Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

'GHI,LargeCV': Normally the line is drawn at 12x12 for working coherence. Contrariwise Europan(14x14) and IO(16x16), having lower piece-type density, are superior to Ganymede(12x12). Pawn initial five-step at option. There is the sense to pair the following pieces: Gryphon; Spider as diagonal equivalent of Gryphon; Supercomputer(Trebuchet + Alfil + Camel); two-square-occupancy Wall; and Crooked Knight. The latter is called Straight Narrow Crooked Nightrider by Jorg Knappen in 2002 Nachtmahr. Pieces promote as they do in more recent 2003 Pocket Mutation Chess(hey it's all about promotion, isn't it?). Promotees include Gnu(N+Camel); Fortress(R+N+A); Hippogriff(G+R); Tarantula(Spider + B); Moonrider(NN + Zebra); Quantum Computer(Supercomputer + K + N). A further innovation is that the act of castling itself creates an alternate promoted form of the Rook then and there.

Mark, why does the Castle swap its three square diagonal jump for a Knight's move instead of keeping it and adding a Knight's move when it promotes to a Fortress? Has anyone tried to implement it yet? If so, who?

We asked last week about existing CVs in genre of plural promotion. No takers yet since the mindset of variantists is innocently more anti-historical than anti-social. Actually there are many of them before innovative but poorly-embodied Tamerspiel and copycat poor Pocket Mutation both winter 2002-2003. Here in IO Chess is one example. Rook is promoted to Castle upon castling, gaining Alfil and Trebouchet ability (2- and 3-diagonal leaps together with Rook option). Then ''regular'' promotion of the promotee ''Castle'' itself at the regular last, or next to last, rank adds Knight ability; and that piece shall be called Fortress. Double promotion, first upon castling then still more power once the intermediate piece called Castle gets to the end opposite and becomes Fortress. There are several other piece, not Pawn, promotions within IO. I think there will be dozen of these plural, or serial, promoting CVs before adequate Tamerspiel.

Here are Griffin and Aanca as Spider of recent talking points.

IO Chess is complicated like Betza's Captain Spalding but at least C.S. is on simple 8x8 whilst IO is the largest acceptable size of 16x16. Computer promotes to Quantum Computer. Around 2000 it was the style to include a sample game with every worthwhile write-up, and sure enough Hedden puts a plausible first 13 moves for IO Chess. Is this the first recorded move order for 256 squares?

Pawns have initial 5-step option. Rook promotes to Castle upon Castling, and then that piece Castle, already Queen value, further promotes to Fortress upon reaching the last rank, attaining value comparable to Amazon. Also appearing are two-square-occupancy Wall and Crooked Knight, named a little differently by Knappen in Nachtmahr article on the many Knight riders. There are several other piece as opposed to pawn promotions besides the Rook -> Castle -> Fortress told above.

Tamerspiel and Pocket Mutation and this IO Chess were three of those having double promotion for some pieces around and after year 2000. Check of dates of invention could show which ones were duplicating that general idea from the earliest one. This IO may be the first to use it.