Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Waaaay to much power on the board.  

Take 'Capablanca' style 10x8 Chess, which has been invented over and over again, starting with Carrera in the 1600s, later Bird's Chess, later Capablanca's Chess and any number of modern variants.  It doesn't catch on because it's not a good game.  There's too much power on the board - resulting in too much tactics and not enough strategy.

This game takes it to another whole level.  I don't care that the board is wide.  The castling rule is such that you have to move out a million pieces before you move your king out of dodge.  And the center 8x8 section of the board has an Amazon, which has already been determined to be too power for any reasonable use on small board, two queens, two chancellors, and two archbishops.  In otherwords, WAY more power in the center 8x8 section of the board than in an entire 10x8 Capablanca game which is already too much.  And then there's normal, weak pieces waaaaaaaay out on the sides ...  In chess, the Rooks (powerful pieces) are in the corners so they develop slower, and the Knights and Bishops develop quickly.  In this game, they start out in no-mans-land.  Might as well not even have the sides of the board.  If those pieces even come into play, it's only because the other player has totally failed to use the power at his disposal.

Secondly, what's with the name?  Any reason to believe that he would like this game?  Is that based on anything at all?  Or are you just taking advantage of the fact that he can't denounce this crap because he's dead?  Even if you admire him and are trying to honor him, it's in serously poor taste.

I realize that the game is power-heavy, yet many people have enjoyed playing it on CowPlay and other sites, so perhaps it's at least partially a matter of taste.

By the way, how can I get a copy of your program ChessV ???

Hello, Michael, and welcome back, Greg. I probably shouldn't be getting drawn into this, but the topic is one I find quite interesting. How much power is too much power? Conversely, what is too little power in a game?

Wargamers [you know, those strange people who spend hours playing over 1 battle in some real or imagined military campaign] tend to first prefer to upgun their units when they can build their own battles. All tanks become Panzers and Tigers, all planes become jets, all the infantry has vehicles to carry them fast... and this satisfies most of them. Sometimes, though, one will tire of all the power, and go for more subtlety. Then you get the new battles, the new units, the new tactics and strategy. It's an acquired taste, possibly.

It's obvious that most variant players are chess players first. And since chess is a wargame, it's logical to think they would first be attracted to variants with more power. The logical 'new' pieces are B+N, R+N, and B+R+N. So Michael has made a very logical variant, in that sense. 

The game is a shoot-out, a Gunfight at the AOL Corral, if you like. A lot of people like slick, glossy, fast, bloody; look at all the action movies that do so well. People like fireworks and special effects, and this game provides them. Pure raw power, coming right up the middle at ya! It's the football version of chess.

The baseball version of chess? The shortrange games. [The badminton of chess would be the games with weaker pieces, then.] Much more positional play, with various tactics and strategies manifesting themselves during the game. But longer games, with much more maneuvering and struggling for position and advantage. If anyone doubts this, let them try the following experiment: Play standard FIDE chess, but reduce the range of the rooks and bishops to 4, and the queen to 3. When you see what this does to the game, you'll understand a bit better the effects of the introduction of the 'infinite slider' power pieces - all those with a rook and/or bishop move. It's a different taste.

I have played many games of Alekhine Chess on Cowplay and enjoyed a lot of them. It's not easy to play because there are so many combinational possibilities.

I like the logical structure of Alekhine Chess.

The question of castling is moot since, in my experience, in games with superpowered pieces, it usually makes the king less safe to castle! You want to keep the king in the center not isolate it into the corner.

Ralph Betza's Tripunch Chess has pieces more powerful than these on an 8 x 8 board and it's really a lot of fun to play, I think. As is Betza's Tutti Frutti Chess which sticks all these same compounds on an 8 x 8 board. There are countless other similar examples. For that matter, simple Amazon Chess is quite fun and was the most popular variant for a long time in parts of Europe. I don't know why people are so prejudiced against Amazons. Maybe because powerful women are intimidating? ;)

Is this game a fitting tribute to Alekhine? Perhaps!

According to the Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants Russian Chess is simply when the queen is replaced with an Amazon. But this is not a very good idea because the Amazons tend to be exchanged too easily, so it should be drawish. Gustav III Chess solves this by introducing two Amazons per side.
http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/gustaviii.htm
/Mats

The idea of clipping off the simple-piece files is intersting as doing this and swapping the Marshals and Cardinals round would result in my independently-devised Overkill Chess, which produce the same compound pieces by adding moves to existing pieces rather than extra pieces from scratch.

Does anyone know the castling rules for this game? ZoG is now defunct, and I don't visit Cowplay. All the basic rules must be similar to for Capablanca Chess', but the odd position of the kings in the setup (which also has dark squares in the players' lower right corners) makes it difficult to guess at the castling rules.

[edit: apparently ZoG is not defunct, after all. The Zog link for Alekhine Chess gives the following rules for castling: "When castling, the King moves to the square next to and on the inside of the Rook, then the Rook moves to the square next to and on the inside of the King."

I'd rate this game as average, but that option seems to be lost from the rating system's choices these days (just 'None', 'Poor', 'Good' and 'Excellent' are available to choose from, at least for this game and many others I've seen for quite a while).

The great power of the pieces chosen for the setup of this CV may be a bit much for 14x8, but this game has somehow proved popular (at least in the past). It might especially appeal to novices (at least none of the piece movement rules seem at all difficult to master, if one has played chess).

What might improve this CV is if there were a way to quickly bring the king to safety (if that's possible), or to at least get nearer to connecting the rooks. For example, my 'Fast Castling' rules might be used, as first put forward in the following CV:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/wide-chess