Starts March 28th. Come on down and play some games. :)

Starts March 28th. Come on down and play some games.

I noticed that many players only play maharadjah with white for you... If you look on the "Waiting games", you have dozens of challenge with black, which is not fair.

Could they be proud about their rating? Do not they get bored?

Ok, as ughaibu said, it could be kind of beginner game for kids to learn how to move the pieces :-)

I think the original idea,to play with a maharadja is good.(Other names for this piece are "general" or "amazone")And there have been in the past some interesting suggestions to improve this variation to a balanced game, not only for children:).Btw we have the same situation in "Hordechess"!

Not quite so Caissus ... black does have some hope in horde chess and a win cannot be forced from move 1 by white.

No chance for black,WhisperzQ!
The strategy for W is easy :He changes some pawns in the opening,gives three or four pieces for two pawns (each) and then he invades with queen and/or rook in Black`s position.From backwards he can beat B`s important pawns.
No problem for W,if he doesn`t play too bad :).

Still, there is a hope for black, it is not completely pre-ordained ... so far I have a 16:8 win:loss as black (8:0 as white). For the site it is about 3 white: 1 black.

All that proves is that it is not guaranteed that white will win regardless of what either player does. Of course white could lose the game if they wanted to...?

Now there is a thought, anti-maharajah chess :)

White wins always in the below described way,not regardless of the moves of each player of course,but sure if both parties are playing their best moves.

And are of somewhat equal ability ... I am sure you would be able to beat most, Caissus, playing either white or black!

I am proud to congratulates N°1 in rating HerculesBeast !!!

60 games with black : 60 victories ! What a performance

A cool variation could be that black has to announce the whole game before starting.

But no,he won one of these games with the white pieces !!.. against a player who has lost all his Brainking games except one :):)!

oops, I did not see that!
Luckily, he did win game 142224 by time :-)))

I've seen this discussion of 'fairness' in maharaja scattered around the boards for some time. I'd just like to point out that for the beginning player, white has one advantage simply in the mechanics of the program: The board will not -let- you place your maharaja in check. In short, you can, in a very short time, find all your choices for moves simply by running the mouse over all the squares. You only have one piece to move, and only one to worry about. Of course, that's countered by the fact that black only needs to check the moves for one piece, but for the inexperienced player, this can be quite an advantage. Black must check all his pieces to keep everyone guarded, -and- find a way to force an 'omnimovable' piece into check without causing a stalemate (draw). For a semi-deecent chess player, this isn't all that difficult, but it can be quite a challenge to the beginner.

I've a hunch the game might have originated with the intention of conditioning people to the challenges of fighting under seemingly hopeless odds.

What if black had 2 or 4 "super pawns" - that is they can move 1 space any of the 8 directions. (Up, Up-right, right, right-down, down, down-left, left, left-up) (Can move & Capture in those directions - 1 space)

Put them in the back row - possible where the bishops normally are, or if 4 - where bishops & rooks normally are)

It will not be a very big change, but should give black more of a chance and possible "even" out the game some.

Any thoughts?

(Or possible a new game - "Super Horde Chess" - maybe even make the whole back row of black pawns - 6 total - be "super pawns")

Of course stalemate is possible !!!

White : Ka8 Rb7 Bb8 Pa7,b6,c7
Black : Kc8

White is stalemate !!!

excellent.

In this case whoever is playing white should retire immediately. :)

i'm working up a new webpage, at

My Games of Loop Chess.

http://www.geocities.com/ttrotter3/loopgames.html

If you have played any game of loop with me and you would like to see it linked in my page, send me a message directly to me (not in this discussion board, please) about it.

Thank you. Terry

I'm really sorry for made you feel like this. I didn't make it deliberately.
But you are wrong on this. Maharajah Chess is an available game to play and the fact that i know to play it perfect, it's not something unsportsman and unfair. For example at Chess. I'm really good there. If someone is bad at chess, then is it unfair to challenge him? Of course not. Just like this. I play this game perfect after studying it a little and i don't find it unfair to play with Black pieces with someone if he wants to. I don't tell him that i found a perfect line to win, but i don't find it unfair, because he should use his own brain to find out and reject my offer.
So please change your mind and remove me from your enemies list and accept 2 games of Gothic Chess or Backgammon as my purpose was misunderstood by you.
Well by giving my "perfect" line of Maharajah Chess i know that none will accept any offer again, but i'm doing this to prove you that i'm not someone bad and evil :

The following moves are playable by Black no matter what White Maharajah plays, except the last move i have noted:

1. Knight b8 - c6
2. Pawn d7 - d5
3. Queen d8 - d6
4. Pawn e7 - e5
5. Knight g8 - f6
6. Pawn a7 - a5
7. Rook a8 - a6
8. Rook a6 - b6
9. Bishop c8 - g4
10. Pawn e5 - e4
11. Queen d6 - e5
12. Bishop f8 - e7
13. 0-0
14. Rook b6 - b2
15. Rook f8 - a8
16. Rook a8 - a6
17. Rook a6 - b6
18. Rook b6 - b3
19. Pawn h7 - h5
20. Pawn g7 - g5
21. Knight f6 - h7
22. Queen e5 - d4

Now if the Maharajah is on a1 then:
23. Rook b2 - b1
24. Rook b3 - b2 MATE#

Else:
23. Queen d4 - d1 MATE#

what exactly is the discussion about here? this variation of chess is obviously heavily favored towards black. white should never win.

