Chess:
White won 20172 (46.93 %)
Black won 20990 (48.83 %)
Draws 1817 (4.22 %)

The stats on this site do not generally represent the feeling about black vs white. Here black wins more than white, which is very unusual for chess.

Come on people, get on gothicchesslive.com sometime. It's a lot of fun!

It is forced. If black deviates from the posted lines then he gets mated sooner.

That's amazing that he sees mate in 8 starting with a queen sac.

Are there any photos of this year's tournament?

The cost to have the game here was $1. It is here for everyone's enjoyment and benevolence. Let us rest this patent argument.

It works great, but the pieces are kind of hard to tell apart. The archbishop and chancellor look most similar.

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

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.

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'm not sure when the next version of gothic vortex comes out. In it it will have more than 10x as many opening positions. In it will probably have that opening, but we will have to wait until Ed Trice releases it.

What would be neat for this board if we had links to our games or anyone's games and say white to move and win, or black to move and win like chessgames.com does. It should be a brilliant move which undermines the oponent or sets up for a forced checkmate or a win in a good amount of material.

This board has mostly been dead lately. It would be nice to start up some discussion.

Have you written the lines of code to program the setup positions and how to castle? Once it is complete, with your permission the host of this website could make it playable on this website.

That's good that you have come up with rules. But shouldn't having all but 3 positions similar to gothic chess still be sufficiently different than gothic chess?

Are we calling this CRC or FullChess?

I would love to play the game on this site.

Another note:

Why is it in Chess960 that none of the positions having an unprotected pawn is excluded?

I have seen the book on your website, but I do not know german so I cannot read your book :)

I did not know you were the one who named FullChess. This is a great name for CRC.

You keep saying 48000. My calculations are:
5 bishop x 5 bishop x 8 Q x 7 A x 6 C x 10 ways to put 2 knights in 5 sqaures x 1 K and 2 rooks = 84,000.

When I play this at chess clubs all I have with me is the set and a die. A computer and program are not with me. It is very practical to use something simple like a die.

Subtracting some positions makes it more difficult over-the-board to generate a position. Using all 84,000 it can be done with only 1 die. Roll for both bishops, then for the king. If position has an unprotected pawn, all pieces would have to be placed again.

There definitly should be a standard that everyone uses so that there is more collectivity and the game can grow faster.

As for a name, Fullchess is a great name if it has not already been taken for 8x8 :)

1. What does w sKQkq - 0 1 mean?
2. I never knew it called for A and Q on different colors and all pawns must be protected. Looking on chessvariants.com, bird's chess has A and Q on the same color. In Chess960, sometimes you can get a start where a pawn is not protected. Who decided the standard should be with these two rules?

If someone is going to market this game or popularize this game, there must be a good name for it. Fischer random's name was changed to chess960 and fullchess. It should not have a name which is gimicky like random, super, etc. It also should not have a chess player's name in it. Cassius suggested chess21000. Prehaps Chess21k. Does "hybrid chess" make it sound too much like a variant?

Random 10x8 chess with a chancellor and archbishop would definitly be neat. Chess960 cuts out the analyzed openings so memorization of openings is not required. Ed Trice has said that gothic chess does not yet have a large opening book, but it is quickly becomming very large. Gothic chess, although more exciting with the two additional pieces, could suffer the from the same problems as classical chess is.

I guess random 10x8 has the best of both world with the chancellor and archbishop, and not having pre-planned openings.

Why is it that some programmers have said that programmings castling rules is difficult. Fritz has said they won't put Chess960 in their program because it is difficult. Yet other programmers have done this like Chess V.

By the way, my calculations are 84000 for random 10x8 with bishops on different colors and the king between the rooks. How did you guys come up with 2000?

As for janus chess being computer free, I can already play janus chess with gothic vortex. All I have to do is rearrange the setup. The only thing is that the castling is slightly different.

Chess V is a nice program, thanks for giving link

Is the SMIRF program free to download, and if it is, where can i download?

Do any of you play over the board gothic? I find when I take my set to the park (chess club there) and chess clubs is that most people prefer classic chess over gothic because gothic is something new. Some people can be coaxed into trying and they play a game or 2. Others are more enthusiatic about playing, but even if they are good chess players, they usually find it difficult to get used to the new pieces. I find it takes a few games to get the basic feel for the pieces.

Regular chess games are very good, but if I could play gothic games it would be even better.
I have had some experiences where at the park some people play and many others huddle around to watch, so there are some good experiences.

Do any of you have expereinces of trying to popularize the game?

The gothic chess computer tournament starts tommorow.

http://www.gothicchess.org/world_championship.html

http://www.gothicchess.org/game2.html

Here is the full game and animated

http://www.chessville.com/GothicChess/TacticalArtwork.htm

Here you go

This board is getting out of hand. As a moderator, the job is to keep it under control and to maintain order. This board should be clean, but also should be free from angry posts and malicious intent. As a moderator Walter has done the opposite of what a moderator is supposed to do by starting arguments and inflaming situations that he has helped create.

