Kevin Pacey wrote on Fri, Feb 26, 2016 01:42 AM UTC:
Hi Joe
In trying to think up a way to allow a K & Q to force mate vs. a lone K in Hyperchess4, or to possibly allow other 'basic' mates as in standard chess, I came up with the idea of further extending the "Hold" rule to include situations where the kings occupy a cell on the same "column" of 4x4 2D little boards and also share the same rank with each other, or situations where the kings occupy a cell on the same "row" of little boards and share the same file. It would then also be possible to hold an enemy king on 3 coordinates (i.e. Column, file, Row or rank), as opposed to just 2 coordinates, which could in turn lead to situations where a king that's being held on just 2 coordinates might be allowed to 'reverse the hold' by holding the other king by moving onto a cell having a 3rd coordinate that they would then share (tentatively speaking, I wouldn't advise to have the rule that the hold is actually reversed though). I haven't thought through all of the implications of this idea, but I didn't wish to reject it out of hand in case I'm at least close to being onto something at all interesting (if so, you might let me know at some point).
Note that I rejected the idea of extending the "Hold" rule to the kings sharing any 2 co-ordinates since for one thing the two kings would then be in a hold situation right at the start of a game.