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@Vickalan,

Yes the board is 10 by 10. I forgot to mention. I Apologize for that! Actually I'm doing most (75%) of the programming for Apothecary, Greg was happy to allow me to use the open source code. In a few weeks, once I solve everything, the code will be available for everybody maybe you can help beta test Vickalan and then release the Chess Variants article! I'll soon post some pictures with some initial positions for reference (as there are 48 accepted initial positions).

My previous two posts were positions 15 in Apothecary1 Chess and Apothecary2 Chess! They are taken from chessV's interface!

The style of commenting here is practically worthless to a hundred casual readers who don't know what Joker or Jester is.  The terms need to be put into context over again each time it is brought up or only a few readers get the point.  I understand the advertising of this piece and the CVs using it because of knowing so many CVs.  Here is contribution to the topic even though this thread is confusing: the Spy from 1937.  The Joker or Jester or Fool being talked about moves like the last piece opponent moved.  The Spy, http://www.chessvariants.com/wargame.dir/novo/novo.html, from Holland pre-World War II also moves like the enemy piece, but Spy moves like the piece it sits on.  Spy has to sit on another piece in fact, friend or foe.  There is a family of Chameleon-like piece-types not just Fool etc. (Of course use of Fool is also Bishop in France.)

@vickalan

By beta testing I mean you should try the game on chessV, play it, whatch the computer play whatever fancies you better and offer a critic for the game.

The symmetry is the normal kind. But the fool piece violates it. I added the fool this way so it wouldn't crowed a certain area of the board!

@ George Duke,

I'd like to apologize for my style of commenting. It's just I get over excited sometimes and start talking. I'll be more considerate in the future!

Let us reiterate the Apothecary1 pieces. There are five categories of strength:

Major Pieces:

Queen:Classic chess queen

Griffin:Moves one square diagonally and the towards outside rides orthogonally as a rook

Aanca:Moves one square orthogonally and the towards outside rides diagonally as a bishop

Rook piece:

Rook: Classic Chess Rook

Fool Piece:

Fool: Imitates the last move of the opponent

Minor Pieces:

Knight:classic chess knigth that moves but not captures with a (3,2) leap

Bishop:classic chess bishop

Champion:steps one step orthogonally or leaps two steps diagonally or orthogonally

Wizard:steps one step diagonally or makes a (3,1) leap

Pawn piece:

Pawn: classic chess pawn move and capture but promotes and rank 8 to any minor at rank 9 to a minor or rook and rank 10 to any piece.

Let us reiterate the Apothecary2 pieces. There are five categories of strength:

Major Pieces:

Queen:Classic chess queen

Archbishop:bishop+knight

Chancellor:rook+knight

Rook piece:

Rook: Classic Chess Rook

Fool Piece:

Fool: Imitates the last move of the opponent

Minor Pieces:

Knight:classic chess knigth that moves but not captures with a (3,3) leap

Bishop:classic chess bishop

Elephant:moves and captures one or two steps diagonally or leaps just to move (3,0)

Zebra:Makes a moving or capturing (3,2) leap or step just to move 1 step diagonally

Camel:Makes a moving or capturing (3,1) leap or step just to move 1 step orthogonally

Pawn piece:

Pawn: classic chess pawn move and capture but promotes and rank 8 to any minor at rank 9 to a minor or rook and rank 10 to any piece.

I've posted the last two comments in the interest of this one.

I have established the final rules for the outcome of the two games. In orthodox chess there are three possible outcomes win,draw and loss. In the two apothecary chess games there are five outcomes win, advantage, draw, disadvantage,loss. For tournament play a win worths 9 points an advantage worths 6 points, a draw worths 4 points an disadvantage worths 3 points and a loss worths 1 point, not participation worths 0 points. A win is obtained through checkmate, case in which the other side loses. In a stalemate the side that cannot move is considered to have ended the game at disadvantage and it's opponent in advantage. Now comes the fun part (this idea is partially taken from shogi). In case threefold repetition or by the 150 moves rule (akin to the 50 moves rule in orthodox chess but after 150 moves aka if no pawn pushes or captures have been made in the last 150 moves the effects of the rule take place) the points count take place. For the purpose of the points count major pieces worth 9 points each, rook pieces worth 6 points each, minor pieces worth 3 points each, fool worths 4 or 5 points, 5 points when the opponent of the fool owner has at least equal number of major and minor pieces (or more major pieces) 4 points otherwise,usually a pawn worths 1 point with the exception of a rank 8 pawn which worths 4 points and a rank 9 pawn which worths 7 points. If the absolute value of the points count is 3 or less the game ends in a draw, otherwise in an advantage/disadvantage. I, Aurelian Florea, believe that the advantage/disadvantage outcome would be rare but not entirely theoretical. The reason for introducing it is that I consider that if a player finished with 2 knights or and aanca or a zebra and a camel, did better that a player that has finished with just a king. Also this rule makes some threefold repetitions more undesirable. What do you guys think about these rules?

