Here is an unusual checkmate in Janus chess where the Janus checkmates alone. Has anyone seen a similar case?

http://brainking.com/es/ArchivedGame?g=1486931

I thought I had posted this invitation in every chess variant. I don't see it in this board, so I thought that maybe I overlooked to do it, or it got erased.

A tournament has been created to honor Mr. Ed Trice:

http://brainking.com/game/Tournaments?trg=8217

Let's hope Mr. Trice joins every chess variant. His intelligence and courage will be a a great asset in this endeavour.

A tournament has been created to honor Mr. Ed Trice:

http://brainking.com/game/Tournaments?trg=8217

Let's hope Mr. Trice joins. His intelligence and courage will be a a great asset in this endeavour.

Walter, I want to publicly resign as moderator. Please remove me.

Come on little Klingons, now play nice.

Were we off topic? Of course we were. Does it matter? Not really.

Let's lighten up a little. It does not matter if we are a little off topic. Read most boards. Half of the things posted are not on topic.

If Bumble points it out, he is right, but that is alright, no big deal.

And if Bumble does not play that much Gothic Chess, that is alright too. People play what they want and what they enjoy. It is a free world.

And the name calling? Why let personal animosities get in the way of fun?

Has it occurred to you all that when you go on like this on the board I am the one who gets the complaints as personal messages?

We are all in the same boat here, trying to stave off the daily routine by playing games and having some fun. Remember? F-U-N, unless you enjoy spilling your bile, and what is worse, mine too.

As moderator, I hate hiding people and I hate editing posts. Should I turn this into the Poetry Board, where posts are pre-approved?

Nothing is better for a Gothic Chess warrior than a bottle of Iwhikh and a plate full of Gokh.

Iwhikh = Klingon blood wine
Gokh = Klingon live worms, the perfect snack

Oh, I have a sense of humor. If I didn't, I would hide everyone, like they do in the poetry board.

Being a moderator is not easy. On the one hand, we want to avoid flame wars and personal insults. On the other hand, we don't want to be Fascists who deny people freedom of expression.

Initially I hid Ughaibu's post because it was an attempt to provoke Ed Trice. I know there are players who dislike the Gothic Chess patent. I will be honest and say I am one of them. However, I don't like personal attacks either. As a moderator I am suppossed to be impartial and put my feelings aside. To say I find all this extremely difficult is an understatement.

After some careful thought, I decided to lift the hide on Ughaibu's posts. If Ed is insulted he can defend himself publicly. Reader's can make up their mind as to who is right or wrong.

We should all learn to ignore these things. We are suppossed to be adults.

Ughaibu: Have you been downing that bad scotch again? No need to be insulting mate.

Ed: No need to be offended. We are too old to be drawn into childish arguments.

Ughaibu: I didn't know you like betting at the ponies. Did you lose any money?

If we look at the original INPADOC application listing you can check the legal status and you will find that the code give is PRS 18. The text of such code gives different reasons and we cannot keep guessing. Mr. Trice and his legal representative in Europe are the only ones who know. The point in this is that the European patent has not yet been awarded.

The patent in the USA is available at the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office. That patent's legal status is "awarded" and it was reviewed by two examiners.

In fairness to Mr. Trice, regardless of how much some people dislike the fact that the patent exists, he is not the first person to patent a chess variant. The examiners of his patent in the US saw enough originality and merit to award the patent to him.

As I mentioned below, member states of the WTO are suppossed to respect the patents under the TRIPS agreement. There is also a Patent Law Treaty which seeks to harmonize patent law across members of the WTO that have agreed to the treaty.

Of course, all these international treaties and agreements are useless unless countries make specific provisions in their own laws to enforce patent rights given in others countries. This leaves many grey areas in the law because at this time enforcement is soft. For example, the Gothic chess patent is protected in the USA. Does that mean that it is protected outside the USA? What about a website that offers the game worldwide? Maybe the website breaks the law in the USA, but what about other countries? These are issues that only judges in courts of law can resolve.

