Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Good to have your chess variants back online!

I browsed though them again and found Matron Chess very interesting. Just a
little rule change to make Queen exchange more difficult, but very
different game dynamics. The rule change is in some sense the opposite of
the rule on Chu Shogi lion exchange: With the Matron it is more difficult
to initiate a Queen exchange while Chu Shogi makes it difficult to complete
the Lion exchange by capturing the Lion back. The Matron variant leads to a
more offensive play which seems to be a good thing.

> while Chu Shogi makes it difficult to complete the Lion exchange by
capturing the Lion back. 

Actually this is not true: the rule is the same. Also in Chu Shogi it is
not allowed to capture a protected Lion (and also there protection with
a pinned piece counts, as moving in check is not illegal in Chu Shogi). Chu Shogi
has the extra rule, however, that you are not allowed to capture a Lion
when on the previous move your Lion was captured by a non-Lion. This
forbids indirect exchange. However, the Japanese Chu-Shogi association has
adopted the 'Okazaki rule', which says that you can counter-strike agains
an unprotected Lion.

In the description of Matron Chess it is not entirely clear what 'visibly
protected' means. In Chu Shogi a Lion counts as protected when it can be
recaptured by a slider that before was blocked by the attacking Lion (X-ray
protector). I wonder if that is the same here. If so, a compact formulation
would be that a Matron that captures another Matron becomes absolutely
royal for one move, i.e. even pseudo-legal attacks are enough to forbid
it.

To not be completely stuck with a super-piece to the very end of the game
(making the game drawish), I invented the rule in Mighty-Lion Chess that
protection by a King doesn't count. So with nothing left but a King to
protect the super piece, trading would be less difficult again.

Thanks for the clarification, probably I was too distracted by all the
rules against indirect lion exchange to see the obvious. Also thanks for
the additional details on X-Ray protection and modern Japanese practice.