schachmdmt: I have seen the site. It is really gorgeous! I don't know any German, but the look seems beats this already ;) The overall structure looks quite sound. The growth of contents or the information should be very well mannered too.
Well done schachmdmt! All the best !

At gothicchess.at - section "Regeln" (rules) I wrote the first version of the rules for gothic chess, of course in german (gothicchess.at will be mainly a german speaking site).
in the next days i will add some pics there. german-speaking people here - please correct me if you see errors!
http://www.gothicchess.at/ started yesterday - so the rules are the first content in it (and some links)

I hope you guys take some pictures and keep the good games to post on the site.

Yes, anyone can enter! Entrace fee: $75 if received by January 8, $90 if received by January 15, $130 if received by January 29, $175 if received by February 5. No checks will be deposited after February 5. Late entrants of $225, cash only, will be accepted at the playing site. Plus $25 for a Gothic Chess set which you need to play in the tournament.

Open means anyone can enter. It's $75, and I think it costs $25 more for a gothic chess federation membership, so that's $100.

Who may enter? Do you need to join anything to enter and how much would that cost? I may or may not be able to play;so I would appreciate a helpful answer.

Caissus: I'm in there, let's rumble. :)

starts on o1.01.2005. Last chance to join in!

The Philadelphia Open will be played February 18-20, 2005 at the Wyndham Philadelphia Hotel! This tournament is a 7 round Swiss with a G75 + 5 sec delay. You can register here at http://www.gothicchess.org/register_philly_open.html

The top prize of $5000 U.S. for a $75 Entry Fee is a rarity...so mark this day in your calendar and come to Philly to play in a great tournament!

This messing up my playing boards on this site is getting rediculous.

Are there any other websites that also feature Gothic Chess that anyone knows about? I would also like to know how you would rate them;if there are. I know about gothicchess.org and gothicchess.com.

I checked out the gothicchess.de website. That game on there has a pretty interesting opening. It can be used as black and white. Its strength is on the wings. It is very flexible because the knights, bishops, archbishop and queen can come out. In the game there, instead of 7...Nd4, he should go to bishop g7. If black is allowed on the next move to go to Ng4, then the archbishop must go back to its starting location or get forked by the knight.

It is definitly an interesting opening.

I wonder has anyone had problems gettting online today; I have tried 3 times and could stay online only 10-15 minutes at a time. I have played the games I could but got cut off in the middle of moves everytime.

Dresden: but you can become the first German Champion in Gothic - at once!

This was to be seen as understatement, I mean we could have 70, but I prefer Gothic.

Dresden: We have in Germany 69 Grandmasters,205 International Masters and 623 Fidemasters (male and female). Only Fidechess without correspondence chess and problems!

www.gothicchess.de is already online, but not finished yet (and never will be really finished). It´s just there, to provide some infos in German also. Most players know the English language well enough, but it´s better to represent that the game is played in many countries, Germany has not many top chess players in 8x8, but chess in general is relatively popular. Gothic Chess as well. :-)

When do you estimate this new site will be available for use?

thank you schach! I look forward to more games, especially 3+(!!!), in the new year! Yes, it is my first ever brown xmas, i miss the snow. However, xmas here is not yet commercialized and it is a pleasant respite so far. So i don't really mind, my home is not set in stone!

best wishes to all! 圣诞快乐！ 성탄축하!

to noursix:
best wishes to you and of course to your wife too! i think i will not often in against you and her in gothic and janus!

to redsales:
Best wishes too! You stay far away from home over christmas?

to all:
A very merry xmas and a happy new year, lets hope it is a good one, without any fear!

to you as well noursix, i'm finding you a very challenging opponent in our game and I will be lucky to draw!

For everybody

to EdTrice:
This is not necessary in this special case, because you are supporting only a maximum of 10 files. Thus it would be sufficient to 'forget'/'undo' a proceeding '1' when reaching a '0' and keep the rest of the program as it has been. This approach then would also tolerate both forms using simply '0' or '10'.

to Caissus:
It is just developing. I had been very unsure about that from the beginning. Thus I enabled my tools to understand both forms. May be Uwe's tool has not been written similar tolerant. If I would have understood how it should to be used, I would have noticed that earlier and contacted him about that.

As I have told, there are approaches to standardize encodings also of fairychess forms in the FFEN approach. Some people convinced me that the "10" form used by current Smirf would be more flexible and conform. Also I have found a similar using of FEN by Michel Langeveld at http://www.xs4all.nl/~mlngveld/gothicchess/index.html . So I finally made that decision for Smirf.

I think programs just read one byte at a time for the "blank" squares, since usually 8 is the maximum. Now with the potential for a "10" to indicate skipping 10 squares, programs have to parse differently ("read until '/', then convert it to the correct number of squares to skip over).

0 would imply 10 and still match the 1-byte standard. 10 requires the new parsing code, and it departs from the 'chess' standard.

In Auerswald`s PGN-tool there is the "0" instead the "10" too.Are there different standards?

to EdTrice:
Yes, you can do it from the place I specified here.

As I have explained, Smirf and the FullChess editor still will passivly understand also the old form, but activly use and write only the new form. The change has been made as a result of a background discussion to enhance compatibility to the FFEN approach. Additionally I have noticed already similar approaches for Gothic Chess to be seen elsewhere.

Sumerian

Hello Reinhardt. My version of SMIRF still creates "/0" instead of "/10" for the Gothic Chess PGN files. Should I download a new copy?

I will change the game files on the website.

