[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]
Comments/Ratings for a Single Item
Dunsany's Chess. 32 pawns play against a full set of pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The rules as written are ambiguous. Does Black have to capture White's whole army to win, or just all unpromoted Pawns? If the latter is White, when down to one unpromoted Pawn (even if the rest are promoted but uncaptured), obliged to keep it unpromoted?
I think that requiring Black to capture White's unpromoted Pawns only would make a better game. By analogy with other games where capture rather than checkmate is the object, it would be legal for White to promote his last unpromoted pawn but would result in Black winning the game.
I have a question about rule ambiguities for Dunsany's Chess. One computer program treats it as a win for white(the standard-pieces player) if black (the pawn player) is left with no legal move. Is a situation with no legal move left a win or a draw?
Another question? Has anyone tried handicapping this game? I find that black has an enormous advantage. Can this be adjusted by varying the number of pawns, the number of rows? Has anyone tried this?
The folks over at
Itsyourturn.com have tinkered with the rules as result of experience with 1000's of games played, you
can see their rules
here. For some reason they call it Horde Chess.
Peter do you know who invented Horde Chess? It would be nice if we could add a page to chessvariants.org on it. I have been playing a three game match of it at brainking and the non-horde army has won them all, leading me to the preliminary conclusion that the non-horde army is better.
Peter do you know who invented Horde Chess? It would be nice if we could add a page to chessvariants.org on it. I have been playing a three game match of it at brainking and the non-horde army has won them all, leading me to the preliminary conclusion that the non-horde army is better.Well, IYT never seems to give credit for their internal developments, but we could e-mail them and ask. As for a separate page, I wonder if just adding a paragraph to this page would suffice -- the games are not that different.
Thank you Peter. Yes, either way, I'd be happy. Just like to see credit given and the variant recognized. Not sure how sound it (Horde Chess) is though you seem to have some confidence in its soundness, no?
I've been playing a computer version (and playing it against itself) of this for a few years and have determined that the regular side has a huge advantage over the pawn army. Unfortunately the creator of the computer version seems to no longer support the program ('Bag of Unusual Strategy Games') so I cannot experiment on ridiculously high difficulty levels (never mind getting the source to modify it, which would be nifty if I had time). That said, I wonder what would happen if you gave the pawn army the ability to pass, say, a fixed number of times for the game or within a certain number of moves. I don't know what this amount should be, but it seems that the pawn army's 'problem' seems to always that it winds up in zugzwang very early on. The pawn army's advantage is the interlocking defense, and eventually it gets to the point where a capture to open a 'hole' is the only move, whereas the other side is tied down, as one would expect: the strategy is too predictable.
There are also 'Opossite' chess game with unequal armies: Maharaja. Black have normal army, white have only Maharaja - compound of bishop, rook and knight. Can Maharaja play against 32 pawns? Or one of sides have forced win?
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Mar 24, 2010 08:02 PM UTC:The 32 Pawns beat the Mahradja very easily. Even 24 would likely be enough. Just keep all Pawns defended, and advance them file by file one rank, untill you entirely fill that rank. Then at every time all squares in front of the Pawns to be advanced will be defended, so theMaharadja cannot go there. So even with its Knight moves it wil only be able to attack the front row of Pawns, and they will be defended at any time to (by the third row of Pawn, that are undefended, but outt of reach of the Maharadja). You don't even have to promote. Just advance all Pawns to 7th rank, and the Maharadja must be checkmated on the 8th.
Yes, i was thinkinng about it... But, if pawns don't begin on each of thier first rank (for example, only on ranks 1, 3, 5, and, maybe, some pawns between these ranks), can maharaja win game? Or any other way to make game maharaja vs dunsany?
olha o que eu penso sobre isso, "Daniil Frolov" seria o mesmo que um cavalo contra 4 peões, ou uma torre contra 8, enfim, precisa ser um número de peões que o maharaja vale, aproximadamente 13, já que é dama+cavaleiro=9+3, talvez uma variante de "Dunsany's Chess" (só com um tipo de peça para as pretas) seria com cavalos como por exemplo aqui
--->http://www.pathguy.com/chess/Kts20.htm<---
20 cavalos, 16 bispos, 12 torres, 3 damas, e por fim, 1 maharaja que nós já temos, podemos incluir outras peças, como chanceler e arcebispos seria maneiro 8-)
na verdade, ficaria melhor assim: 40 peões pretos para "dunsany chess", pois se for contar os pontos das pretas daria aproximadamente 39, duas torres = 10, dois bispos e cavalos = 12, a dama vale 9, e os oito peões ==> 10+12+9+8=39 ou quem sabe um jeito diferente de mover os peões para dois outros jogos, um com 13 cavalos, pois 13x3=39, alem disso, os cavalos são mais ruim em lugares abertos, por isso deve ter mais para equilibrar o jogo, talvez 16, outro jogo com 13 bispos 8 torres, 4 damas, poderÃamos ter também "32 peões vs 16 cavalos", logicamente seria até melhor que "32 peões vs maharajah"
Lichess (my favorite site which offers adless free chess and some variants) has a more established version of Horde. White has 36 pawns (full 1-4 rows and b, c, f & g files on 5th row) and all pawns can move 2 squares from either 1st or 2nd rank. Stalemate (existence of pieces but no legal moves of side) is a draw. I can simply add this page to Lichess tag.
15 comments displayed
Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.