Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Alice Chess 6x6  (early announcement)
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+
  |   |:::|   |:::|   |:::| 6 | n |:b:| q |:k:| b |:n:|
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+
  |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   | 5 |:::| r |:::| p |:p:| p |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+
  |   |:::|   |:::|   |:::| 4 | p |:p:| p |:::|   |:::|
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+
  |:::|   |:::| P |:P:| P | 3 |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | P |:P:| P |:::| R |:::| 2 |   |:::|   |:::|   |:::|
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+
  |:N:| B |:K:| Q |:B:| N | 1 |:::|   |:::|   |:::|   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+
  a   b   c   d   e   f       A   B   C   D   E   F 
  Dropping two pawns and a rook from each side leads to a neat little chess variant
  on a pair of 6x6 boards.  Pawns move one square only.  No castling.  Sample game: 
  1.P a2-a3  p B4-A3
  2.B e1-c3  p a3-b2
  3.B C3-B2  p C4-C3??
  4.B b2-a3 checkmate!

Alice Chess on a Courier Board [February 2023 proposal]

There is an old Game Courier Preset for Smaller Alice Chess on 32 squares. The two boards fit inside a standard 8x8 board. Why not expand my earlier game to a pair of narrow 6x8 boards, fitting inside a 12x8 Courier Chess board? The fortunate few owning such a board could set up postal games on it. While lacking the time and energy to playtest this game, I can at least leave you with the shortest Fool's Mate of any chess variant.

1. e3-e4-k4, Bishop h8-l4-f4 mate. (DIAGRAM ABOVE)

Looks nice, but doesn't work well. Every game I played was like the other.

I played it again after long time and regret having given a bad rate to it. Formerly I didn't like that all games are attacks of both opponents on their right side while defending on their left side. Now trying it out again in fact I see no wrong with this predestined mutual races. Also the ensemble of pieces is well well chosen and work well together, like in all of Paulowitch's variants that I know. Although far inferior to FIDE chess it is a nice try.

King, Knight and Bishop can checkmate a lone King in 33 moves or less. King, Knight and FAD can checkmate a lone King in 23 moves or less - according to the Checkmating Applet. A War Elephant should perform almost as well as a FAD when the board is nearly empty. Incidentally, this may be the last remaining page with the Elephant from an older version of "Galactic Graphics".

1. Kf3 Ke1 2. Nc2+ Kf1 3. Ne3+ Kg1 4. Kg3 Kh1 5. Kh3 Kg1 6. WEd2 Kh1

7. Nf5 Kg1 8. WEe3+ Kh1 (or Kf1) 9. Ng3 mate - note that the lone King is in the "wrong corner", but the Knight and War Elephant still manage to checkmate. What if we played this endgame using Alice Chess rules? While move 8 is not actually a check, the game still ends in checkmate, with the pieces back on the original board (except for the White King).

note that the lone King is in the "wrong corner", but the Knight and War Elephant still manage to checkmate.

Indeed. This is possible because the move patterns of WE and N complement each other so well that together they can cover 5 of the 6 squares needed for an edge mate. So that the King needs only to cover a single square. So checkmates farther from the corner are possible, and the threat of these can be used to prevent the King from escaping through f1, rather than needing a piece to keep f1 under attack. So the Knight gets two moves to switch its attack from f1 to h1, rather than the single move it would have in combination with an FA (which would be impossible because of the Knight's color alternation).

The author, David Paulowich, has updated this page.