Dmitri ... Chessmaster1000's post flowed from an exchange of PMs where one party (C1000) was placed on the "unfriends" list of another person (me) so a PM response was not available.

You are quite right though, as Chessmaster1000 also points out, white should never win.

Hello All!

As a fellow Maharajah Chess player I would just like to say a few things.

I don't think of Maharajah Chess as game. It is a fine Trainer to aid a chess student who will play a black. It can be played on a regular board.

In appreciating it as a game I have 2 suggestions:
1. The players can play with the agreement that black must resign if any of its pieces are lost.

2. There can be a 3-points match with each player seeing the minimum number of moves for black to win. Then for the third game the player with more moves resigns the game so overall the other player wins.

Thank you Mangue for the Congratulations.

Horde Chess is another interesting 'game', where white is expected to win, but that is a whole other discussion.

Regards,
HerculesBeast.

Greetings All.

Horde Chess is an interesting variation of chess. At first glance it seem a daunting task for white to eat all those pawns. However white is expected to win and usually does, especially if white is an experienced player.

There are times when black wins the experienced white player but there is no clear cut strategy for black partly because the outcome of the game has more to do with how white plays. This is not to say that we can't come up with an effective strategy for black.

Winning Horde Chess as Black feels good, and we can leave it let people experiment with strategies for black. Instead of modifying Horde chess we can have Variants of Horde Chess. There are good suggestions on this board to aid black.

One suggestion is that Black can get two more pawns. At first thought this seems like a cosmetic change but it might just be enough to even the game. And this may be the easiest variant to implement on the computer program that supervises the game on Brainking. It's worth a try.

The super pawn idea sounds promising but may be more difficult to implement.

Part of the idea behind "horde" is that they are all essentially the same thing. Like a Horde of Savages. This said, We could allow the pawns to do something as simple as moving backwards. Just one step back to defend a fellow pawn may have saved many games for black.

Yes, Black does need a whole new swing of confidence but the whole horde should have the same swing.

My question is, How soon can we play these variants? Until we try them we would know for sure the actual effect.

Regards,
HB.

good that you take it with humour :-)

have two big disadvantages :
1.Both games are starting in the middle of the game ,without an opening.
2.The constellation of the pieces with the following result of the game has to do with luck.

I suggest to change the rules in the following way:
In the first part of the game the pieces will be placed on the board alternately.Both players should can see the actions of their opponents.In screen chess only in the own half of the board,in crazy screen chess on the complete board.
Only if the last piece is placed the players can start to move (like in the boardgame "morris").
I think,with these rules the games can become more interesting, .

Antichess - this game seems to be very analyzed and many variants are determined.

How,if we could have a variant like "Shuffle-antichess"?
The rules could be the same with the difference, that the pieces on the 1th/8th row are placed randomly.

Some say poker is determined by luck too

true it has been analyzed, and I know by heart how to win after 1.e4 1.d4 and 1.d3. In a shuffle antichess, I am pretty sure there are positions where game is already win before move 1.

Like atomic, the game is probably too wild to get shuffled!

What's more, I fair the extra coding and the extra rules will be to big for the players interrested in that.

If realized, we can have a game then!

christine has created a tourny for Loop Chess. Go here to sign up.

And that`s why we don`t play poker here at Bk or other games, which have to do with luck. The common standard of the board games is an equal position at the beginning.Otherwise Bk would change to a casino.
I have played a tournement with six games and four of them my opponents have lost positions before we have moved the first time.This cannot make sense.Okay you can play with this rules,but it is (for me) only an half and not a complete game.
I think the most players here see this in the same way.Look at the only little number of played games in the past in both variants.

I have created a new (two days per move) tournament for loop chess. However, you must be a member of the Looped fellowship. Anyone may join the fellowship. Once a member, please join the Tournament

Normally if I click a pawn it moves automatically if it only has one available move, so in dark chess to check for possible en passants it wasn't necessary to try the second stage of the move, I only needed to see that the pawn didn't automatically move. Dark chess players should be aware that this is no longer the case (my opponent has just played c6 when I falsely deduced that he must have played c5 on the previous move). We can also select a pawn even if it has no legal move!

I can't think why the auto move isn't on in DC actually, since you can deduce everything anyway.

