I am curious as to what happens if a stalemate occurs in Racing Kings. The rules do not mention it.

rabbitoid: It could be played on real boards. It'd be a hassle, but it isn't unprecedented. That is how Kriegspiel was and is done. Kriegspiel is a game that is over one hundred years old. It is very similar to Dark Chess, but uses checks and checkmates and does not allow moves that are illegal in regular Chess, such as moving into check or castling through check, or moving a piece over a piece.

I have read that the opponents would typically sit in different rooms and require the services of three people to play a game of it. Each would have their own board and pieces, but would put them where they thought the opponent's pieces were. One of the people helping with the game would keep his own Chess board with the actual position on it that neither player could see. Unlike Dark Chess, the players have no way of seeing where their pieces attack or capture except to try the move and learn from what happens. One of the people helping with the game is given the role of referee or arbitrator. He announces if a move is legal or not. A player that makes an illegal move, must take the move back and try another. This is not how Dark Chess is played. It certainly would use the same skills to play as Dark Chess, but you'd have to gain a lot of your information just by what moves are allowed and also choose those moves that might be illegal on purpose to gain such information.

I imagine nowadays someone might have programmed a computer to play Kriegspiel. It seems this game has a following. I read it was used in training to help officers of the Prussian military learn about thinking with incomplete information.

Alain: I hadn't even heard of this tournament until reading about it here. That'd be an interesting reason to visit England. I'll keep it in mind when I do finally get around to making the trip there someday.

pedestrian: I keep waiting for someone to make a Dark Chess program that I can install in my computer to let me play someone. I'd need two monitors hooked to it to make playing easier. You could place them back to back and play directly across from your opponent. Some more programming and a third monitor and you could have kibitzers watch the game with all three views of the board. I'm sure it'd be a simple thing to have a clock running to time the moves.

Alain: I am surprised they don't have Dark Chess at a tournament like this. Seems like it'd be the perfect type of game for them to have seeing how they have Poker variants, Chess variants, and Stratego.

grenv: I did not know that Black could move elsewhere than 1. ...P F7-F6 when White started with 1. N G1-F3 without losing the game in a few moves. Now I'm curious about this 1. ... P E7-E5 first move by Black in response. I am going to have to try it! Does it play better than my usual, and until right now I thought only choice of 1. ... P F7-F6?

grenv: I do not understand how Black's third move is possible as his Queen is surrounded by pieces and could not move to capture the Pawn on H4.

rabbitoid: Yes, this first game is just showing that I'm not that good at Atomic Chess.

How to analyze this game or others is something that takes a lot of study, persistence, and some open mindedness. It certainly helps to know the game very well too.

WhisperzQ: I lost a game in this manner. When it ended I had seven pieces available as he kept checking me, but I couldn't get them into play with each move I made being a forced capture and next thing you know, checkmate.

rabbitoid: You know, I think I agree with you rabbiroid. I have only just played a few games of Loop Chess. My first was just a week or so ago, and it seems this game has no end game and a trade is really not a trade. All the pieces seem much more equal.

WhisperzQ: Yes, elephants. I think of the Rooks as elephants, marching in a straight line destroying things in their path. Bishop are like arrows or archers, and the Knights already are what they are.

Pawns are the foot soldiers in all of three of the games, but even in Atomic Chess they end up being more important than the strongest piece on the board in many games.

The King is like leaders since the end of the middle ages and beginning of the renaissance, not the strongest piece and surrounded by underlings who are all more powerful than he is, but whom all depend on his leadership to carry the day.

The Queen, Marshall, and Cardinal are the power of the game that they're used in, but are vulnerable to all sorts of palace intrigue and plots from the minor pieces and Pawns..

Regular Chess is medieval war with knights, arrows, and elephants.

Embassy Chess is eighteenth century war with much the same weapons and some stronger ones brought in with diplomats and leaders.

Atomic Chess really is war with nukes, bomb shelters, and Mutually Assured Destruction! It's played with a hair line trigger for destruction on every move.

I believe there once some discussion about how White does not have a forced win in Atomic Chess as played here. I remember grenv defending the position and saying Black can hold his own but must play carefully to make it to equality.

I have been wondering about if White opening the game with 1. P H2-H4 is a good move. In regular Chess this is a poor opening move, but as anyone that plays Atomic Chess knows, all conventional wisdom is thrown out the door. I decided to try this because the move sometimes comes in handy after a few moves with Black with moving the Pawn from H7 to H5. I figured, why not start with it there and then play Black with that move in place. It keeps the Queen off that diagonal quite well and the Rook and Knight on the Kingside can move. It does weaken G3, but I haven't had a problem with that yet.

