed upon outer files is that, compared to those where both chancellors are placed upon inner files, king safety is deficient.

Powerful, composite pieces such as the chancellor can contribute markedly to king safety [which is vitally important!] and yield higher, measured values for king safety than typical in standard Chess (by comparison) but only IF they are close enough to the king to help protect its 3 adjacent pawns.

In your proposed opening setup (mirror I), the diagonally adjacent pawn to the NE of white's king (for reference) has only 1 backup.  With 18-22 pawn backups available (depending upon the particular opening setup) to be distributed for 10 pawns, an average of appr. 2.0 backups per pawn exists.  Consequently, I consider a figure of appr. 1/2 of average to be unacceptable- too low for any pawn diagonally adjacent to the king in this class of games.

For an opening setup, its rapid transition to a solid development phase and smooth play characteristics are of secondary importance to its stability.

What's the correct link for the Chancellor Chess preset for Game Courrier?

I found the Chancellor game log below:
http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Chancellor+Chess&log=judgmentality-cvgameroom-2006-86-980

but I can't find the preset link in Game Courier to start a new game.

The link is also not on the alphabetic index of presets.

Bird in the 1870s and then Capablanca in 1920s get mention for re-using the Carrera pieces of RN and BN.

Ben Foster designed this 9x9 in the 1880s Chancellor Chess with RN and supported the invention with history and problems.   The first link has text from the beginning of the 1889 book. It cites Carrera from the 1610s and Duke of Rutland from the 1740s.

"Steam was old, gravity was old, electricity was old, and printing was old, when Watt, and Newton, and Morse, and Gutenburg applied them respectively for the benefit of mankind." -- 'Chancellor Chess' book 1889

Also there: "weary of the old and monotonous debuts" and "seemingly ugly but very powerful chess piece," and "every player for a while will be put on his own resources."