pedestrian: That's a good idea. Is it correct that counting can start only when there are no pawns left?

Ukimix: You know, the more the rules are complicated, the less people actually play the game. I must think it over and decide if it is worth my time do implement all these counting rules and be prepared for a lot of bugs that will probably appear later.

Ukimix: I sense problems here because of the disadvantage condition. I can be kind of variable, e.g. one player has less pieces (ergo, the disadvantage), then manages to capture some opponent's pieces and turn the advantage to own side, etc.

It would be nice if some Thai players give us an enlightenment on this.

Ukimix: What if both players have the same pieces when the last pawn is captured?

Ukimix: Very well, so how is it really used? For instance: "When neither side has any pawns left, mate must be achieved in 64 moves. The disadvantaged player does the counting."

How do you determine the disadvantaged player?

Ah-ha! Wikipedia is our friend. That's what it says:

When neither side has any pawns, the game must be completed within a certain number of moves or it is declared a draw. When a piece is captured the count starts again from scratch only if it is the last piece of one side in the game.

* When neither side has any pawns left, mate must be achieved in 64 moves. The disadvantaged player does the counting, and may at any time choose to stop counting. If the disadvantaged side checkmates the advantage side and did not stop counting, the game is declared a draw.

When the last piece (that is not the King) of the disadvantaged side is captured, the count may be started, or restarted from the aforementioned counting, by the weaker side, and the stronger side now has a maximum number of moves based on the pieces left:

* If there are two rooks left: 8 moves
* If there is one rook left: 16 moves
* If there are no rooks left, but there are two bishops: 22 moves
* If there are no rooks left, but there is one bishop: 44 moves
* If there are no rooks or bishops left, but there are two knights: 32 moves
* If there are no rooks or bishops left, but there is one knight: 64 moves
* If there are no rooks, bishops, or knights, but queens: 64 moves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makruk

Ukimix: Ah, there seems to be a problem:

"Object of the game is to mate the opponents king. Stalemate is a draw. Also, when a player has no rook, bishop, or knight anymore, the other player must mate him within a certain number of moves, depending on how many `big' pieces the player has, otherwise the game is declared a draw. The precise numbers are omitted here (also, my sources on this seem to contradict - is there a native player of this game who can provide full information on this topic?). "

The rules at Chessvariants are not certain about this subject. Would you have any other source of reliable information?

Ukimix: I was thinking of than, along with Changgi (Korean Chess). Actually, I didn't want to release new games until BrainKing 3.0 is completed, but since Makruk seems to be easy to implement (and, unlike Changgi, does not require any new images of pieces), I can try to spend some time on it, heh. No promises, though.

dicepro: You can try it, I've just added this game to BrainKing.

nabla: I wish I could drop by, if only it would be nearer to Prague.

nabla: I think it would be better if it does NOT revert to a pawn. Let's use it as it is, just like in Loop Chess.

nabla: One more question - is this game played with pawn promotions? And if so and a promoted pawn is captured, can it be recycled as the promoted piece or does it turn back to a pawn?

nabla: Synchronous version is easier to implement.

nabla: About the Recycle Chess discussion - can a player capture his own king?

Salkkuman: Yes, it is possible and planned.

Lambik: All right, it can start with a small number of pieces and more of them can be added later but to the same game, it will be just an add-on, not a new variant.

Lambik: That would be done by performing several special first moves. Similar to the swapping feature in the Swap Five in Line.

Lambik: That's easy, when a player creates a game invitation, he would select the pieces he wants to use in this game. The opponent, if agrees with the offered pieces, accepts the invitation and the game starts. That's all.

Lambik: What I want to avoid is a situation where people start to request more and more variants of this game, with different combinations of available pieces. Ideally, I would like to create only one game called Superchess and the creator would define a subset of valid pieces out of total 30 ones. But all such games would be marked with the same code, sharing the BKRs, stairs, etc. Just like backgammon matches with a doubling cube - no matter if you define it with 3 or 21 points to win, it's still the same game.

Lambik: Thank you, I'm just reading that.
So if I understand it right, there are 50 new pieces, but only 4 of them are used in Superchess?

Lambik: Thank you. I definitely consider is as a hot candidate to implement here.

Cubs93: 1) What's the difference between Superchess and Exchess?
2) Isn't this game licenced? I don't like the ® next to its name.
3) Where is a list of all new pieces? I've found only a few of them.

Thad: Yes, of course. I forgot the classic chess is symmetrical too :-)

Thad: Nope, this variant is symmetrical.
http://www.chessvariants.org/small.dir/losalamos.html

AbigailII: I think only the classic 8x7 Line4 is solved, 8x8 is not.

AbigailII: Isn't this game already solved?
On the other hand, it still seems to be better balanced than Horde or Maharajah Chess.

Caissus: No more patents, please.
http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/falconpatent.html

Nasmichael: Too much resources for the comments script? It cannot consume more resources than BK's discussion board system :-)

Nasmichael: I guess we are talking about this guy, right?

nabla: Thanks, I'll give it a try.

Nasmichael: Please let me know if you get some info from Hans Boedlander.

Nasmichael: Still the same error message.

Spirou: That's a pity. Does anybody have a contact of chessvariants.org owners? They could move the site to our servers.

When I try to open http://chessvariants.org it is redirected to a different page with this text:
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account suspended

Your account has been suspended. We have sent you an email explaining why. This email should also contain information on how you can unsuspend your account.
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Does anybody know what's going on there?

Does anybody know this variant? Is it playable and well balanced?

nabla: I consider both variations.

Nasmichael: Thanks but this strategy is too complicated for me. I was only asking for a clarificarion of pawn promotes in this variant, with a simple example. I don't have time to study anything longer.

AbigailII: Thanks. I've just wanted to make sure I don't misunderstand it.

Can anybody explain this rule to me?

"Promoting a pawn: You can move (rather than drop) a pawn onto an eighth-rank square, but only if your opponent's prison contains a queen, rook, bishop or knight. The pawn at once vacates the square, going into the prison. You then carry out the promotion by filling the vacated square with whichever you choose of the queen, rook, bishop or knight."

So I can promote a pawn only to a piece which is contained in the opponent's prison? And the promoting pawn goes to the opponent's prison, being exchanged for the piece to promote to?

I don't think there should be always a new idea. Have a look at hyper backgammon, how popular it became although it's just a simplified copy of standard backgammon with no additional rules.

What about this one? Interesting and playable or not?

AbigailII: To a queen, of course :-)

Caissus: So, some restrictions should be applied, I guess. Promoting pawns only to the piece of their start column would be interesting.

Caissus: Like what, for example? [variants]

Luke Skywalker: But it doesn't have to mean the game is well balanced.

Nasmichael: I am not against but currently I don't have time for more complicated games.

Hmmm, and what about the rule of promoting pawns only to the piece of their start column? For example, A and H pawns can promote only to rooks, etc.

So what's the conclusion, is the game playable?

Chessmaster1000: Good work, now the game can be implemented on BK :-D

andreas: Aaaa, it's a pity, the game looked interesting to me.