I mention these laws and agreements because I really like this website and the last thing I want to see is Fencer get into trouble and having him spend his money in legal fees. He already suffers enough with players opening multiple Pawn accounts or players not getting enough Rook memberships.

Many of players enjoy Gothic chess and many players want to see the game stay here. However, for Fencer having to deal with all the bickering and arguing is tiring too. I suggest we let the matter rest. Mr. Trice has a patent in the USA and while the patent is there, it is for him to decide what he does with it. It is also for Fencer to decide what he keeps in Brain King.

If some people are sad to see Gothic chess go, remember that there is about 50 other games you can play, plus other variants that Fencer could introduce in the future.

In reality it all depends on how strong enforcement is in the Czech Republic and the European Union. However, the rights conferred to the holder of the patent and the conditions under which the patent can be used without licensing are all given in Section 5 of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Article 1 of the TRIPS Agreement gives the member countries the ability to determine how the agreement will be enforced within their own legal systems. At this point it is where we reach the grey area. If a member country has made no provisions for enforcing the TRIPS Agreement, then patents and other forms of intellectual property can be left dangling in the air. There are examples in the Interpretations of the Agreement for cases where disputes have arisen but generally these involve countries rather than individuals. At least on paper member countries are supposed to enforce the agreement. Whether it happens in practice is a different story.

This issue of patent rights was discussed last year. You have to realize that any country that is part of the World Trade Organization is bound by the agreement to respect patent rights in other countries. All countries in the European Union are part of the WTO; therefore, the Gothic Chess patent is legally binding in those countries. In other words, the BK website has to renew the license before it can continue offering Gothic Chess to its members. Until we don't hear officially from the owners of the website, we cannot tell whether the license will be renewed or not. Speculating on the matter is of no use to anyone.

Try http://www.gothicchess.at

The problem is that a user was openly blamed for it, and he did not do it. I merely seek to clarify that. In the moment Ed Trice mentioned somebody by name, as a moderator I have no choice but to make it clear that Stevie did not do it.

I want you all to know that the matter of the insulting e-mail received by Ed Trice is under investigation. There is a player in the website with a user name similar to that of the sender of the e-mail. It is possible that these two individuals are one and the same. To my knowledge the individual in question is not a moderator. At this point it has been determined elsewhere that the sender of the e-mail was not Stevie. I wanted to clarify this, simply because it would be unfair to blame Stevie for something he did not do.

The reason why chess games often end up in draws is because it has been studied so much. Any standard opening book will now show openings analyzed to over 20 moves. Grandmasters spend a lot of time memorizing opening lines and variations. This type of play is not appealing to the average player because it requires lenghty study and a lot of memory work. Even middle game setups are now analyzed in great detail, and often openings are studied along the lines of "white has a slight advantage that could give a win, while black plays to try to draw the game". Gothic chess does not have such lengthy analysis of openings, but there is already an "opening book" and it is part of the programming in Gothic Vortex. Of course the opening book is not widely available, unless you buy the program and bother to write the openings as you play them against the computer. As openings are analyzed to even deeper numbers of moves, other variants will beomce more popular. Gothic chess will be one of them, along with Janus, loop and other random variants of chess.

I think an interesting variatino would be Capablanca chess with a random starting position following the rules of Fisher random chess. That kind of chess is best suited to match play rather than single game play because white could have an advantage in the first move.

I forgot to mention one thing. The board did have rules posted in the past. I will look at those and if they are suitable, I will remind everyone of them. I don't mean to step in and take authority away from Thad and Walter. Any decisions will be made with their consent. Ideally we could arrive at a general concensus and balance the needs of the moderators and the contributors to this board, regardless of whether they are Brainrooks, Brainpawns, etc.

