Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Another way of playing this theme would involve having anti-kings starting out in checkmated positions and the first person to free his or her own king from checkmate wins. With the same proscription, can't capture opposing pieces (or maybe can't capture, period.) [Which is already the idea behind the award-winning Aronson's Prisoner's Escape, as it turns out. - J.G.]

After playing my game in the tournament, I must say that I think the structure of Anti-King I is better than Anti-King II . This is mainly because of the block-ability of Standard Pawns. It's easy to block a pawn and leave the Anti-King in its haven while the other pieces play a chess-like game somewhere else on the board. Even if the pawn can be freed, there are always other pawns to block. Berolina Pawns have a larger freedom of movement and should therefore be better to, so to speak, attack the Anti-King.

Here is another CV voted into GCT#3 that is surely overrated from couple of standpoints. Firstly, Anti-King is copycat of V.R.Parton's Contramatic from year 1961. In Contramatic one's own move that puts enemy King in check loses. Likewise, by extension, when opponent's King is checked, player must immediately remove the check or lose. The aforementioned is essence of Contrametic. Now Aronson's Anti-King imposes precisely that losing condition on both players initially in the set-up. So, just apply the Contramatic rules logically, and obviously whoever removes that illegal condition first, wins. QED. Near-equivalence of Anti-King (in its particular set-up) and Contramatic, the same games really isomorphic in just tweaking with two King-types for Anti-King(the other one normal check-mating) and differing starting arrays. Contramatic is never cited in Anti-King write-up. Secondly, the counterintuitive nature(King pre-checked) has been commented by others as extreme and unappealing and not popularizable among the majority 99% non-variant-oriented chess players. Unlike new piece moves that can become readily natural, it may be strain to reverse normal checking logic. The intention is to add an older prolificist for analysis, Peter Aronson's body of work(maybe Duniho or Quintanilla later too), having recently Commented on Aronson's Horus, Rococo, and now Anti-King.

Can the anti king check mate the king? (For example 2e3e, a to e2)

Here is a CV with two Kings like Muller's example for negative-value piece.  In Anti-King win is by checkmate of regular King or removing check from other's Anti-King.  Two other CVs with two Kings are Two Kings Chess and Double Chess.

Both Aronson's Berolina Pawn version and Anti-King Chess II have strategy to keep the side's Anti-King in check. In AKC-I with Berolina note that Anti-King is initially attacked by four pieces checking, and it will take a while to get them "safely" out of the way. Anti-King Chess II may benefit from changing Anti-King move to Knight move only as subvariant.

How do these relate to negative values? That pieces may want to be removed, if possible, in end game in order to have no forces nearby to attack opponent Anti-King, but their over-all average value would be positive just taking on negative value at end. Player may just settle for checkmating regular King.

Fergus Duniho's insightful strategy for actual game played 13 years ago: Strategy, where few pieces were captured.