King Pyrhus: maybe first screen capture/snapshot and then print the resulting file

Embassy Chess (Walter Montego vs. Beleg)

This recently completed game has me wondering if my 17th move was sound. I moved 17 B G3-I5. My opponent captured the Bishop with his Rook Pawn and the rest of the moves led to a forced checkmate. I had plans for many other moves he might make, but I can't say for sure if he could've made me pay a price for this move, or if I had all the bases covered.

Walter Montego: Looks like no decent square for the attacked Marshall, but what would you play on Nc5 attacking your Queen and making a bit of room for the black Q and K?

Beren the 32nd:

I was going to reply B × B E4-H7, but this won't work after you move the Knight. I'll think some on it.

Hi to everyone!
Are there some recources about Embassy Chess around the Net? Are there already some theory, named openings and such? I would be thankful for every bit of info about EC.
Thanks in advance.

Pankratos: I know a bit about its history and how it got its name. I have proposed naming the two halves of the board, the Royalside (A-E) and the Courtside (F-J).

The castling on this site isn't quite right, but it works. The King when castled should either move next to the Rook, or be one space from the Rook. Notated on the Royalside as O-B, or O-C, and O-H, or O-I on the Courtside. As compared to how it is done on this site of just moving the King three squares toward the Rook and its adoption of the regular Chess notation, O-O ans O-O-O. It's a minor thing, as castling isn't as good of a plan for some reason, but this would fix the play and give the King a bit of space and some options. As you can imagine, adding two powerful pieces to the board really causes the King trouble.

The name comes from Modern Bird's Chess. MBC abbreviated instead of EC, and from there it is easy to say Em-ba-ssy. Henry Bird invented his version of the game in 1874. I do not know if he knew of Carrera Chess from 1617, yes Sixteen-seventeen, or not. About 50 or 60 years later Capablanca experimented with these pieces on 10 × 10 and 10 × 8 sized boards. Embassy Chess is from 2005. Its initial position is an attempt to find the best placement of the pieces at the start of the game, which a few players through the times found flaws in Bird's and Capablanca's set ups. The pieces are similarly lined up as in Grand Chess from I believe 1974, but played on a 10 × 8 with castling and regular Pawn promotion rules.

There is a symmetry to the pieces, and it balances all of the moving ways equally. Four pieces move as Rooks, four as Bishops, and four as Knights. The initial set up has all Pawns guarded at least once by a piece not counting the King. The Rook moving pieces guard the corners and the King. The Bishop moving pieces cover the squares diagonally equally from each side of the board.

As for opening theory, I have played a few games with White using the Queen's Pawn opening. Unfortunately I am not a strong enough player to see the depth on the many variations. Embassy Chess is a lot deeper than meets the eye, especially when compared to regular Chess. Many of the ideas of regular Chess carry over to Embassy Chess. The wider board can make the end game a bit different in many situations. Atrotos Atrotos made some videos notating a few games. I believe he posted the links if you scroll down a bit. 8 posts from here.

Knights can be very weak in the end game, especially if near the edge of the board. There's a few charts and studies of the relative strengths of the pieces on various sized boards. For the 10 × 8 sized board, Reinhard Scharnagl and Ed Trice calculated differing values for them. I use a modified chart that's easy to remember, but for the most part you can use the regular Chess chart keeping the Marshall and Cardinal at values just less than the Queen. The Marshall is a very strong piece, almost the strength of the Queen. The Cardinal is almost as strong as the Marshall. Very mobile from the start, unlike the Marshall which can have trouble with a closed position.

Here's the simplified chart.

9 = Queen
8 = Marshall
7 = Cardinal
5 = Rook
3¼ = Bishop
3 = Knight
1 = Pawn

Experience will show you when to think differently about trades based on these numbers. The Bishops and Knights can vary a lot and some players devalue the Knight to 2½ or 2¾. The Cardinal losses a lot of its strength when in the corner. As for the other charts, I think they can be found somewhere in the depths of this discussion board, or maybe you can try Reinhard Scharnagl who is SMIRF Engine on this site. SMIRF Engine He wrote a program to play many of the 10 × 8 Chess variants and also created Capablanca Random Chess.

According to the setup rules, the author later added the restriction that bishops could not be placed right next to each other to prevent White from having too much of a first move advantage.

Can this restriction be applies to the game on the server? It seems a lot of setups result in bishops neighboring each other.

Clandestine 1: Wow!

Though I always thought he was a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder http://psychology.about.com/od/personalitydisorders/a/narcissisticpd.htm I am still quite amazed by the link you have enclosed, Clandestine! I am tripping on this, and do not know what to make of it. I had many run-ins with him back when he was active on this discussion board, but it has been very quiet for many years now.

