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lukulus: chess variants are so refreshing ... I cannot stand playing first 10 or so moves in traditional game ... it's like singing the same song over and over again. This is me. There are different personalities ... and what I discovered recently is playing with dice ... to my big surprise there are many very interesting situations during the game of dice chess ... and yet you do not have to spend hours on analyzing your next move ... it's more like backgammon, where you know immediately (in most cases) what to play ... it's more dynamic and more fun.
Pioneer54: and I agree with you for the most part ... I am familiar with chess variants web site, I am registered inventor there ... it's a matter of some psychological portrait we have ... I would rather play everyday something new than dig into the same game day after day ... to the point that I would remove my own piece to make it more exiting and new. On the other hand if traditional chess would be such a perfect game, there would't be so many thousands of variants ... there would be no need for it. And because there are different kind of pieces in chess set it calls for playing variety ... there a only few versions or form of GO ... why ? Is it a perfect game or GO pieces are limited in what can be done with them ?
wetware: because for most of us we are proud HUMANS playing the ONLY GAME THERE IS of chess and we taste WHISKEY (do not drink) ... and poor apes play chess variants and snore cocaine ... you are right, people are funny, not only that way ...
AbigailII: this is only convincing me that we are "indoctrinated" by official chess world ... traditional chess position and role in modern world reminds me of catholic church position within christian world ... the strongest, the wisest, and the more corrupted entity (?)... and most of believers do not even try to touch something different ... most chess players do not even know variants exist ... but luckily there are brilliant minds that want to go beyond traditional path ... we learn chess at very young age and that's good, but on the other hand it makes us prisoners of tradition ... and it's so hard to break the chains of it ... I am amazed by the wealth of ideas that variants bring and it will not take very long that the rules will be modified to make this game more dynamic, less mechanical ... Newton's world and understanding is gone, why chess is still in 17 century ? it puzzles me ... sure, it will be played and enjoyed forever but the crack is being made, bigger and bigger ... I am not the only one who cannot play e2-e4 without asking WHY not e-5 ?
I would like to invite you to discuss the future of traditional chess ... I am studying chess variants for years, inventing variants and came to a conclusion ... traditional chess is simply boring ... there is something repealing in this game ... over and over again the same openings and I wish every game started somewhere in the middle ... this is why I play mostly variants and the more crazy the better for me ... playing just one variant of chess (which is traditional form) is like playing the same music all the time ...who can stand it ? can you ? I cannot ... musical notes and chess pieces have many similarities and they can and should be used in a number of ways ... Fisher Random Chess is a step into right direction, but even this novelty is somewhat boring ... chess evolve all the time and not very long time ago there were no castling, en passant and even a queen didn't move the way we know it moves today ... so, let's look at chess as something ever changing and accept, that we play only a variant of cosmic chess idea ... I would appreciate your thoughts ...
there are several variants on this theme ... one of them is below ... what is interesting, it uses the same principle as Connect6 ... white moves once and the next moves are just double moves by both sides ... it would be nice to have this version here, at brainking ...
coan.net: I stopped chasing queens ... there is plenty of opportunities to capture them later in the game ... what I am looking for is to save one or two of my own queens from attacks ... and keept them safe for later use ... thanks for your bishop tip ... general tactics should be to move your pieces to the center of the board to maximize their capturing power ... your bishop is an excellent example ...
wetware: it would be interesting to see this branching in some way ... I am pretty sure the beginning of the game is just planting the seeds for a victory ... we are unable to make any optimal move ... the only thing we can do is to think about areas of the board to find some group of opponent's pieces and try to isolate them and make them "dead" ... but, as far as I know computers CANNOT compete with master GO players ... at least for now ...simply too many branching ... so maybe there is a chance for us in Massacre Chess ... well, I didn't know I created a monster ... Andy.
Here are some hints I would like to share with you ... 1. Capturing queens first looks natural ... they have the most capturing power and should be elimintaed first ... 2. Try to capture pieces with the most capturing power (they may capture in many directions) ... 3. Try to avoid capturing pieces that are dead in regards their capturing power ... they are not dangerous to your pieces right now ... 4. Try to capture in such a way that you position your piece in a place that is not attacked by enemy pieces ... bur you still can attack ... 5. Try to capture and move at the same time to the middle of the board ... this way you increase your capturing power ... pieces left on the edge of the board often are without this power ... 6. Always look for "open doors" after you capture ... it means looking for more capturing power ... 7. Be careful while capturing and opening lines of capture for enemy pieces ... it's very often ovelooked and changes situaton on the board dramatically ... I hope it will help all of you to play well Masacre Chess ... One more thing ... the seed for success in this game is planted in the first 16 moves (one fourth of the moves) ... it may not be so obvious but to master this game you need to use your imagination and intuition from the very first move ... Initial position is a real jungle, I must admit ... this is why I stated somewhere else that the computer will always win this game with humans ... unless ... Cheers, Andy.
coan.net: I think it didn't changed a lot .... for unexperienced players Black still has an advantage ... there is one or two tricks you have to discover to play well with White ... and this is the reason Pedro Martinez is talking about it ...
