Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Gary,

Why dropping the Hia after moving the King?

Why not just leave it there in front of the King protecting the King from the begining?

Just an idea.

This page could use a diagram. Even if the setup is the same as Shatar, Shatar is not nearly as well-known as Chess, and many readers may be unfamliar with it.

Thank you Fergus, for your Diagram suggestion. I added one.

Thank you Jose for your suggestion. I considered starting with Hias on the board, also considered allowing them to be dropped into the game on any vacant space in a player's first or second rank. But The goal of the game was to keep this as close to Shatar as possible... so it starts as does Shatar, with no Hias and with D-pawns advanced. Anyway, when the King moves I figured the bodyguard (Hia) would appear at the King's side, And this would be somewhat akin to castling in this game. 

I always like your variants and find it interesting that you chose to improve on shatar.  I wonder if your experience has revealed whether this variant is more drawish with the use of the hia and the older shatar restrictions on delivering checkmate.  Do you think if one of the knights were to have the "enhanced" powers that Assia Popova described as appearing in the older shatar, that is, knight becomes an amazon after the first move, it would produce a balanced game affording more chances of checkmate?  I am assuming, of course, that my intuition about this variant being more drawish than shatar is true, but perhaps it is not.  I very much like your use of José Carrillo's modification to the hia power, which seems to create pleasing positional paradoxes.

I just noticed the question (only 6 years later). I think the stronger player will win. Here is a game with notes:

1. d4 d5 mandatory first move

2. g3 Nc6

3. Bg2 e6
   Pawns only move 1 space, except for the first required move (1. d4 d5)

4. e3 b6

5. f3 g6

6. Kf2 / Hia e1 . . . White Hia goes to e1 (mandatory) 6.. . . . Bg7

7. b3 Ba6

8. Bb2 Nge7

9. c3 Kd7 / Hia e8

10. Nd2 Kc8

11. Nh3 Kb7 As there is no castling in Shatar, Tony moves his King manually to reach something like a Queenside castle. He moves his King to b7 to free the Rook on a8 for his next move.

12. a3 Rc8

13. a4 Hia d7 Neither player is used to the Hia but they know it is a great defensive aide to the King. Tony moves his towards the Black monarch.

14. b4 b5 Timmy wanted to pawn-fork the Bishop and Knight. Tony played b5 to stop it.

15. axb Bxb5

16. Qc2 Ra8

17. Hia e2 . . . Black can’t capture the Hia with his Bishop as he’d have to stop at d3 due to the Hia’s protective field. . . . a6

18. Ra2 Ra7

19. R(h)a1 Hia d6

20. e4 dxe

21. Nxe4 . . . attacking the Hia . . .Hia d7

22. Nc5+ Kb6

23. Nxd7+ exchanging Knight for Hia . . . Qxd7

24. Hia d3 . . . Annoying, the Black Bishop can’t take the Hia . . .Rha8

25. Qb3 e5 Struggling for counterplay

26. d5 Nxd5

27. c4 Bxc4

28. Qxc4 N(d)xb4

29. Qb3 a5

30. Hia c4 Bf8

31. f4 Bc5 (This is not a check due to the Hia)

32. Bxc6 Kxc6

33. Ra4 Nd3+
    Remember that Knights are immune from the Hia forces but Hias can still capture Knights. Here the Hia can’t capture the Knight because that would activate the Bishop’s check (from c5)). White playing 34. QxN would be a blunder because Black would play 34….QxQ and the Hia could not recapture due to the Bishop check factor.

34. Kg2 Nxb2

35. Qxb2 e4 (perhaps dreaming of a Queen)

36. Ng5 Qe7

37. Rb1 e3

38. Qb5+ Kd5 (Kings are immune from Hias)

39. Rd1 #

Just noticed this comment. Apparently Old Shatar actually starts with the pawns on the 2nd and 7th ranks. 1. d4 d5 is mandatory first move. Since Old Shatar did not actually have the Hia, I wanted to keep the game as close as possible to the original but, of course, add a Hia. Your idea, of course, is good. I did add a game in a comment, as an example game. I think the checkmate is very nice.