I suppose my question is; has this been checked into? How well does it go? Is it bad for White? At first it seems passive and a loss of tempo for White, but I haven't figured a way for Black to turn it to his advantage and White can bring out the pieces without much trouble. Maybe I should play grenv a game? Anybody else want to play a few games of Atomic Ches. Each color is fine. I'll start my White side with this opening and you can prepare for it. I move fast and like a Fischer Clock 4.7/1.18/11.1 timer or two or three day limit for regular time.

Thad: Using just one monitor can be done, but it would be a major hassle just making sure you didn't accidentally show your opponent your view of the game. You might even be able to use the same browser, but I'm thinking probably not with cookies and passwords and all.

I used two separate computers logged into two accounts on It's Your Turn (IYT) about seven years ago to try it. Unfortunately my opponent didn't like Dark Chess and I had no one else to try it with. This game is on IYT as Walter_Montego versus Walter Montego. I had accidentally created the account when I didn't notice the underline was missing and somehow ended up with two accounts. It is the only game I ever used the second account for.

If you don't think it would be a hassle getting up from the monitor after you make your move, making sure to blank the screen, and then have your opponent take over for his turn, and them keep switching back and forth the whole game, I am not sure what you would think is tedious. It'd be a lot easier to use two monitors hooked to one computer. Your idea will work. Give it a try and see how well it goes.

DarwinKoala: It is true that we can play Dark Chess using BrainKing, but that is not what I want nor what I am talking about. I have tried to use BrainKing to play Dark Chess live. It is tedious, though it works. Besides having to log into the site and having to use an internet connection to do so, and hopefully the site is up and running when you want to try it, there's plenty of other things that just having the program on my own computer would solve. It'd be lots more user friendly in many ways. And it would not tie up BrainKing resources just for the one game either. Extra monitors will work, but even one extra monitor should be big enough to show all three views of a game in progress. And I can envision a type of overlaying the display with all three views superimposed on each other too.

Since I did miss the obvious thing about this that rabbitoid points out and that is such a program does indeed exist. The very program that BrainKing uses. Perhaps Fencer could let me have a copy of it or a modified version that I could use on my own computer to play Dark Chess at home? I had not thought of this. I will write him and ask in a few days so as to give him some time to respond to it here in the discussion board. It would have to come ready to use as I do not know how to program computers or change program code to do it myself.

Pegniar: Thank you for the link. A small correction is needed as it is Kevin Hill that invented the Embassy Chess and you have it as K. Hill.

I am curious if you will make a program to play Dark Chess? I mean a program that will let two people play Dark Chess, not a program to play Dark Chess against, though that'd be cool too though to make it fair you'd have to have the board set up elsewhere and tell the machine what it sees as I do not trust the inner workings of the machine to not cheat and be looking at the position. It is this that makes Dark Chess different than other forms of Chess, the players have restricted information and different views of the board. Seeing the other person's view ruins the game. That is why when you view a game in progress here on BrainKing the board is blank for everyone but the players. You'd have to have a secure blank button on the program I want created to cover such looking while an opponent left the room for some reason or even just an accidental viewing that neither player would want to have happen.

I would like to play Dark Chess live against a person in person. It'd take two monitors hooked to one computer. The computer would not have to know anything about playing, just keep track of the pieces and displaying the correct information to each player. If the monitors were placed back to back, you could almost have a game like regular Chess with the feel of playing Battleship and hidden information. A third monitor away from the players could show all three views of the board and let kibitzers follow along with the action. Embellishments to such a program would be different displays a player might want, 2D, 3D, Chess clock, speculative piece placement, and other things that I'm sure people that play the game have thought up, but just the basic game itself would be a great thing to have.

If you're interested in this and are not familiar with Dark Chess, please write me and we can set up a few games to let you see how it is played. There's many of us here that play Dark Chess that would like to be able to play the game at home or in a club, but there's not any available software for it, or the rules are not as they are here as it seems Dark Chess is hard to program just to display the game as compared to having the program play the game. "Lawless" has expressed much interest in someone making this a project. I'm sure we could help you test it out, make suggestions, and find bugs for you.

January All Games over 1600

Starts Wednesday
Single game round robin 5 maximum per section, so the most games started will be four for you. 3 day time limit

happy hermit: A little Dark Chess, eh? Sure, a couple of invitations coming your way. :)

coan.net: And maybe turn the landed on square back to a normal square when the Super peice moves away with the Super piece then becoming a regular piece after it moves to the new square?

nodnarbo: It sounds like a good game. Is the play fairly even at the beginning as compared to how White dominates Atomic Chess here in the early going with Black walking a minefield until he can even things up?

