rod03801: The rules for Dice Chess list the differences between regular Chess and Dice Chess. Considering promotion to King isn't listed as a difference, the rules already cover a pawn cannot promote to King.

However, I find the current rules a bit silly. If your Pawn is one move away from being promoted, you'll never roll that 3 if you don't already have a Bishop. IMO, if one can promote a Pawn, all rolls 1 .. 5 (and 6 if the King can move) should be possible to roll.

I thought it would be almost impossible to have a Dice 10x10 game where one player wins by taking three kings and no other pieces, and without losing a piece him/herself as well. But I did it, in just 13 moves; 9 of them with a knight here.

I get the feeling that Dice Chess 10 would even have been better if played on a 10x8 board. Now the pawns are just too far away to play any significant offensive role. And promotion is very rare.

Perhaps Dice Chess 10x8 as another, easy to implement, variant?

Pioneer54: Curious suggestion! Would the doubling cube be used?

No. It's not used in the current Triple Gammon tournaments, so I don't see the need.

One obstacle may be the time. Dice10 takes much longer than the gammon games, so a short time control (I'd say one day, or less) might be almost essential, otherwise the whole thing could take years.

Why? Whether you play with "normal" scoring or the scoring I suggested will not affect the average game length by much. And while I have finished a number of Dice 10 games, I didn't get the impression such games take an overly long number of moves, they are certainly shorter than most Anti- or Cloning- gammon games I've played.

But you are free to not join tournaments if the move time is longer than a day. And once you're a rook, you're free to define tournaments with move times of a day or less. Don't expect me to join them though.

joshi tm: Yes, but measuring "solid victories" isn't the point. The point is adding more decisions for game play. For *gammon, the player can have the option to play more risky to go for a gammon instead of a safe play for the normal win - for Dice Chess may decide to defend his kings where he otherwise wouldn't.

It might be interesting to have a tournament format like we have to *gammon; one where you score 5 points if you take all your opponent kings without losing any of yours, 3 points if you only lost 1 king, and 1 point if you lost 2 of your kings.

Pioneer54: was trying to imagine how your idea would work on a 12 (vertical) by 10 (horizontal) board. It would be neat if this site (or some other) offered something like an "idea editor", a system in which games could be played strictly off the record by setting up your own board size and piece array of choice, just to see what might happen by experimentation.

If you have a Windows box, you might consider getting "Zillions of Games". It allows you to create almost any abstract board game you can imagine.

P-G: Your first point. GrandChess is 10 squared board but don't lose from sight it is only one more than Shogi (9x9). I imagine such promotion could tears the opponent front.

I think the argument that the Shogi general isn't effective in GrandChess hasn't so much to do with the board size, as well with the other pieces. In Shogi, there are only 4 pieces that have a long range: rook, bishop (and their promoted pieces), and the two lances. But the lances can only move forwards, and cannot deviate from their file. In Grand chess each side has 2 rooks, 2 bishops, a queen, a marshall and a cardinal. In (grand)chess, on average, the pieces have a far greater mobility than in shogi. Picking a piece from shogi, and dropping it into a chess variant is usually not going to work. Chess, shogi and Chinese chess aren't games with just a set of pieces randomly thrown together. No, chess, shogi and Chinese chess work well (and are hence popular) because of the combination of pieces work well.

It's like taking a unit of Napolean's army that worked well for him, and putting it in the German army of 1940. It ain't going to work.

P-G: My aim is to improve Grand Chess with pieces or rules from old classical games. They are for sure steady value, having been tested since many centuries.

And what proof do you have that your suggestions actually improve Grand Chess? Just because a piece is used in game that has been tested for centuries doesn't proof anything. Otherwise, you'd thrown in the Ace of spades and some Go stones as well.

Fencer: I would, if my opponent could be bothered to move. ;-)