Hello everyone, I just logged on. I was away for about 6 hours and woke up to a nice surprise. 53 messages, most of which are useless personal attacks from one member to another. I will draft a proposed set of rules for posting and post them. One this is clear and that is that personal attackes from one member to another have to stop. Name calling (goose stepping ...), insults of all sorts, attacks on Walter, Ed and other members. We need a clear set of rules for hiding and banning members. I will work on this over the next few hours. On the one hand, I don't think it is good to remove free speech and become a discussion board Fascist moderator. At the same time, members have to show some respect for one another. I have to find a way to balance free speech, respect for others, and the interest in Gothic chess only. I will try my best to be impartial in all this. If anyone has any suggestions, please send them to me privately. Considering the way things are, I could do with some help.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry! My question on gambits using the chancellor pawn went pretty much unheeded. Let's be honest. We enjoy the bickering, even more than talking about Gothic Chess.

Has anyone succeded in playing a game in which you sacrificed the chancellor pawn? For example, the opening:

1. f4 e5
2. d4

Attempts by black to play d4 or c4 lead to loss of the center. Maybe somebody out there succeeded with such a gambit. If you have a nice game, can you please share?

I had the pleasure of playing Terry Trotter in several games of Gothic, Loop, Fortress, and Janus chess. Terry was friendly, kind, and patient with a novice like me. He never made me wait for weeks to make a move and he always had something nice and interesting to say. If I can pay homage to him I will say that we should remember him like this: "He was a darn good player."

I have joined the tournament in his memory, I hope to play with all of you there.

I say we should all pay Iraqi's some money since chess was originally invented in Babylonia. I guess after playing it for so many centuries we all owe them about $100 billion in royalties.

I think that anybody who thinks that Ed's contribution to Gothic chess is not substantial can sit down, think and invent a game themselves. In my opnion Ed deserves a lot of credit for fixing the problems with Capablanca chess. Yes, the game is patentable and if Ed gets a patent with the WTO his invention will be protected even more.

I am someone who enjoys Gothic Chess a lot. I just hope the bickering will be kept to a minimum. Chess breeds critical and strategic thinking. Unfortunately for some players it does not breed maturity. I think it is unfortunate that some people have picked on Ed, Danoscheck, etc. It is even more unfortuante that they would be foolish enough to let some people get under their skin. If somebody makes a stupid comment, just ignore it. Let them drown in their own drool.

Gothic Vortex is a program that is difficult to beat. My friend redsales beat gothic vortex in two occassions, but he is a strong player and he had a rating of about 2000 in tournament play. I myself was never able to beat it and my rating here is between 1600 and 1700 these days. Gothic Vortex is tough to beat because it has a strong opening book, and most of us don't know what is in the book. If we knew the openings, we might have a better chance. In general, some principles of classic chess openings apply to Gothic Chess, but gambits and sacrifices are tricky in Gothic chess and that is why the program is so difficult to beat. I have seen the program sacrifice knights in a way that at first seems to give me a huge advantage, then five or six moves later it crushes me completely. I think it is very challenging, and therefore a lot of fun. Like all programs, it has the odd bug, but it is not as bad as some people here have claimed. If you read some people complaining about the program, sometimes they are just trying to get under Ed Trice's skin.

In response to Caissus who said that American patents are not valid in Europe, they are. The European Union is a member of the World Trade Organization. All members of the WTO have agreed to respect each other's patent rights. If Ed Trice really wants to protect his patent, he can register it as a WTO patent, which gives it much broader protection outside the USA.

I have tried to understand why some players would use a computer to make their moves. I can think of at least three cases, two of which are confirmed, in which players were using computer programs to beat me. I think that some of these players try to win by themselves at first. After realizing that other players are better their ego suffers badly and psychologically they give up on winning on their own. They start using a program and they get some satisfaction in seeing other players struggle while all they do is feed moves into a program. Their ego breaks down, so they lose perspective of what fair play is. I know my ratings are quite low, but they are my ratings, not Chessmaster 9000, or Gothic vortex, or some other program's ratings. Computer programs have a place. You can use them to practice at home, or to analyze positions after a game is completed, but using the program to defeat an opponent in the middle of a game is cheating.