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In continuation of: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/listcomments.php?subjectid=NextChess7.
Score: (1) Bifurcators including Venator > (2) Great Shatranj > Mastodon >
Three Player > (5) Unicorn Great > Big Board > Centennial > Eurasian >
Schoolbook > (10) Kings Court > Wildebeest > Fantasy Grand > Black Ghost >
Eight-Stone > (15) Modern > (16) Melee > Templar > Courier de la Dama >
Switching > (20) Seirawan.
http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/melee.html
Like Centennial, Melee diversifies Pawns. Three pawn-types move like Wazir,
Ferz, and Man respectively. Unlike Great Shatranj's full coverage for
paired Elephants, Melee's two Alfils are able to reach just 25 squares
between them.
Alhough having radial symmetry,
Melee's array is unbalanced -- the same pattern as Wildebeest. The Ferz-Pawns match the three diagonal
back-rankers, and the Wazir-Pawns match the three orthogonal back-rankers
in a cute, acute line-up. There is mayhem in the royal King's moving
Queen-like. Mediaevally, over the 1000 years of Chaturanga and the classic Shatranj, having standard 8-deep, and the 1000s of Arabian problems, there
could never be proper occurrence of 'A x A', who cannot touch.
http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/chaturanga.html
Whereas in Melee, 9-deep, all four catty-corner Alfil and Dabbabah opposite-side pairs attack each other after some moves, because of having same bindings. Melee dispenses with castling on account of Pawns' great mobility including backwards. Eight-Stone and Melee are close to novelty Track Two interface rather than pure seeming Track One Next Chesses. Still, radical Melee's Pawn structure -- for example, Man's greater value than A or D -- warrants
more further testing than Templar, and Melee belongs in the growing
panoply, numbered as suggested.