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Comments by Daniel Zacharias

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Expanded Chess. An attempt at a logical expansion of Chess to a 10x10 board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Feb 18, 2020 12:34 AM UTC:

Wow, I didn't even see this until now. I'm sorry. In both checkmate and stalemate, the last move is the one that checkmates or traps the other player, so the player who is trapped loses. With insufficient material or repetition, the last player to capture would win. The winning condition was intended as an experiment in defining a drawless chess game. I have no idea if it would actually be more interesting or not than any alternative.

The other thing I'm not sure about is the zebras. Their jump fits with the other pieces but maybe it's too far for a board this small?

If my name is required I can add that


💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Feb 18, 2020 09:37 PM UTC:

Yes, I should have included pawn moves in that. I meant 100 full moves but that probably is excessive. 
I think I'll just remove the last to move wins stuff from here. I still like the idea but it might make more sense as a separate variant all by itself. 

My reasoning for using zebras rather than camels is that I think it matches the other added pieces better. The gryphon starts with a diagonal step and continues as a rook, and the zebra's move can be described similarly. It begins with a diagonal step and then continues as a knight, jumping over any occupied squares on the way.

I'll try to fix the diagrams and rules.
 


💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Nov 11, 2020 04:16 AM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from Sun Aug 16 11:03 AM:

The reason for castling being the way it is is that I think it makes more sense if the king ends up closer to the edge of the board.


💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Thu, Nov 12, 2020 10:06 PM UTC:

I'd be interested in reading more about the major/minor pieces too, as well as conjugates. I was aware of that concept but didn't know there was a term for it.

The added pieces in this game are meant to correspond to the rook, knight, and bishop, and relate to each other in the same ways those three do. That's why I chose the zebra rather than camels or something else. The knight switches colors so it's counterpart should too, and the zebra's moves are one diagonal step out from a knight's, just as the gryphon's are from the rook's. Also the zebra leaps to the nearest opposite colored squares outside the combined gryphon and osprey moves, like a knight does with the rook and bishop. I don't know if that's a good way to design a game, but I like the completeness of it.

Is there a good word to describe the relation the gryphon has to the rook? The closest I've thought of is expansion.


💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Nov 13, 2020 12:07 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Thu Nov 12 10:17 PM:

yes, that's correct


Tax Chess. King mobility affected by the placement of pawns of the same color.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Nov 13, 2020 02:19 AM UTC:

This is very creative. I'd like to try it. Maybe you should include a diagram showing the king surrounded by letters indicating which file corresponds to which direction.


Expanded Chess. An attempt at a logical expansion of Chess to a 10x10 board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Nov 18, 2020 02:23 AM UTC:

I'm trying to figure out how to get the castling rules enforced properly. I really don't understand what I'm doing. Based on this preset https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Expanded+Chess&settings=default I managed to include the fischer file and make the proper castling moves display as legal, but when I try to actually castle it says You cannot capture your own pieces. I think this has something to do with the post move sections but I'm totally lost trying to understand what needs to be changed.


💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Thu, Nov 19, 2020 03:23 AM UTC:

Apparently that wasn't as easy as I thought since it didn't detect whether the king would pass through check from new pieces, which I also don't know how to fix.

EDIT

I think I found a solution by modifying the fairychess castling subroutine to move the king and rook one space over after castling. It highlights the h2 and h9 squares for moving to instead of i2 and i9 but it works.


💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Nov 20, 2020 09:25 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 01:47 PM:

I had tried that before and had trouble defining moves or promotion or something, but I just tried again and was able to make it work. Thanks!


About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Sat, Nov 21, 2020 10:53 PM UTC:

Sorry if this isn't the best place to put this.

I'm unable to move in this game https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Expanded+Chess&log=sissa-arx-2020-246-116

Whenever I open it I just get a list of promotion options for black, and since I'm not black I can't actually do anything


Apothecary Chess Tournament[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Nov 27, 2020 08:49 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 11:01 AM:

I'm interested too


Archchess. Large chess variant from 17th century Italy. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Nov 27, 2020 09:04 PM UTC:

the rook moves one or more squares towards the original position of the king; the king moves one or more squares towards the original position of the king.

Shouldn't the last word there be "rook"?


Apothecary Chess Tournament[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Dec 2, 2020 04:39 AM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from 04:07 AM:

ok with me


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Sat, Dec 5, 2020 12:51 AM UTC in reply to Erik Lerouge from Fri Dec 4 09:01 AM:

good luck


Panoply. A large hexagonal game with unusual pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Daniel Zacharias wrote on Thu, Dec 10, 2020 12:58 AM UTC in reply to Ben Reiniger from Wed Dec 9 10:06 PM:

That would be simpler to describe, but I was thinking that would only make sense if the two ends are kept visually or physically separated.


Play Metamachy on Game Courier. Play this large game with a variety of regular fairy pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Dec 15, 2020 08:36 PM UTC:

in the last three metamachy games I played my opponents resigned but I still lost
arx-cvgameroom-2020-316-876
arx-cvgameroom-2020-147-879
arx-cvgameroom-2020-123-942


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Dec 18, 2020 08:29 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 06:09 PM:

might it work to force white to pass for his first move?


Betza notation (extended). The powerful XBetza extension to Betza's funny notation.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Dec 21, 2020 08:10 PM UTC:

I'm slowly learning how to use this notation. Is there a way to define a piece that can jump over friendly pieces but not enemies, or vice versa?


Shatranj of Troy. A Shatranj variant with Shogi-like drops, a Trojan Horse (with 6 pieces inside),. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Dec 22, 2020 02:30 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

This looks like an amazing game! It combines shogi drops with a beautifully simple setup and set of pieces.

Reading the rules makes me want to play it; and also to design something similar, but it seems impossible to make anything quite as elegant as this.


Gigachess II. Evolution of Gigachess (2001).[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Dec 22, 2020 08:16 PM UTC:

White has two rhinos and only one machine in the setup diagram


Metamachy. Large game with a variety of regular fairy pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Dec 29, 2020 10:29 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Metamachy is fun. The historical pieces are all interesting to play with, and the fast pawns keep the game from slowing down too much.


Play-test applet for chess variants. Applet you can play your own variant against.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Jan 4, 2021 05:02 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Sun Jan 3 07:08 PM:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Expanded+Chess&settings=expanded-test

I tried castling through check in this preset, and sometimes it was stopped with that same error, but sometimes it was allowed. It seemed to depend on which square was attacked and which piece was attacking, and also whether the king was in check already or not.

When a purely leaping piece was threatening one of the squares the king would pass through, the error occurred. When a diagonal slider could reach the square directly beside the king, castling was allowed.

When a white bishop threatened h9, the black king did not have the option to castle, but when the king was also in check, castling was marked as legal and produced the error as before.


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Jan 5, 2021 05:46 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Mon Jan 4 09:16 PM:

If castling were working, would that also mean a king would be unable to make an initial leap to escape check?


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Jan 5, 2021 04:51 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 03:48 PM:

I think it should be possible, even if it's not universal. In Metamachy, and some others, the king has an initial jump, but cannot use it to escape check


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Jan 5, 2021 08:18 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 07:21 PM:

I think the Grande Acedrex king might be an exception to that. I can't find any rules for that game that mention such a restriction.


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