Would anyone like to play Modern Chess? It's Chess on a 9x9 board with an extra Prime Minister (or Minister/Archbishop = B + N) and a 9th pawn. It looks like fun.

http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DModern+Chess%26settings%3DModern+Chess


While in the original setup both Bishops start up in the dark squares, there is a "Bishop-Castling" rule in this game which allows a player to swap places for one (and only one) of the Bishops with the adjacent Knight, Queen or Minister, therefore ending up with a Bishop on the light squares, just like in normal chess. The Bishop castling is optional though, and if one feels that playing with both Bishops on the dark squares is better, they can do so.

If you are interested, send me a PM.

Location: BrainKing
T0029 Points 1 2 3 Country
1. Jean-Marc Hebrard 3 - 2 1 France
2. Maurice Laplanc 2 0 - 2 France
3. Leonardo Alvarado 1 1 0 - Guatemala

Location: BrainKing
T0030 Points 1 2 3 Country
1. Reinhard Scharnagl 4 - 2 2 Germany
2. Leonardo Alvarado 1.5 0 - 1.5 Guatemala
3. Larry Shannon 0.5 0 0.5 - U.S.A.

Congratulations to Jean-Marc and Reinhard on their wins!

Location: BrainKing
KO-0006
1. open
2. open
3. open
4. open
5. open
6. open
7. open
8. open


** Looking for FRCEC members for KO-0006 **

To join the KO:

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or send me a private message.

FRCEC Homepage:
http://frcec.ches960.info/

Fischerandom Chess email Club
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BrainKing's Top 10 players - February 2005
(minimum 1 finished game)

Rating Member Name Country W-L-D
01 1622 José Carrillo Puerto Rico 50-24-10
02 1572 Markus Nemetz Austria 5-1-1
03 1558 Uwe Kreuzer Germany 3-0-0
04 1556 Daniel Lostlyrics Germany 3-0-0
05 1545 Maurice Laplanc France 6-3-0
06 1530 Filip Rachunek Czech Republic 2-0-0
07 1529 Jean-Marc Hebrard France 3-2-0
08 1512 Larry Shannon USA 2-2-0
09 1507 Raúl Eduardo Palacio Argentina 10-11-0
10 1490 Vincenzo Dell Italy 0-1-0

Fischerandom Chess email Club
(http://frcec.ches960.info/)

BrainKing's Top 10 players - February 2005
(minimum 1 finished game)

Rating Member Name Country Origin W-L-D
1 1634 José Carrillo Puerto Rico 44-20-10
2 1558 Uwe Kreuzer Germany 3-0-0
3 1516 Daniel Lostlyrics Germany 1-0-0
4 1512 Larry Shannon USA 2-2-0
5 1505 Sagi Gabay USA 2-2-1
6 1500 Markus Nemetz Austria 1-1-1
7 1490 Vincenzo Dell Italy 0-1-0
8 1489 Jean-Marc Hebrard France 0-1-0
9 1488 Michael Farris USA 2-3-3
10 1486 Reinhard Scharnagl Bavaria 0-1-0

The term Smothered Mate is applied to a checkmate by a knight where the opposing king is "smothered" by his own pieces.

Has anyone heard of this term for a checkmate by any other piece?

I was rating the following game for our club:
http://brainking.com/game/ArchivedGame?g=662445

and realized that the mated King is in a way smothered by his own pieces as well.

Can this be considered a smothered mate?

Jose Carrillo
FRCEC Moderator
http://frcec.chess960.info/

Sumerian/Caissus: You keep identifying bugs in the coding of FRC castling!

Good hopefully the developers will correct the code someday.

I can't understand why so many different cases of software allowing castling in this case, as the FRC castling rules are clear.

I hope we all agree though, that by the raw definition of FRC castilng, in this situation, castling is illegal.

Caissus: I have tried out it with "Arena" and "Compochess".Both programs allow the castling in this position.

It's a bug in the code.

