Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

In the games Peter and I have played, it was very unforgiving of error. 
Once a player fell behind, he was pretty much toast.  Having the
initiative was critical.  
If the pieces weren't recycled, the available force would rapidly become
insufficient.  Capturing with anything but the royal piece is no
advantage, and even capturing with royal piece, which eliminates the
captured piece from the game, can involve a loss of tempo which can be
fatal.

'Horus', in conjunction with Chess, is not original to this game, far
from being Peter Aronson's idea. The game description's first line,
'Horus named for the Egyptian God who bears the title Falcon of the
Horizon and who was sometimes depicted as having a Falcon head,' figures
recurrently in my Chess poetry since year 2000.  In 'Castle Early' I
write about 'Falcon-headed Horus.'  In 'Chess Morality IV Promotion':
'From chimeral horizon unto zenith'--referring to Horus.  In 'CM IX
Sacrifice': 'Falcon head.'  In 'CM X': 'Above the Pyramid, the Eye
of Horus, the Falcon god.' In 'CM XI': 'Falcon and ankh'(of Horus). 
And so on, the Falcon-Horus image still being developed to
support Falcon Chess. (US Patent 5690334)Fiction like poetry is unusual for CVP,
but takes a lot more work I have found than mere write-ups of game rules. 
I object to this game's being called Horus, albeit for a small chess, as a 
matter of courtesy.  It usurps the name Horus just as disrespectfully as taking 
the name of an existing game for one's own--not up to Chess Variant Page's usual
standards. The 'Good' simply reflects that 44-sq. Falcon ZRF is
reasonable trainer in what is the first of the four fundamental Western
game pieces. And three of them even may interact with Bishop and Knight.
(N.B., not fully amplified in Complete Permutation Chess, Falcon is 
first of the four R-N-B-F in that they are implicit in F, not vice versa.)

George, I've been reading Eygption mythology since grade school -- I
hardly copied Horus off of your poetry.  Somethings are too well known to
take ownership of.

Bad enough that CVP editor no less lifts 'Horus' from major theme of 600
lines of Falcon Chess poetry since 2000.  Peter Aronson also puts out 
misleading description of Falcon move beginning, 'Falcon moves
like a Bison.'  Hardly correct. Falcon is a Rider with one or two
45-degree turns. 'Bison' appears nowhere in 2000 Pritchard's
'Encyclopedia of CV' games or 2000 more games in CVP (4000 total games so
far). Fitting into no false, preconceived template, Falcon does not jump
like Knight (1,2), or Camel (1,3) or Zebra (2,3).  Whereas, theoretical
Bison is a (1,3)(2,3)Leaper defined in very rare couple of problems.  My 
Patent Disclosure in January 1995 cites three(3)Pritchard ECV games with (Z+N)
compound and three others with (C+N). 
'Actual Bison' (as Zebra plus Camel), even if it appeared in any game, would not
particularly elucidate Falcon move, since they are from wholly different
families of pieces, Leapers and Riders. Aronson goes on that Falcon (US
Patent 5690334) has greater piece value than 'lame Bison.' What is that? He never 
defines it.  What to make of describing a fundamental Chess
piece (Falcon, with R, N, B the other three such) in terms of what it is
not?  It's like playing a game of twenty(20) Questions: is it this, or is it
that, until what is left out of everything possible is what it is.

Coined in 2003 by Ralph Betza (and never used by anyone else)the term 'Lame' is applied to 
Dabbaba, where from e4 it can move to e6 if and only if e5 is empty. 'Lameness' to him makes a 
leaper not a leaper, since it requires unobstructed pathway.
Yet Falcon uniquely has three(3)pathways to each square 3 steps away not reachable by Knight 
or Queen. So neither lameness nor leaping describe Falcon. Aronson goes on: 'One result is that, 
unlike with Lame pieces, if Black's Falcon attacks White's Falcon, White's Falcon also attacks 
Black's Falcon.' [Later I delete here some lines speculating what a 'lame Bison'is. 
Who knows? Aronson refuses to define it; as of April 2004, no one has 
used 'lame' for any oblique mover at all. The uncomplimentary term originates with Aronson. 
He just wants pejorative adjective attached to Falcon, and succeeds to the extent  
others now start calling F 'lame'--after Aronson writes that Falcon is not lame.  
Altogether a worthless, deliberately misleading move description.]
It is not worth delving into these 20-Questions-like what-it-is-not
snapshots of F move.  Just go to original articles, where Falcon defined affirmatively
in terms of Rook, Knight, and Bishop, and those four standards' mutuality
and accompaniments are honestly and systematically related.