Ed Trice as a player has done a great deal to promote this most balanced yet version of 8x10 chess, has promoted the game in his home city, and has provided interesting games and discussion about gothic chess. But, as a patent holder he has taunted people and has disrupted this board. He shamelessly files lawsuites to which he and everyone else know are not valid because walter proposed to make sets which he will not mention the gothic setup. Ed Trice himself has said that someone else should pattent Bird's chess if they want, which means he does not hold the patent on every setup of 10x8 chess. 10 x 10 grand chess sets have been selling for years.

Ed Trice is only doing this to get even with someone who expresses his opinion challenging him. It is something very low. It is something so _stupid_ that everyone can see. What is the character of a person who acts agressively and is vengeful?

Since Ed Trice has already said he is leaving after he finished his games, and since his presence here we would be better off without, Ed Trice should remain banned. He has a website to post relavent gothic chess things.

Walter should see for himself how he has been acting and should step down himself. He has no right to get involved into his own petty arguments with members of this board. A moderator should be understanding and sensible. Walter does not have the characteristics to be a good moderator.

Think about the forums you have gone to which have very immature users who make flame wars, who insult, and act childish. Is this board going in that direction? Everyone should see to it that they post responsively. The reason I go here is to read insightful and thoughful posts about gothic chess. I hope that is why you people come to this board. If you want to turn it into something ugly, then you should go to some other site. Take a look and see for yourslef when the last time someone posted something good about the game which benefits all of us, and how many posts some trash is posted.

Ya, it is 720. I saw there are 3 places for 1st bishop, 4 for second bishop, 5 for Q, 4 for C, 3 for A, and *1 way to put the 2 knights.

Ya, I may have to be careful about hosting a random setup 8x10 tournament incase the unlikely 1/84000 chance of the gothic position came up. I'd be in for some real trouble ;) wink.

O, btw if you want to set up pieces randomly all that's needed is 1 die.

For full random with bishops on opposite colors and king between rooks:
1st bishop roll 1-5 and count from left the black squares. Second bishop 1-5 and count from left white squares.
King can't go on the edge squares so roll 1-6 and counting skip first square and count to whatever you roll.
Roll for a rook on the left and right of king.
Roll for Chancellor, Archbishop, and queen, then put knights on what's left.

Or you can start with king and rooks on normal squares and then do bishops and then Q,C,A then knights.

Why don't we talk about something productive? I'll start: My experience with Gothic Vortex has mostly been getting smashed even at the lowest level. Now I'm trying starting the game with material odds and working from Queen and winning easily to lesser valued pieces and set it on a more difficult setting. This creates very exciting games. What is much more exciting and fun now is that I have a real chance at winning.

To add spice to the game I like to randomize the starting position too. As in Full chess aka Fischer random and chess960, you can start with many different positions. What works well with the program is sticking the king and rooks where they usually belong and randomize the other pieces. This gives 740 different setups. If you randomize all the pieces except that bishops are on opposite colors and king between rooks there are 84,000 different ways.

This discussion is really silly. Could we just forget all these petty, nonsensical going back and forth and getting angry. Seriously, what is there to get angry about? The game is here, we enjoy playing it, so what's the big deal.

Wow, that looked like fun. Come to Atlanta and have the next one :)

Have chess set makers decided they want to make gothic chess sets?

Are the OTB tournaments only in Phil or are there some in other large cities as well?

Why does it require so much? The common amount of RAM now is around 1 GB or so, maybe 2 for a high end system. My computer only has 4 slots for RAM, I would have to have 4 x 2GB strips for that.

So Nuclear is a few years down the line?

lol, who has 8 GB of RAM?

The only problem though, is that with an even number of files both corners have the same color. So if you use RNB...BNR, then both bishops are on the same color. White has both bishops on black and black has both bishops on white. Unless there is a better setup. First we need a nice setup before it can be implemented on this site, or have a random setup, but castling rules are difficult to program.

Has anyone played a 11x8 chess with the gothic pieces and the amazon piece? I wonder if the game would be good and harmonious. In regular chess there are 6 minor pieces to one 2/3 hybrid. In gothic there are 6 minors and three 2/3 hybrids. In this game there would be 6 minors, three 2/3 hybrids and one 3/3 full hybrid. The games shift more from minors to hybrids as you add more pieces. Since I've played gothic and just a few moves of amazon chess, all I can do is wonder since I've never played such a version. On cowplay there is a version called Alekhine which has only 6 minors, double the 2/3 hybrids- 2 A, 2 Q and 2 C per 1 amazon. This is a huge number of hybrids compared to minors. And the board is 14x8 meaning you have to stand/sit farther back to take in the width of the board. This is a big overkill in my opinion, though I am just speculating.

Heads up to the first person who can patent a balanced 11x8 chess variant.

Find the best move for black:
Black:
a7 b7 c7 f7 i7 j7
Kb8 Rc8 Rj8
Bh5 Nb4 Cd2

White:
a2 b2 e5 h2 i2 j2
Qh6 Nh3
Ka1 Rc1 Bh1 Rj1

Find a forced mate for white
whites pieces set up normally
Black:
e7 e5 d7 d6
Ce8 Qd8 Ke6 Rd5

nt

That sounds like a very cool idea to put all of the games played on brainking on gothic vortex.

GI, how about in the next verson of Gothic Vortex, the program shows the pieces that have been captured?

I got lots of errors when I clicked that 15 page pdf. It does not display the entire 1st page, pictures, and maybe other things too.