It does explain some of his actions towards Embassy Chess, and maybe why some of his early followers did some of the dirty work for him. I wonder where the story will end? That link's posters have leveled some serious charges and accusations against him. The timestamps are current or only a few months old.

incredibly recently. Interesting

Clandestine 1: lol poor Ed.

The Chess Club (1. December 2013, 12:42:24)
if you´re not a member, ask me to enter the fellowship.

Dear friends:
Trying to promote new memberships for my fellowship (the Chess Club), I´ve created this Prize tourney:
The Chess Club (1. December 2013, 12:42:24)
Please feel free to invite all your friends (they must require membership to enter)
Regards,
tenuki.

A new superchess tournament will be played on 22 / 3 in Zaandam, the netherlands 12:30

Free to enter-- No prize offered

Yes, it has been seventeen years since I last created a two game round robin tournament. I might also get a few of the other games I did through 2004 to 2006 Dark Chess, Extinction Chess, and Janus Chess. The most attended of the Quarterly tournaments was the Third Quarter Dark Chess Number 3 with 31 entries. I offered a year's Rook membership as a prize in that tournament. I might start doing that again. We'll see.

I have been hoping that Fencer would correct the castling movement, though the game plays well as it is. Same thing with the notation used as some of it is from the Gothic Chess change over of 2005. So Marshall is C and Cardinal is A for those of us that use the notation as compared to the figures.

The time parameters will afford you eight days to bank, and you'll need to move three or four times per week if your opponent moves fast to not have your time lower. You may certainly play faster. :)

2023 Second Quarter Open Number 3 Embassy Chess

The tournament has finished.

Zak is the winner
He went undefeated with 12-0 Win/Loss record.

A three way tie for second at 8-4
kurtovec, audrey-king, and Walter Montego

2023 Second Quarter Open Number 3 Embassy Chess

Thank you all for playing. I will be organizing another Embassy Chess tournament in the coming weeks. I'll post here, and also go through the list I had from the last tournament invitations.

2023 Fourth Quarter Open Number 4 Embassy Chess

Free to enter-- No prize offered

I have been hoping that Fencer would correct the castling movement, though the game plays well as it is. Same thing with the notation used as some of it is from the Gothic Chess change over of 2005. So Marshall is C and Cardinal is A for those of us that use the notation as compared to the figures.

I have slightly modified the time parameters, it probably won't be noticeable to anyone that played in the 2023 Second Quarter tournament.

If anyone would like me to add more tournament game types to this list before this tournament starts, drop a line and we'll see. It will have all of the parameters of this tournament. I think I have until the start of this tournament to add any more games.

Update for the 2023 Fourth Quarter Open Number 4 Embassy Chess tournement.

Section 1 is complete. Congratulations to ScaryMonster. He won every game to finish 8-0.
Second place ended tied with last quarter's champion Zak tying newcomer to Embassy Chess basplund.
They both finished 5-3 and split their two games with each other.
grmange and Walter Montego got spanked by those three players to finish the section.

2023 Fourth Quarter Open Number 4 Embassy Chess

There's one game left to finish in Section 2.

The sections are complete for the first round of the 2023 Fourth Quarter Open Number 4 Embassy Chess.

2023 Fourth Quarter Open Number 4 Embassy Chess

It will be ScaryMonster (8-0) versus kurtovec (6½ -1½) in a one game match for the championship.

Section 2 had kurtovec and andrey-king playing for a spot in the next round when dp13 won a game from each of them to keep it even between them. kurtover received 1½ to andrey-king's ½ in their match and moved into the final round.

There's been some interesting games in this tournament. I hope the last game is a good one.

I will be starting up a new tournament soon. I will also get some other types of games going. I'll post here, and in those other game's appropriate discussion board when I have created them.
Thank you for playing and viewing.

The 2023 Fourth Quarter Open Number 4 Embassy Chess has concluded.
ScaryMonster won the deciding game. It ended with a Queen and Bishop end game and the Pawns deciding
it when ScaryMonster infiltrated kurtovec's position after kurtivec captured an offered Pawn on move 52. I
originally thought ScaryMonster's move 52 was not good, but after looking the position over it was a great
move and it did not matter how kurtovec captured the Pawn his defense was going to be breached.

The position at the end of move 51
Embassy Chess (ScaryMonster vs. kurtovec)

Thank you all for playing and watching the tournament. I have not yet organized a new tournament.
Let me know if you're interested. I'll see about getting a new one going soon.