Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Wed, Jan 1, 2014 08:09 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

My impression of the game from what I read, the game is not bad, but it isn't exceptionally good either (compared to the large number of other chess variants possible, and even games such as shogi and xiangqi!). This game is certainly an improvement over FIDE, though, and deserves that people will play it as much as other chess variants and other games.

The PDF can be purchased for either $0.00 or $4.99, at your choice. I do not think it is worth $4.99, but the option is there if you do think it is worth that much. For the low price of $0.00, I think it is certainly worth looking at if you are interested in chess variants (or Sirlin's other games in general), though; it would also certainly be worth more than $4.99 in a book full of chess variants, or that discussed strategy too, or whatever.

It does have some interesting ideas, such as the dueling rules, different army selection, centerline crossing. However, I am not quite sure that the 5th rank to win is difficult enough, or if it should be moved to the 6th, 7th, or possibly even the 8th rank.

The different armies are numbered from I to VI, so you can use a dice to select one at random if you wish to do so. (A further variant can be if you not only select at random but also keep it a secret, requiring the opponent to deduce what army you are playing.)

The ideas in this game could be applied in some ways to other kind of chess games too, such as shogi, xiangqi, and others. It could then make more situation, and more ideas, too.

Sirlin's other games are much better than this one, and they are certainly worth the money they cost (all the information you need to play is available for free (which actually makes it worth the money, as far as I am concerned!), but they sell high-quality physical equipment and they are definitely worth the money). I have two of them, and am interested in the others, too.

I don't particularly like the name "Chess 2" for this game, and think "Sirlin's Chess" would be a good name for it (the game is still pretty good though, but it is just one of many possible variants). But, maybe someone is able to somehow figure out how to combine this game with his other games (to make something new)...


Edit Form

Comment on the page Chess 2

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.