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

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
David Paulowich wrote on Fri, Apr 14, 2023 08:09 PM UTC:

Nowadays I am concentrating on games where stalemate is a draw and checkmate is required for victory. We know that a Bishop and a Knight are sufficient mating material. We also know that the lone King must first be chased to one of the two corners that this Bishop is capable of attacking. Today I am going to replace the Bishop with a pair of Elephants from Shatranj Kamil X - moving like the Padwar in Jetan - as strictly interpreted.

diagram

WHITE: King (c5), Elephants (g5, h6), Knight (h8) BLACK: King (e8)

WHITE mates in 12 moves:

1. Kc6 Kd8 2. Nf7+ Kc8 3. Ee5 Kb8 4. Ec5 K moves 5. Ef6 Kb8

6. Ne5 K moves 7.Kb6 Kb8 8. Ka6 K moves 9. Ea7 Kb8 10. Nd7+ K moves 11. Nb6+ Kb8 12. Ed6 mate.

NOTES: If 2... Ke8 3.Nd6+ Kd8 4. Ef8 mate. If the Elephants are replaced by (AmD) from Shatranj Kamil (64) - then 4. Ef6 mates and the main line is two moves longer (changes starting with move six below).

6. Ng5 K moves 7. Nh7 Kb8 8. Nf8 K moves 9.Kb6 Kb8 10. Ee5 K moves 11. Ka6 Kb8

Observe how the last ten moves have shifted every piece two squares to White's left.

12. Nd7+ K moves 13. Nb6+ Kb8 14. Ed6 mate.

MORE NOTES: When a lone King is trapped on the edge of the board - - then King, Knight and a pair of Elephants (on the same color squares, a Ferz move apart) can force checkmate, even if they happen to chase the King to the "wrong corner". I will let the computers decide if these four pieces are sufficient mating material on 8x8 or 9x9 or 10x10 boards, no matter where the lone King starts.


Edit Form

Comment on the page Shatranj Kamil X

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.