Comments by MarkThompson

Seems like this idea of formulaic evaluation of CV's should be written up
on a page of its own. A thorough investigation of how the various popular
CV's fare under different formulas, and hence of how the formulas ought
to be interpreted, would take a lot more exposition than could be done in
comments.

The challenge is to come up with formulas that will not only 'predict the
past', by telling us what we expect them to tell us about well-known
variants, but that will also provide useful insights into new games. It's
far from obvious that such formulas could be found, but it would be quite
a discovery if they were.

Perhaps the number mentioned is the rating assigned by a computer opponent
that evaluates the player, achieved without playing in tournaments against
human beings?

If so, I'd recommend along with Gary Gifford that the player take part in
a tournament at his earliest convenience. News of a chess prodigy would
help to promote the game. And I don't think it would be at all bad for
the youngster's chess career to come forth and be recognized at that
point.

'The two players have different goals, so Knight Moves is probably an
unbalanced game,' said Ned. 'And Black, who plays defense, moves first:
that must mean that the offense has the natural advantage in this game.'

Ted said, 'Well, since you're a beginner, I'll let you play White, and
I'll even give you the advantage of the first move.'

'Don't be too cocky, I'm pretty good at games like this,' said Ned.
But Ted proceeded to beat him three games in a row. Catching the Black
Knight was infernally difficult, even with the advantage of the first
move.

Then, as they were about to begin the fourth game, Ned suddenly said,
'Hey -- WAIT a minute!' And Ted broke out laughing.

What had Ned realized?

I've been thinking of a variant expanding on the Bughouse concept that I
call Team Chess (or Team Shogi). I'm envisioning six players on a team,
and games taking place between two opposing teams. Two team members play a
small variant, two play usual chess, and one plays a large variant; the
sixth team member is the captain. All three chess variants being played
should use similar armies and rules, so that it won't cause confusion if
a piece gets transferred to another board -- perhaps Quickchess, usual
chess, and Grand Chess. The winner of the large variant game determines
the winning team. When a piece is captured, the capturing team's captain
takes it in hand (it changes color) and delivers it to one of his team's
five players (captain's choice) to drop at will. The captain can watch
all five of the games, but no other communication takes place between the
team members once play has begun. 

I haven't decided what should happen when one of the smaller games ends;
should the captain receive all the pieces of the conquered army? None of
them? Perhaps just a Prince (non-royal King)?

I like the way this game addresses the problem of the too-powerful royal
piece (which can make it hard to win the game) by the rule that the queen
cannot slide through check. That seems original and yet chesslike, and
sounds likely to do the trick. The explanation on this page was a little
hard for me to decipher, however: I'd suggest rephrasing somehow to
remove the reference to queens capturing other queens. Is 'cover' as you
use it here a standard chess term? I hadn't run across it yet.

I wish the board had a fourth color, so that each dragon would be
restricted to squares of one color. 

Shouldn't there be a piece for Ireland? A Harp, perhaps? No idea what it
would do, though.

'There must be dozens of possible names that would suit it better and
have the advantage of being offensive.' Surely Charles simply forgot to
type the word 'not' in this sentence.

'the three heraldic-based pieces could be considered 'brutish'.' I
imagine Charles G's use of 'brutish' harks back to the use of 'brute'
to mean 'beast,' which is comprehensible enough. The idea that a CV
inventor's choice of a name should be second-guessed at length is
certainly odd, though.

The basic idea of the game is that, as there are two simple sliders (B, R)
and one combination slider (B+R=Q), so in Wildebeest Chess there are also
two simple jumpers (Knight = (1,2) jumper and Camel = (1,3) jumper), and
one combined jumper (Wildebeest = N+C). I wonder how well the idea would
work instead with Knights and Zebras ((2,3) jumpers), and a combination
N+Z piece?

There is the idea that, as one of the sliders is color-bound, so perhaps
one of the jumpers ought to be also, hence the Camel. But it's not
obvious to me that rule makes for the best game. I'd be interesting in
knowing whether Wayne Schmittberger or anyone else has tried it. 

Actually, since the preset to enforce the rules has not been written for
this game yet, it would be possible to try playing this way, simply
entering Zebra moves for Camels and Knight/Zebra moves for the Wildebeest.

If this is the square you're proposing the white King to move to, I don't
see how the move puts him in check.

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Tony, that sounds like a good idea. Something like 'the World against
Kasparov.' Maybe the winner of the CV tournament could play one side and
'the world' could play the other? Or, just 'the world against the
world.'

I've suggested in the forum that the Games Courier might implement a 'The
World Against ...' system, whereby a champion at some variant would play
White and everyone else plays Black. 'The World' can use a public forum
to discus possible lines of play and could vote (in a strict time-span) on
which move to make. 

Grand Chess would be a good game to investigate this way, because
Mindsports Arena has held tournaments some years back, so it has
recognized champions: Wayne Schmittberger and John Vehre. Either 'The
World Against Vehre' or 'The World Against Schmittberger' would be
great fun, I think, if either party could be enlisted for it.