How come I can no longer view the games that are complete with the whole board shown? It used to be that way. Now it's darkness. In games that I've played it shows it like as if I was playing. If it's two other players, the whole board is dark. Definitely a problem. I would like to be able to see the board in all three views (each player's view and the whole board), at once if possible, but if the only choice is one board, then it needs to show the whole board without darkness. If it's a bug, I suppose someone should tell Fencer, eh? Until it is, I won't be able to view a game of yours that you might want me to check out. Or vice versa. I know I've played a couple that are trippy games that people have asked about or I wanted to show someone who asked about something happening in one of my games.

Is that Pawn in passing capture problem related to this problem, do you suppose? That can be a hassle checking each move because the Pawn is stopped straight ahead, but he has an in passing capture available. Even if he is blocked from moving straight ahead, it is going to require you to think about checking it by clicking the Pawn and then trying the square with the arrow to see if it available or not. That will definitely slow the play of the game down when I have a Pawn on the fifth row. :(

As a casual Chess player (Not too good), I really love the fact that Screen Chess & Crazy Screen chess start the way they do. I don't know any of the best chess opening moves, nor do I want to take Chess that serious.

I love the chance i take when i set up my board since i can set it up 3 different ways.
1) Have a good "attack plan" with possible leaving me in a losing position depending on opponenets setup.
2) Have a good defence setup - so no matter how the oppenent sets up, i should be OK - just no strong attack ready.
3) Or a mixture of both - keeping myself some-what defended, while having a small attack ready.

Yes, it put some luck into the game - but I think that is what makes these game great.

NOW having said that, i think the idea of possible having a variant where each player sees the board and you place your pieces alternately would be nice - but I don't think that the current games should be changed.

BBW,in chess you only can have a good attack or defence plan,if you can interpret the plan of your opponent.
Without to see your opponent`s position your efforts are completely senseless.

You can guess how your opponent will set up his/her pieces by looking at his/her past games of screen chess.

there's a probability ot 12.5 % that white mates
an opponent with average setup in only 4 moves. ~*~

You don`t know if your opponent has changed his setup.That`s why important for your plans can only be the actions of your opponent in the concrete game.

i think there are impregnable setups in this game, which is actually one of the reasons I prefer starting as black.

Is there some bug in the recording of screen chess games, or is it just my computer? For example, am I the only one who sees in this game that the white knight just moved from f5 to e4, capturing a white pawn?

If you ignore the "blue" spaces which shows what moves were made, and just pay attention to the game notation, the game looks OK.

Kind of looks like the "blue squares" which shows the moves are not in-sync with the game.??

I think you're right...

Many games, including mine, have been affected.

Hopefully Fencer will seee this. It now appears as though black pawns on the second rank can move 2 spaces (like a normal unmoved pawn on the second rank) if there is nothing to stop this. This is not what the rules say and I am sure this couldn't happen in the earlier BKs. Fencer, can you fix this please, or else we should change the rules. I actulaly think this is a better arrangement as it provides a little more flexibility and power to the black position which is currently inherentantly weaker. I have one game where this double space move would be a significant advantage to me if it were allowed. Thoughts anyone?!?

In FIDE Chess, the option for pawns to advance two spaces on their first move was introduced to speed up the opening of the game. In Horde Chess, Black could not use that power anywhere near the beginning, so that rule would not accomplish at all the same purpose as in FIDE Chess.

The Black position is inferior in Horde Chess, but applying the double space move in this case seems artifical. Why should the double space option only be for pawns on the second rank? The FIDE Chess setup only has one row of pawns, so perhaps its rules should not be grafted onto the very different Horde Chess.

In any case, I think a more radical change than the double move for second row pawns is needed to equalize the game. How about giving Black two kings, starting in the empty d8 and e8 squares, both of which must be captured for White win the game? Or maybe they could start in the corners? Black needs some way of protecting the pawns at the bases of his/her chains.

<BuilderQ: In the beginning of the gaem what you say is true, but I have just found another game where the double move would provide me with a significantly stronger position.

Ibelieve the benefit for black only really begins in the mid to later parts of the game, once a few pieces have been cleared. One of the problems black has is the time it takes to get their pieces to the queening line ... this change would reduce that time by one move and, where games are sometimes decided by only one or two tempi, this is possibly a subtle change which can partly (fully?) redress the inequalities.

If it were to be considered further I would suggest that any black pawn on the rear two rows might be able to move two ranks if possible which would give:
rank one -> rank three
rank two -> rank four
AND rank one -> rank two -> rank four (2 moves).

White could then take using enpassant (sp?) in the usual way for 2->4 or also in a corresponding manner for the 1->3 double move.

What do others think?

I would leave it as it is in the current status. It seems to be logical to me.

Try your hand at maharajah chess, this tourney will start as soon as 4 people have signed up!

Greetings. I'm new to the site here, and a great site it is, with a lot of interesting games. I just about fell out of my chair when I saw this chess variation. It seems to me that Black has about 27 points of material advantage over white. That makes for a pretty sucky odds match, in my opinion. An interesting mental excercise, I'll agree. But I also agree that white should never--ever--win this game.

This coming from a chess enthusiast who has never touched Maharajarah. I'll probably play a few games just to check it out. Maybe my opinion'll change.