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This page is written by the game's inventor, George Duke.

Falcon Random Chess

The date of invention of Falcon Random Chess is the same as the several preferred Falcon arrays of comments. When early co-creator Vera Cole and I were discussing the new Falcon piece during December 1992, it was mutually remarked that the back ranks could be in any order for the six, Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King, Falcon. Test players numbering about ten during 1993 concentrated on RNBF... and RNFB... Briefly we tried Falcon in place of Queen on 8x8. All the interest came to be centered around sizes 8x10, 9x10 and 10x10.

Setup

Seventeen years ago in play, it was from the outset established that all possible opening set-ups are acceptable from RRNNBBFFQK to KQFFBBNNRR. Gradually some came to be considered more or less standard, but none have ever been ruled out. The idea incidentally pre-dates Fischer Random Chess. Randomizing back ranks is hardly new by Fischer and goes back to 1820s in Alexandre on 8x8. For decades patents of North America, United Kingdom, and France routinely use words to describe placing pieces like ''all at pre-determined locations'' in order to be inclusive of all the possibitilities and not single some few out only. Any given CV gets its novelty from rules effects, piece-type moves, and win conditions, not the initial starting set-up. Shifting the back rank at the beginning does not make for a new CV within all the forms of intellectual property, trademark, copyright, patent. Randomizing the starting set-up happens to be the norm in the latter with such wording as ''random'' or ''predetermined.'' Pre-determined and random are both meaning to connote here a plurality of possibilities. I started referring to ''Falcon Random Chess'' with that wording not in the 1990s but after year 2000. Yet in Falcon Chess inventors' notebook year 1993 are written out the over 100 ''same-piece-symmetric,'' as we called them, arrays of especial interest. In recent years some arrays singled out in comments besides RNBFQKFBNR: Cheops-arrayed Osiris-arrayed Pyramids-arrayed Up to twenty of the arrays now have established names like Osiris, Cheops, and Horus.

Pieces

Falcon is the new piece-type and first implementation of a mover exclusively to squares (2,3) and (1,3) away from a starting square. The Falcon patent text in usp5690334 allows the piece ''to jump or leap as the Knight can'' in a late paragraph, as a different alternate way of moving the new piece. Many other ways to get to squares (2,3) plus (1,3) besides the direct leap are described in a thread to be linked here below. Namely, ChessboardMath6 has up to a dozen alternate methods to get to squares (2,3)(1,3). Each variation having a different move-rule for Falcon would constitute a new CV, and the commonality is that Falcon's arrival squares are always those of problemists' Bison's (2,3) and (1,3) at option and according to available pathways. Bison had two reported instances of use Bodlaender uncovered in problems during the 1970s. Not a popular piece-type among problemists, Pritchard's 'ECV'(1994) has no recorded examples in a CV of Bison, or any piece exclusively to those two types of squares beyond the Knight's (1,2). Movements. Most of the alternatives are new with the above Chessboard Math thread. Fourriere re-described the one where Falcon jumps like Knight then goes one more space to Camel or Zebra location, and that actually goes back to speculation in the 1990s, but it is now named after him, as the Fourriere Falcon. All the variations in the Falcon move could be incorporated into this description of Falcon Random Chess, and so this sentence now does so, each one as viable alternative for a change. One example is where Falcon only moves by available orthogonal pathways, dis-allowing any diagonal step or steps. I think the two of most interest are always the full leap of Bison-Falcon and the three-path of the more-thought-out standard Falcon. The Fourriere Falcon is a not too distant third. It is expected that future game-play of Falcon Chess will settle on one from among those three modalities, as well as centre around 5 or 10 preferred starting line-ups, for example included the pleasing one RBFNQKNFBR being Templars. Thus it is that problemists' Bison-Falcon from the 1970s is first put into a CV with so-called Falcon of December 1992. CVs Herd and Great Herd are later welcome uses of Bison-Falcon. Herd is on 8x8, and Great Herd on boards ten-wide together with Carrera piece-types. Other CVs using Falcon are Aronson's Complete Permutation Chess and Fourriere's Bifocal.

Rules

Any of the possible starting arrays are allowed in Falcon Random Chess. Capablanca Random Chess suggestions for ways to generate, or select, specific line-ups are easily adaptable to Falcon R. C. as well as other CVs for which it may be important: CapablancaRC The purpose of multiple accepted arrays is to prevent opening theory to be built up too fast for any particular initial array. Six or ten arrays are more favoured, and each presents for openings its own challenges and its own advantages. The best form of Falcon is as the three-way three-square multi-path piece-type of this article: Standard.

Notes

See also: 1996-Text. Variants. There are in the article ''91.5 Trillion Falcon Chess Variants'' and in the comments following it more than 40 major CVs implementing Falcon. Follow-up game-rules descriptions to Falcon Random Chess will raise some of them at ''91.5 Trillion...'' to CV status from their present burial within those past comments.

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By George William Duke.
Web page created: 2009-12-16. Web page last updated: 2009-12-16