Chessmaster1000: Nope, white can't castle.

This position doesn't meet one of the requirements for castling:

Unattacked: All of the squares between the king's initial and final squares (including the initial and final squares) must not be under attack by any opposing piece.

Check FRCEC's Castling Page with rules and examples at:
http://frcec.chess960.info/FRC-Castling.htm

Now, your question has given me an idea! In our Castling page we only provide examples of positions where castling is legal.

I'm going to add a section of positions where castling is illegal! and I'll start with your example.

Thanks for the idea!

Jose Carrillo-Muniz
FRCEC Moderator
http://frcec.chess960.info/

Fischerandom Chess email Club Announces our current events!

Visit our homepage at:
http://frcec.tripod.com

Visit our Different Event Pages at:
http://frcec.tripod.com/Trio.htm
http://frcec.tripod.com/Quad.htm
http://frcec.tripod.com/KnockOut.htm
http://frcec.tripod.com/Dropout.htm

- Events in progress -

FRCEC Trios:

Location: BrainKing
T0024 Points 1 2 3 Country
1. Jose Carrillo 0 - * * Puerto Rico
2. Markus Nemetz 0 * - * Austria
3. Jean-Marc Hebrard 0 * * - France
(6 games still in progress)

Location: BrainKing
T0027 Points 1 2 3 Country
1. Filip Rachunek 0 - * * Czech Republic
2. Markus Nemetz 0 * - * Austria
3. Sagi Gabay 0 * * - USA
(6 games still in progress)

- Events Recruiting -

FRCEC Trios:

Location: BrainKing
T0028 Points 1 2 3 Country
1. open
2. open
3. open

FRCEC Quads:

Location: BrainKing
Q0006 Points 1 2 3 4 Country
1. open
2. open
3. open
4. open

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Location: BrainKing
KO-0006
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3. open
4. open
5. open
6. open
7. open
8. open

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Location: BrainKing
DP0004 - recruiting
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To subscribe to FRCEC send an email to:
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For the benefit of everyone:
http://frcec.tripod.com/FRC-Castling.htm

Sumerian: Chess960 is the new name of FRC You mean it's another name for Fischerandom Chess. I don't think Chess960 has caught on that well yet.

I like AbigaiIII approach better than everyone in a tournament playing the same position.

Although I rather like each game in the tournament to be different. That's how we play in FRCEC.

The Fischerandom Chess email Club (FRCEC) welcomes BrainKing to the family of chess sites that support FRC in the net.

Visit FRCEC's homepage at:
http://frcec.tripod.com

To subscribe to FRCEC, send an email to:
frcec-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

The following FRCEC sanctioned events are now recruiting players, and will be played in their entirety in BrainKing.com



FRCEC Trio mini-tournaments

To join a Trio send an email to:
frcec-trio@yahoogroups.com

Currently recruiting for:

Location: BrainKing
T0024 Points 1 2 3 Country
1. open
2. open
3. open



FRCEC Quad mini-tournaments

To join a Quad send an email to:
frcec-quad@yahoogroups.com

Currently recruiting for:

Location: BrainKing
Q0004 Points 1 2 3 4 Country
1. open
2. open
3. open
4. open




FRCEC KnockOut Tournaments

Visit our KO's page at: http://frcec.tripod.com/KnockOut.htm

To join a KO send an email to:
frcec-ko@yahoogroups.com

Currently recruiting for:

Location: BrainKing
KO-0006
1. open
2. open
3. open
4. open
5. open
6. open
7. open
8. open



FRCEC Dropout Tournament

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To join a Dropout send an email to:
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Currently recruiting for:

Location: BrainKing
DP0004 - recruiting
1. open

Fencer: Here is a link to the flag: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/pr.html

Silly question, how come all my opponents have a flag next to their name, and mine (Puerto Rico) is not showing?

Fencer: Are you creating a new discussion board dedicated to the FRC variant?

Fencer: Not sure how that works. Can you explain?

