Comments by GlennNicholls

The Eagle's move (is this the Griffon's move?) could be reversed here so that instead a Rook's single move is then followed by a Bishop's unrestricted slide - I did use similar pieces in my game of Citadel, but I kept both Rook and Bishop unrestricted slides in both pieces ( I called them Tiger-riders); they seemed about as strong as the Chess Queen - I had the original idea from the Giraffe of Tamerlane Chess and based Citadel very loosly on this Game.

The recent comments regarding hyphenation of words and English Grammar are interesting.  I think these days there is scope for some subjectivity in the use of Grammar and Punctuation and I have in fact used some subjectivity in my pages here, e.g. my page and game of TigerChess is one word.....also in my first name(s) of Shaye-Alexander the hyphen does not actually denote only a single joined name but two possible stand-alone first names as well.  In this comment I have deliberately used subjective punctuation and so forth.  However, I think the term Chess Variants is best put as two seperate words for a Site Heading and used with capitals, though the capitals may not always be "correct" when writing about.  An alternative might be Chess-variants (capital C, small v) to emphasize that Chess is the primary noun of a joint description, if this is required - but 100% theoretically correct written English would require the attention of a Professor or expert in such, I would think.

To H.G.M.

Yes, I think what you have said is as good a definition of the classic or traditional Chess idea as is likely within a few lines of text.....I did know that neither the current Western game nor the current Chinese game is in its original form. 

When I look at my list of authored items they are showing "Missing description"

How do I amend this?

Whilst Western chess and Chinese chess would seem to be the most popular of all Chess games (or variants if you like) I remember a comment on this fine site long years ago that there were many (hundreds of ?) games invented and posted here that were based on Capablanca chess and so by this measure perhaps Capablanca chess is right up there (so to speak).....and did I not read somewhere that there was talk of Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov playing Chess that involved extra pieces - what could this be I wonder.....  

Though piece value studies are not to the interest of everyone they can, I find, be fascinating at times and anyone can overlook properties of pieces and their situations - even of their own ideas, and I for one am appreciative that someone like HGM and one or two others do such in depth analysis of this.

Some have called Western chess "Mad Queen chess" (derogatorily so?) but the move QH6 played by Magnus Carlsen in the decisive game in the world 2016 championship shows the level of excitement that a piece like this can produce - a fantastic finish to win a world championship with.

And I would perhaps add that because computers take into account their opponent's replies they do not seem, to me at any rate, to build towards this sort of possibility and also in my opinion computers have proved no more with chess than did pocket calculators with calculations with regard to "intellectual" abilities.

Further to my previous comment regarding the move 50. Qh6+ by Magnus Carlsen to win the 2016 world chess championship.

This move reminds me somewhat of the "The Golden move" (as it has been called, supposedly because gold coins were showered onto the board by spectators after it was played) of 23... Qg3 played by Frank Marshall against Stepan Levitsky in 1912 - but this move, though played in a tournament, was not in a world championship never mind the decisive game in such and so in my opinion Magnus Carlsen's move, played on his 26th birthday, against Sergey Karjakin can fairly be considered "The Platinum move" and I would like to so name it. How about having "The Silver move" - my choice would be 19. e5 played by Adolf Anderssen against Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851 - a fantastic and most famous game, but not a tournament one - this move involved cutting off the defensive line of the opposing Queen. Mention could, I think, also be made of the young teenage, at the time, Bobby Fischer's Queen sacrificing move of 17... Be6 played in a tournament against Donald Byrne in 1956 - "The Bronze Move" ? - perhaps, if we include one; and we must not forget Paul Morphy's famous Queen sacrifice 16. Qb8+ played in the informal "Opera House Game" in 1858 against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, but here the players were not of comparable playing strength - Paul Morphy was the world's strongest player at the time.

Can Chinese chess then, that has no piece stronger than the rook of Western chess, produce something of its own form of excitement - well, in Terence Donnelly's 1974 book Hsiang Ch'i there is a game given where black (who moved first here) delivers checkmate on his 24th move that is the 10th check in succession and the source of this game is given as Chin tai hsiang ch'i ming chu hsuan (Selected famous modern games of Chinese chess), Shanghai, 1958.

And then there is one of the best known of Chess "variants" (not my choice of words - that would simply be Chess games) namely the much more modern game of Capablanca chess where the increased scope for tactics can no doubt lead to very sharp and double edged games and the inventor, Jose Raul Capablanca, apparently played and tested this game many times against Edward Lasker who noted that games rarely went beyond 20 or 25 moves, but I can find no record of these or indeed any game of this played by Jose Raul Capablanca.

But what of those who prefer a more tranquil but no less subtle game - well, there is Arabian chess that Western chess evolved from and this was widely played for over a thousand years and in The Oxford Companion to Chess 1984 by David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld and under the heading Mansuba there are a number of studies that show the interesting subtleties and potential excitement that are within this game.

It is, in my opinion, difficult indeed to directly improve upon any of these above four basic Chess games in any significant way and I say directly because "improvements" in one aspect of the game can very easily be more greatly detrimental in another aspect of it and may lose too much of the essential features of the game whilst not gaining a sufficient increase in new features to outweigh the loss - difficult to achieve indeed and, I think, requires careful and thoughtful work.

Since my original comment is not under the subject of the World chess championship 2016 I repeat it below:

Some have called Western chess "Mad Queen chess" (derogatorily so ?) but the move 50. Qh6+ played by Magnus Carlsen in the decisive game in the world 2016 championship shows the level of excitement that a piece like this can produce - a fantastic finish to win a world championship with.

And I would perhaps add that because computers take into account their opponent's replies they do not seem, to me at any rate, to build towards this sort of possibility and also in my opinion computers have proved no more with chess than did pocket calculators with calculations with regard to "intellectual" abilities.

Shaye Nicholls pp Glenn Nicholls

I am most puzzled - pages seem to have "Missing description" noted against them but I can see no way to enter a desription for a page's game - surely this is straightforward to do - I would like to add one or two to mine.

Also, how does one post a reference item ?

Shaye Nicholls pp Glenn Nicholls