George,

I understand that you have devoted a great deal of time and effort to
perfecting Falcon Chess and that you passionately love your creation--as a
CV designer I can relate to that. But your are letting your passion blind
you when you go to the extreme of accusing Peter Aronson of theft--he
invents a game using your Falcon piece using a perfectly obvious name for
the game and your scream bloody murder. His game calls favorable attention
to the piece, the helping your game and not harming it, and your response
is to engage in character assassination.

I note that you collaborated with Peter on (or at least approved of)
Complete Permutation Chess. But a variant he invents without your
participation is theft? Do you honestly think that you own the rights to
any and every CV that uses the Falcon piece, the word 'falcon' or the
name 'Horus'? If anyone ever finds a reason to challenge your patent
(not that anyone will--no one makes money on CV's), a good patent
attorney will rip your claims to shreds.

US Patent 5690334 for Falcon Chess is about seven years past the challenge
stage, so patent's claims are solid having been unchallenged. Games
patents go back over 100 years, including Scrabble, Monopoly; Peter
Aronson mentions under Complete Permutation, Ed Trice's Gothic Chess
Patent 6481716. Lost on Aronson is that 'Horus', while perfectly obvious, is
already used extensively in Falcon Chess poetry for the same patented
novelty. Having searched for just the right wording for Falcon-Horus
images, I think of it as expropriation for this miniature chess: no
commercial consequence would be issue, just common courtesy for those who
may not be singlemindedly obsessed with churning out new sets of game
rules.  Patenting is wholly different sphere than mere names of games:
about five US Patents for Chess issue per year, down from a peak of ten a
decade ago. As stated in Complete Permutation Chess comment, because
well-schooled in variants myself, I deliberately excluded 8x8 from my
claims, so CVist may experiment and welcome to use Falcon there without
infringement. [One could] relate these ideas to Fergus Duniho's Enneagram
under Game Design.

Here Aronson rejects lameness. Aronson left. The string of leavings: Betza, Duniho, Aronson, Good, (the other Good first to leave back around 2000). Not to mention mentor David Pritchard's untimely death from a fall. [The last sentence is Anapodoton, omitting a clause. Test question: Which of the two also is last sentence before brackets, Praeteritio or Aporia?] Pritchard was consulting Fergus Duniho for add-ins to second edition of 'ECV', hence many 'Dunihos' there. Anyway, Aronson had two achievements, Rococo and Complete Permutation Chess. CPC perfectly uses F-B-N-R, the four fundamentals. Here Aronson adds couple of good definitions to the Falcon-movement inventory. Especially see the first paragraph under ''The Moves of the Pieces.'' Under ''Notes & Comments'' Aronson cannot resist the stab, or stoop, to extend ''lame'' from accepted line-piece to oblique directions. What Aronson tries below in his 3rd definition would be better in entire essay. ''Falcon is somewhat weaker than actual Bison since it can be blocked, but it is much stronger than a lame Bison would be. One result of
the Falcon's multiple movement paths is that, UNLIKE WITH LAME PIECES, if Black's Falcon attacks White's Falcon, White's Falcon also attacks Black's Falcon.'' [Case added]  At any rate, Aronson succeeds in clearly contrasting some inventive Bison ''lame'' (He means one-path, but which one of up to dozen possible pathways?) and well-established natural three-path Falcon. Lameness and ''multi-path-ness'' are different concepts -- neither opposites nor synonyms. Keep them apart, and please keep ''lame,'' if we use it at all, strictly for line pieces, as intended. Words instead that should and do figure in definitions of oblique multi-path
movers like Falcon, Scorpion and Dragon include: Darter (see Jeliss), Multi-path, Two- Three- Four-path, angled-45-degree, angled-90-degree, diagonal, orthogonal.