Ratings & Comments

To my knowledge fairy stockfish does not support bent riders. Am I correct?

This article makes it easy to find how a piece of a given name moves. But the reverse is still very difficult. Perhaps there should be an index of some kind, where you can alphabetically look up the Betza notation, and find names that are used for a piece that moves that way.

Except that Betza notation is not really unique. So for this to work we should define some 'canonical form' of the notation, which would tell us that we would have to look for WD rather than DW. This makes purely alphabetic order perhaps less convenient; ordering primarily by atom, ignoring the modifiers and ranges might be preferable.

Anyway, these thoughts occurred to me when I was wondering whether there exist names for AH and DG, the 'expanded' versions of Kirin and Phoenix. I suppose these pieces qualify as amphibians, as the individual D, A, G and H components are severely area bound, while AH can go anywhere, and DG only has normal color binding.

Cavalier Majeur960

This existed decades before Uray M. János rediscovered it in 2013.

Betza notation for a Range 3 Aanca=WnNnZ

This could be a mini version that is playable by (a future version of) Fairy Stockfish:

Camels and Zebras seem too have too long leaps even on 10x10, and would hardly benefit from their moves becoming rides. So I used AH and DG instead, where the D and A turn into rides on their own board half. Their permanent capture move is then too long range for being very useful in defense. (It would have to be so near the enemy that it can be easily chased away when used to protect squares in its own camp.)

Bat sounds nice to me for AH

The editor Fergus Duniho has revised this page.

The editor Fergus Duniho has revised this page.

Simpler version without rifle-capture.

Edit: Replaced Q51 with Q53, moved.

You posted this with the Checkmating Applet, where it doesn't belong. Please copy-paste it to a new posting in a place where it does belong, and then delete this one.

BTW, why do you always replace a single army in the existing CwDA Diagram? You obviously know what you have to change to make that work, and instead of changing it, you could just add it. And add one or more rows of buttons to select the new armies. Then the Diagram could also play the new armies against each other.

Yes I can add the game 'Megalomachy' to Frog piece info, and other info given in comments so far, I'll do an update before Christmas with a zrf, just a bit busy at moment.

Where should I move it move it?

I posted it here because Simple Snails consist of major pieces.

It is definitely easy to get into. It inherits all the core rules from Chess while adding something new. Good work with this one.

The only thing I am on the fence about is the woodlander's move, which makes it more of a defensive piece. I think a Knight + vertical-only Rook (forward and backward) would be a much better combination here, and would also make it resemble Chu Shogi's Flying Stag while also being distinct from it.

Having too many defensive pieces will make a game quite drawish. Ideally, at least a majority, if not all, piece types in a game like this should be able to participate in an attack, especially in larger games. Chu Shogi solves this by having a broad promotion zone and making every piece except King, Lion, and Queen promotable, albeit to specific types.

It's a nice concept for sure, but the fact that the leapers are so weak and don't promote at all is killing me. (only Gold can mate by itself with help from the King, and it isn't even immediately available after dropping).

I suppose it could be a proof of concept for a future game of yours. A good idea would be to have the leapers be forward-only but have decently strong promotions, most of which are more mobile forward than backward, along with a piece significantly more powerful than the rest of the army. This is what Seireigi does with the standard Shogi set.

The author, H. G. Muller, has updated this page.

Since the AH ('Newt') and DG, which I wanted to use in mini-Onslaught, are rarely used pieces, I had a look at their checkmating abilities. Of course they are both minors, so they must be paired with another minor to be able to force checkmate on a bare King.

The AH is semi-potent, allowing it to force mate together with a forking piece like the Camel, but in the general theory we have seen that a Knight, although forking, is always an exception to this. The Bishop is potent, and can force mate together with almost anything on boards of arbitrary size, so we will not further consider that. The Modern Elephant (FA) performs as well as a Bishop up to 10x10 (the largest size the Applet can handle). Because the AH is not forking, a pair of AH cannot force checkmate at all.

DG is more interesting: the D move makes it a potent piece. So in principle it can perform a checkmating manoeuvre together with any piece. But it is a color-bound piece, so this applies only to corners of its own shade, and if the partner is color bound it must of course be on the opposit shade. This limitation spoils the checkmate of DG + N, even on 8x8. The large leaps make the DG a clumsy piece, and together they cannot drive the bare King to the required corner. On 9x9 all corners are the same shade, and if the DG is on that shade, DG + N can force checkmate.

DG + AH can force checkmate on 8x8, but not on 10x10. Apparently the Newt cooperates better with the DG than a Knight does. If we equip the DG with an additional non-capturing DD ride, it can force the checkmate with AH even on 10x10. (This is relevant for mini-Onslaught, as on its own half the DG would have this move.) So it is a bit of a boundary case.

A pair of DG can force mate on 10x10. Provided they are on opposit shade, of course. Then all corners are deadly, and driving the bare king into a deadly corner is relatively easy.

I would guess that the weakness of the pieces makes it very difficult to achieve checkmate, so that the game would focus on trying to reach the other side, and win by campmate.

Simple Snails by me

This page in light mode be like:

Orthodox Chess

Sam Sloan

Chanturanga

David Li

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What's a campmate?

Row Like You See 'Em

Restart for Row Dislike You See 'Em.

It's in the rules.