I am trying to find a nice and elegant solution to my "unfortunate" , not symetrical Cheversi ... one thing is certain ... the problem is in the last attacking move for Black where White are left without any weapon to counterattack ... we were trying to offset this difficulty by "punishing" Black and forcing them to lose their most powerful piece, Queen, at the very beginning of the game ... it didn't work, Black still had long-range pieces to make the killing move ... there seams to be only one solution to this dillema ... just to create a rule that forbid Black to use any long-range figure in the last move ... in another words, the only piece that can be used in a last move by Black is King ... it looks fair, Black has the freedom of the last move but it cannot be left without any guard from White, and the only guard is a weakness of the last used piece ... We have to also remove the first mandatory move for Black side, still keeping White opening as KIng ... so, the whole answer into Cheversi problem is found at the end of the game, not in the very beginning ... I was thinking about some othe restriction, like forcing both sides to play Kings as last moves, or even forced bothe sides to follow some kind of chain of moves in the last phase of the game, but it would be to limiting for the freedom of the game ... *** Summary: remove the first mandatory move for Black side, keep mandatory move for White (KIng) and force Black to use only King as a last pieces in the whole game ... So, what do we have now ? White cannot attack at the very beginning, Black cannot attak at the very end of the game ... seams, that the whole battle will take place in the middle of the game ... both sides may wait for the 7th (for Black) and 8th (for White) move to use their Queens, or may chose to use them somewhat earlier ... game can be defensive from the very beginning or agressive, depending on how Black will move and, of course, how White will follow ... These new rules will ensure that there is some kind of symetry and distribution of power ... there is no ideal game for both sides, look at chess, reversi, five in a row, renju ... there is always some problem ... I hope my new rules King FIrst/King Last will make this game more enjoyable. Regards, Andy.
Fencer, would it be possible to test the game Cheversi on a 6x6 board ? What I think, by eliminating some rows and columns we could eliminate the power of the last Black move ? Regards, Andy.
I opened 8 Cheversi games and I play White, the color that loses ... I want to test the game deeply ... please accept these games, risk is on my site deliberately ... We know that after the first moves (White King and Black Queen) Black has the big advantage, but at the same time it loses his/her best piece ... What is tactic for White now ? To block powerful Black Queen with Knights or use Bishops to block and reach for many points at the same time ? I want to try these two ways of play ... one thing is certain to me now ... White better start attacking to the point, that Black in the last move has to stop last White piece and White should chose such an attacking square in which Back wouldn't be able to gain many points ... Please accept my challenge. Andy.
Should the initial number of points, even before the first move, be displayed and taken into overall count, or not ? Who should move first, just White like in any other chess variants, or maybe, the one who has MOST points, to offset the last opponent's move ? Or maybe just a player who has less points before the game starts ? The depth of Random Cheversi is completely unknown and we cannot judge which color has a real advantage ... the one (White which attacks) or Black (which has the last move) . Or maybe we should add 16 more moves (8 each) and let the players put their pieces one by one on the board and then start moving them (one by one again) and collect points ? I am in a the eye of brain storming ... waiting for your opinions. Andy.
this number is so great that there is not possible to even touch the "debiut theory" ... colorful game, never the same (compare to any other board game). Thanks Abigaill.
when I started to think about improving Cheversi I cannot stop, lol ... one thing is for sure with random placement of the pieces ... someone will have an advantage from the very beginning ... does this advantage really mean much ? Look at Ludo for example ... the other thing is, that with random placement White (starting color) has usual advantage as a first player (leader) like in Five in a row, or Reversi ... but Black has the last move which balances this advantage by White ... To play well random placement Cheversi is a real art and I think that computer power should be emplyed in order to solve this game ... by the way, can you calculate how many different placemet of 16 pieces can be on a board with 64 squares ... ? This is how many starting positions we may have. In our lifetimes we will never encounter the same position. And this makes Random Cheversi an exciting game. and that's it for now. Andy.
here is another idea ... let the program randomly put all the pieces on the board. Players then move their pieces, one by one, and the piece that just moved becomes "dead" for the rest of the game. After each move a score for a player is updated. The number of possible moves and responses is astronomical ... the one advantage I can see now by using this version is as follow: as a White I can choose such a move that Black player wouldn't be able to block my paths and I can gain advantage righ away, which is impossible with the current version simply because a Black player is able to block my long shot wit any "weak" piece ... by having pieces randomly on the board I can manouver much more freely ... I think we should give it a try. What do you think ? Andy.
how about changing the whole philosophy of the game, reverse the goal and state that the winner is one who has the least points after the last move ? Regards, Andy.
there is some problem with this site right now. But it will be ok, this is a serious site. Yes, the last move may be very interesting and the second from the last also and so up the staires to the first move. How about adding another interesting feature to the above, original rules: move has to be with like figures. When started with a King, a King has to follow, after a Bishop, another Bishop has to follow ... Regards, Andy.
yes, it looks there is infinite number of different path to improve Cheversi ... but I am coming to a conclusion, that the original (published at chessvariants) version would work fine. White in the last move can force very limited numbers of ways for Black to respond ... this way the last black's move wouldn't have to be a killer one. What do you think about this. Andy.
it's interesting and kind of satisfying that the game of cheversi stirs so much brain power of our friends. My original idea was to play this game with all the pieces (including pawns) ... it could be really crowded and situation can change very rapidly. Now, look please at the original rules I posted to chessvariants page. The rules say that a piece can be put ONLY on a square attacked by the opponent in the last move. I suggested to Fencer to play variant no.3 where tyhe player is free to chose any square. Maybe the original version was the best idea I had ... in this way I can influence greatly the moves of my opponent, forcing him/her to some unwanted positions ... Now I can see that too much freedom is not freedom at all. Please read the original rule. http://www.chessvariants.com/crossover.dir/cheversi.html
how about using a dice ? this what, as I remember, Big Bad Wolf was suggesting long time ago ... 2-knight, 3-bishop, 4-rook, 5-queen, 6-king and 1-joker (any piece chosen) ... and like in Dice Chess, program would detect which piece is still available to play ... Or, this is something I was suggesting ... that maybe this game should be played on a 6x6 board ... making it more crowded and difficult to get the long shot in the last move ... What do you think ? Andy.