Sumerian: Thanks a lot! Now it works.

andreas:
As I have explained already several times, a PGN file starting with another than the original standard 8x8 chess initial position would need per PGN definition a SetUp tag and a FEN tag. It is not good, that PGN files here do not contain that important information. Because how should Smirf know about the starting position? You have to add manually two following (not broken) lines after the other starting tags:

[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rjnbkqbnjr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/
RJNBKQBNJR w sKQkq - 0 1"]

You will also get that lines when saving a PGN file using Smirf locally or into the clipboard. By that you could see how a correct PGN file would look like.

That procedure also would work for other variants with different starting arrays. They all have different FEN strings because of their different starting arrays.

Sumerian: I tried to download a PGN file from this site (see link to the game in the recent post by Ed Trice). However Smirf just displays: 1. e3 f5 1-0.

andreas:
at http://www.chessbox.de/beta.html , see Project Cronicle, 2004-Dec-10. But because of designed to become shareware, Smirf will be shrinked in its power and often suggest to become registered.

Sumerian: Where can I download Smirf?

EdTrice:
Thanks.I must say,that I have missed your Janussacrifice in this position.
I have sent this game to the journal already and it will be published perhaps in January or February.

Smirf does it, even the shrinked beta version. But it always would be demanding to view its licensing screen.

Does anybody knows any software (preferable freeware) to view Janus Chess PGN files?

I would like to think that this game might be a candidate for inclusion in that journal:

http://brainking.com/game/ArchivedGame?g=347378&i=65

The position shown is the start of a mate in 27 (with optimal play) and it involves sacrifices of the Janus on both ends. White to move and win tosses one on the right side of the board, and the opponent finds a creative way to try and draw by disposing of his Janus on the left side of the board. Black then sacrifices the exchange (Rook for Bishop) to sustain the attack with his Janus. Then, white parts with the Queen, and the win is finally assured, although the ending of 2 Rooks vs. Janus plus "army of pawns" looks bad for white at first glance.

I don't think I have the energy and time to pour into another Janus tournament, or clearly not at the same level, so that game might be all I have that is worthy of print.

A great game against a very strong Janus player.

This sounds like a good site. I hope it isn't spoiled by rude nonplayers.

You're in for a surprise. The game is lots different. Least ways, it is for me. Them Januses (Archbishops in Gothic Chess) are different when there's two of them for each player. I suppose if you're playing a game and you trade one for one early in the game it'll go like a game Gothic Chess without the Chancellors in many ways, but the starting position is different and castling is slightly different.
The Januses can work together like same colored Bishops, too. Plus after making a Knight type move, they can have a Bishop backing them up along a diagonal in a way that the Chancellor can't. I've been burned a number of times this way.
Still, if you're good at Gothic Chess, you should have no problem learning Janus Chess. Probably spank me good when our game comes up. :(

<I will participate in this tournament altough my Janus experience is zero! It can't be too difficult to play since i know Gothic Chess. I just have to study a little the opening from games between strong players and i'll be ready to bite anyone who would think: "Unrated==>Easy opponent...:-)"

I have created the New Year Janus Chess Open for all players!
The best games of this tournement will be published in the German chess journal "Rochade Europa"!

So far I haven´t heard of any plans of the US administration to avoid this. But you never know.
I don´t know how it is about aliens and others. All three parties, visitors, Ed and I have no problems with the site. By the way, for those who are alrady paying members, knight is enough, there are also other GC discussion forums, which are moe alive. This one her should be relighted, too. If newbies want to discuss anything, feel encouraged please.

Will United States Cititens be able to use this website?

That`s for sure!

I just notice the board colors on the diagram are wrong. The lower right hand corner is always supposed to be white.

And here is the solution with all nice variants:
1.) J2h3! threat 2.Jixg4#
Every of Black`s effort to defend results in another checkmate:
1.) ... , Qe4 . 2.) Be6# .
1.) ... , Jd4+ . 2.) Sxd4# .
1.) ... , Jxe5 . 2.) Rxe5# .
1.) ... , Jh6 . 2.) Jxh6# .
1.) ... , Jj7 . 2.) Jg7# .
1.) ... , Rf4 . 2.) Jxg3# .
1.) ... , Bxe7+ 2.) Sxe7# .
1.) ... , Sxd7+ 2.) Qxd7# .
1.) ... , Si3 2.) Jh4# .
1.) ... , gxh3 2.) Jxh3# .
1.) ... , g5 . 2.) Jhxg4# .

1. A2h3, waiting.

if 1..gxh3 2. Axh3#

In "Feenschach" Germany 1998 was published the following januschessproblem composed by Udo Marks:

W checkmates in two moves

Solution soon !

GothicChess.de will be online very soon. It´s not yet ready to be watched, so it´s nowhere else "promoted" right now, it´s a private hobby site. The aim is to just build a site in German language and to show that there is another one, not only the original one alone ! At least as long as this is okay for everybody it uses much content of gothicchess.org and will link to the offers there, but maybe also to other ChessVariant Software. If the copyright owner of images and text content doesn´t want it to be copied, let me know. My goal is to make the game more popular in Germany and to demonsrate it´s advantages over Birds chess, other Capablanca variants and over 8x8 chess. I don´t feel too much as German base, but a good relation would be very best. It will be mainly just a translation of all content and it will also use the name Gothic Chess of course, I think this should be okay. I am rather familiar with intellectual property law and will recommend Gothic Vortex and the pieces from GothicChess.org. It´s not planned right now any soon, but I would like to feel free to add software like ChessV as link, also including the remark that this program can play evey Chess. I mean this program is absolutely legal for sure despite it can play Gothic Chess even without editor and without code change and it will always be much weaker than Vortex which is mainly promoted as Gothic Chess software. I have greatest respect in both, Ed and this author, so I don´t want to hear of any trouble between them even if some people for the beginning play with ChessV. They all will talk about Gothic Chess and heavy users buy the vortex later for sure.

That sounds like an excellent idea;except that I really dislike computer analysis as opposed to human analysis.