I've edited my last comment changing the tournament points to better values in my opinion. Also how many points should a player receiving a bye in a swiss tournament should get?

@Vickalan

A player should get a point for participation for making a difference from players that have not participated in previous or future rounds. A player showing up and resigning after 1 move is awkward but how often does it happen, it does not seem very rational to me.

I'm inclined to believe that white's initial advantage is smaller that in classic chess as there are more pieces and more time for black to equalize.

In my system one win and one loss worth more than one advantage and one disadvantage and that more than two draws as I want to encourage the more decisive results. This has been done before with the 3-1-0 system used sometimes in the Bilbao tournament. But I too think that 150% for 1W+1L vs 2D ((3+0)/(1+1)) is too much so I reduced it to 125% ((9+1)/(4+4)). Anyway here tournament organizers (like the Bilbao ones :)) just joking they'll never play those games) are free to use any points system they deem fair.

The matter of the threefold repetitions is very complex I think. But there are cases where you may enforce a threefold repetition with inferior material and I don't think that's very fair. I mean the superior side has worked a whole game to become superior and missed something. The inferior side still gets something from it  (3>1) but does not deserve to draw in my opinion. This rule I don't think should be up by tournament organizers.

George Duke's comment if to that you are referring vickalan was not about our quantity of comments but about the fact that our many messages got out of context, or at least that's what I think. George Duke if you see this comment please clarify if I am doing something wrong I'll abstain for the future.

Vickalan I'm glad for your interest and collaboration!

Actually I haven't even looked at the Apothecaries properly because there's no write-up, except they have the lead record of most comments by three or four times of all 3000 CVs here. And having noticed Joker. But the Huygens there are two others with prime numbers of interest.  Since this tablet is harder to comment on, V R's attention to the other prime, Lucas, Fibonacci etc. CVs will have to be directed in future. Huygens may not be unique, and it has article now to explain that.

Hello guys, It's been sometime since I last posted, beeing mostly sick meanwhile.

I had problems with the wizard being to dangerous in the opening of apothecary chess 1 and to some degree the camel and zebra in apothecary chess 2.

In regard to this after playing a bit of brouhaha I decided to use that concept for the apothecaries to solve the above mentioned problem. So here are the new rules :

Ten new squares are added named c0,d0,e0,f0,g0,d11,e11,f11,g11,h11 for white non- king side foul start and d0,e0,f0,g0,h0,c11,d11,e11,f11,g11 for white king side foul start. The d and h squares are designed to hold the fools. In apothecary 1 e0,f0,e11,f11 hold the champions and d0,g0,d11,g11 hold the wizards. In apothecary 2  e0,f0,e11,f11 hold the elephants d0,d11 hold the zebras and g0,g11 hold the camels. The champions and elephant receive on those squares a (4,0)and(4,1)leaper forward moves. The wizard receives forward (2,2) and (3,3) leaper moves. The zebra receive (2,2) and (3,3)  forward moves and the camel receives (2,0),(3,0)&(4,0) forward moves. As in brouhaha the special squares are temporary one the initial piece ocupying them vacates them they dissapear from the game.

I hope you can make some sense from this post.

Hi Aurelian, I'm glad you are feeling better. What was the result of the Wizard being too dangerous? Did it give White too much of an advantage, or some other consequence?

Also, what does the Wizard do. In the notes below it says "steps one step diagonally or makes a (3,1) leap." Is it the ability to attack the 1st (or 8th) rank pieces over the pawns that made it too dangerous?

A second new  rule I though about it's called the pocket pawns rule. First at move 50 and 75 each player receives a pocket pawn. A pocket pawn must be played at the next move into a square of the owner's choice on it's 3rd rank. The third pocket pawn is subject to variable time depending on which piece have been promoted to and move time. If no pieces are promoted pocket pawns appear for each player at move 100,130,165,205,250,300,355,415,480... . Each promoted pawn decreases the time until the next pocket pawn.

In apothecary chess 1 you get an 4% time decrease (rounded up) from the current interval for promoting to a champion 16.5 % for promoting to a knight, 31.5% for promoting to a wizard and 66% for promoting to a bishop all promotions on rank 8. You get a 4% time decrease (rounded up) for the current interval for promoting to a rook on rank 9. Also you get a 4% time decrease (rounded up) for the current interval for promoting to a queen on rank 10. You receive and 100% time decrease when promoting to a griffin (basically receive and extra pawn) and and 190% time decrease when promoting to an aanca (almost receiving two pawns, this is very much possible).