I started 2 FRC games, with 30 days time control. After 1 move the days left jumped to over 40. Is this correct? Did I setup a parameter wrong when I created the games?

I'm playing an Orthodox chess game (which I started in the before FRC era in BrainKing :-) and the game is well in progress, and we only have 27 days left. This looks more normal.

Fencer: The standard chess opening position is indeed a legal Fischerandom position, but anyone who wants to play it, will play regular chess.

Having it available for Fischerandom defeats the reason of the creation of FRC.

Trust me, FRC players don't play FRC hoping to get the orthodox starting position.

Fencer: I actually use different positions in my FRCEC tournaments.

While there are some positions that are better for one side than the other, its a matter of luck to get a superior position than another one played by someone else in the tournament.

And since there is no standard opening theory in FRC, for us FRC players, one position isn't any better than another. It's a matter of the luck of the draw.

I would make it an option in your tournaments, same opening for all, or random positions everytime.

Make sure though that its not possible to draw randomly the standard chess opening.

Fencer: Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!!!

I'm glad to see you incorporated my suggestion regarding castling! :-)

I'll anounce this excellent news in our club, and start promoting FRC events in BrainKing immediately!

Thanks again Fencer!

And thanks to Caissus for introducing BraingKing to FRCEC.

Jose Carrillo
FRCEC Moderator
http://frcec.tripod.com/

Fencer: How about a King move to the square with the Rook you want to castle with? Since the King can't capture a rook of it's own color, this could be the signal a player wants to castle. If its legal for the King to castle with that particular rook, the engine should proceed and castle, otherwise an error message of illegal castling. Just an idea...

Hi Fencer:

I know that what you want is to increase the number of paying members, but I believe the best way to do that is to provide the players more choices, and restrict them in the number of games they can play. If they like the interface, and they want to play more they will keep coming and some players will indeed pay.

We at the Fischerandom Chess email Club are willing to promote FRC matches and tournaments in BrainKing, but FRC is still not available.

FRCEC has many members that are paying members in other Chess servers, so I'm sure once my members start using your interface, some will be very interested and will keep coming, and some will become paying members.

Best wishes in the New Year!

Jose Carrillo
FRCEC Moderator
http://frcec.tripod.com/

Hi Caissus,

FRCEC is a club for Fischerandom chess players around the world to meet and play this chess variant among the different chess servers in the net that support this variation.

At FRCEC we do not (and do not intend to) have a FRC playing interface that competes against any of the other chess servers in the net.

Instead we promote playing FRC in all the different chess servers by arranging matches and mini-tournaments among our players in any of the chess servers out there.

It is our members own choice to join any or all the chess servers in the net that support FRC to play their games.

What FRCEC does do, is to keep an universal correspondence FRC ELO rating that is updated whenever they play a FRC game regardless of the chess server or servers they use to play their games.

So if our members play games in 2 or more chess servers, their FRCEC rating gets updated each time they finish a game in any one of the serevrs they choose to play.

FRCEC is a new club, only started in April 2004. We currently have 53 members representing 25 countries around the wolrd.

I can't guarantee that our members would play mainly in any particular chess server, as it is complety their choice to join any of all the servers that we are aware that support FRCEC.

Becoming paying members is also their choice. We do have members that are paying members in some of the chess servers that play FRC, but this is totally their choice because they enjoy playing in that particular chess server.

Jose Carrillo
FRCEC Moderator
http://frcec.tripod.com/

Does BrainKing.com plan to support the FRC variation?

I run the Fischerandom Chess eMail Club (http://frcec.tripod.com), and I'm looking for different servers to promote the game among the members of the club.

Let me know if you will entertain FRC in your site, so that I can start promoting BrainKing immediately FRC becomes available.

Screen chess is no good to setup FRC positions as it doesn't allow castling or en passant.

Thanks.

Jose Carrillo
FRCEC Moderator
http://frcec.tripod.com/