In apothecary chess 2 you get an 50% time decrease (rounded up) from the current interval for promoting to a elephant, 62.5% for promoting to a bishop and 100% for promoting to a knight or a camel 112.5 for a zebra all promotions on rank 8. You get a 4% time decrease (rounded up) for the current interval for promoting to a rook on rank 9. Also you get a 4% time decrease (rounded up) for the current interval for promoting to a queen on rank 10. You receive and 100% time decrease when promoting to a Marshall (basically receive and extra pawn) and and 160% time decrease when promoting to an archbishop.

All these complications are done in order to balance promotions between different pierces. For example at rank 10 a player will always promote to a queen but this way receives a extra pawn if it promotes to a griffin/Marshall. The downside of this it's that it leads to prolonged the games.

I'm hopping you can make sense from this weird post.

Hello vickalan and thanks!

Yes white had to much of an advantage because the wizard could easily advance and fork two stronger (or God forbid the king). Most pieces are stronger than a wizard. And yes the ability to easily attack pieces that start on the 9th rank over the pwans protection that makes the wizard/camel&zebra very dangerous!

Interesting that you've adopted the Brouhaha rule for introducing extra pieces onto the board.  I'm glad you liked that - I think it is a good approach.  I like it better than the 'gateing' in of pieces in Seirawan Chess, but I am biased :)

Regarding Apothecary as a whole, my personal feeling is that you are trying to do too much.  Beyond adding extra pieces and enlarging the board, you seem to be doing all the following things (some of which are probably good, but in total it feels too much):

1. Extra non-capturing moves for standard pieces like Knight
2. The 50-move rule is now 150 moves
3. Complicated promotion rule
4. Extra pocket pawns at different times, with timing determined by complicated formula
5. Pieces introduced from disappearing squares (Brouhaha rule)
6. Complicated point allocation system for tournament matches
7. Fool/Joker mimic piece
8. Randomized setup

I would personally get rid of at least numbers 2, 4, and 6 from the above list.  Number 2 and 4 are, I think, intended to address the issue of draws.  Draws are a serious problem in orthodox chess, but I very much doubt they will be an issue here.  With the extra power on the board and tactical depth added by different (new) movement types and mimic piece, I would not expect hardly any draws.

As for #1, is there any particular reasoning behind both having the extra moves, and what the extra moves are?  It seems arbitrary.  In particular, I don't like the (3, 3) leap of the Knight in Apothecary 2.  One of the main properties of the knight is that it changes color with each move so it cannot "triangulate" - it cannot move and still continue attacking any of the same squares.  The 3, 3 leap cancels this property.

Anyway, my suggestion, for what little it is worth, is to start out a little more simply.  Remove a little complexity, publish the rules and start playing on Game Courier.  See if people are interested and get feedback from actual players.  You can always expand or modify the rules later.

Thanks, for the complex feedback, this is why this post exists. I think you are correct about 4. In my view 2 can be anything I've extended it from 50 to 150 because of the larger board and number of pieces.

As for the non-capturing moves. The zebra just moves of the knight in apothecary1 are desingned by the inventors of advanced omega chess to increase slightly the power of the knight, as the enlarged board takes a bit of it. I like this concept. In apothecary 2 the elephant receives such a move (the threeleaper move) for two reasons speed and decolourbounding. Actually the apothecary 2 elephant I consider a better designed piece. It works quite well. The camel receives an unbouding wazir move and the zebra receiver a helper move for simetry. About the apothecary 2 knight I think it quite bad. It receives the threaper moves as a couter point to the elephant. The bad stuff is that that move is useless for the most part as is too long and also a knight can reach there in 2 moves anyway. But this rule stays. So does the brouhaha rule as this way the rooks are now connected.

The reasoning behind the promotion rule is to promote to more pieces than just the queen. That's actually the reasoning behind the pocket pawns, but know I think this is an exaggeration. I'm officially scrapping that.

6 is under scrutiny, too.

About trying hard. I am. I hope for good games, thanks for noticing.

How difficult is to setup a game courier? I never did it. But I think with my average programming skills should be fairly easy.

I aim to set up the chessV1 first and then publish as computer tests are also interesting.

Thanks once again for your kind and complete feedback, Greg!

Hi Aurelian and Greg, just to throw in my opinion, I don't think draws are a problem in chess. It's just a 3rd possible outcome.

Games can still be intense and filled with interesting and spectacular play. Here's a good example of an interesting game that ended in draw:

See Kasparov shaking his head.

Greg: Btw, I've been enjoying your ChessV program. Excellent work!

After a private discussion with Greg Strong, I decided to scrape my work with apothecary chessV1. The reason for that is that it will require a lot of work to add the Bruhaha squares, and they are here to stay as otherwise the wizard camel and zebra are too strong in the opening. As it will take quite a while until I with the help of Greg manage to implement apotheccary in chessV 2 (I currently know nothing on c#) I decided to publish the two games as they are in a few days, and then we will see what's going on.