SKA: There's certainly room for both versions here. Just have to name one of them differently or call it version 2 or something. IYT's version could be called Atomic Bomb Chess, while leaving the BrainKing version as Atomic Chess.

Does the bomb in the IYT version blow up nearby Pawns too? It certainly is different having it possible to blow up both Kings for a draw too. Do the players know which piece their opponent has chosen to be the bomb?

Atomic Chess (CT)
Atomic Chess has similar rules to regular chess, except that at the beginning of the game you designate a piece to double as the 'atomic bomb'. You can detonate this piece/bomb at any time during the game, which will destroy that piece and all pieces in squares immediately adjacent to that square (both straight and diagonal squares). You can detonate a piece to get out of check. Detonating a piece counts as your entire move, so you cannot make any other moves on the turn that you detonate your piece.

If your opponent's king is in one of the detonated squares, then you win the game, otherwise you'll need to checkmate the king. The exception to this is if both kings are blown up at the same time, in which case the game is a draw. If you blow up your own king during a move, you lose the game. All other rules are the same-- castling and en passant are enabled in this game.

At the beginning of the game, you will be asked to 'place' the atomic bomb on a piece. Then your opponent will be asked to do the same, and the game will begin. The atomic piece stays on the same piece throughout the game, and if that piece is captured or destroyed, then you will not be able to detonate an atomic piece for the rest of the game, because your bomb is gone.

To detonate your atomic piece, click on the DETONATE ATOMIC PIECE link under the game board. Remember, this counts as your entire move, so you have to click this before clicking on anything else.
======== ========== ======== ========== ========

Has anyone here played this version? I thought the version on BrainKing was the standard way to play it. IS this way of playing as good of a game? I imagine the play is a lot more like regular Chess than BrainKing's Atomic Chess is. :)

KotDB: In Shogi the promoted pieces revert back to their unpromoted shelves when captured. While promoted they're marked with a circle around the unpromoted symbol. This is if you use the Roman letter marked pieces as I do to play. If you use the Kanji marked pieces they're red colored when promoted and the promoted piece has a different name.
Either method would seem to work for this variant you're talking about, though just using a red dot on the promoted piece would seem like a real easy thing to do. Especially if the captured piece is going to revert back to a Pawn and the player might have a choice of captures to make.

furbster: Another way would be to require them to be placed in a certain order. Queen first, then Rooks, then Bishops, then Knights, and the King last. Or the reverse of this scheme.

furbster: Why not do as in Connect6 for the turns? Have White make the first move of one piece, then Black places two pieces, then White places two, Then Black places two, then White places two, then Black places two, then White places two, then Black places his last two, and White places his last piece and the game is over. Would that even the game any?

Move 1: White 1 piece
Move 2: Black 2 pieces
Move 3: White 2 pieces
Move 4: Black 2 pieces
Move 5: White 2 pieces
Move 6: Black 2 pieces
Move 7: White 2 pieces
Move 8: Black 2 pieces
Move 9: White 1 piece

Matarilevich: I played three games there after using a translator and your advice posted here.

It's definitely different playing Dark Chess live. I don't like their version of it too much though. Not enough information and you're forced to guess way too much. It doesn't show captured pieces, nor the pieces in front of Pawns. It's still cool and I'm hoping to see the game in other places. BrainKing's or IYT's version would be a very good way to play it live. Thanks again for the link tipau.

tipau: I went there. I can't read Spanish unfortunately for me. What is Dark Chess called on their site? In Spanish.

You say the games are played live? I might be able to play once I have located it on the site and join.

grenv: I certainly will! :)

In the meantime, maybe you and a few more people could e-mail Yahoo!? More voices might get them to add it. Once one site adds it and the game gets popular I sure others will follow suit. And there's other sites I might e-mail. One of them ought to do it. Someday Fencer will have live games here and that will change everything.

Being able to play it at home without the internet against a friend would be a good game. I'm sure there's already games that use more than one monitor for multiplayer games. Why not Dark Chess and other games like Battleboats and Stratego? Yeah, those two don't need electricity to keep track of the game like Dark Chess does, but you could certainly have them added in.

nabla: I like the in passing rule as implemented here just fine*(see note). I believe the original game was made that way to make it easier to program, but I don't really know their thinking on it. I've seen the two versions on the Chess Variants site and they don't allow Pawns to move two squares! That eliminates the dealing with in passing Pawn captures, but it makes the game not as good. Those versions don't show the Pawn's coverage squares in the same manner either. Plus you can't go back and review the game, nor even gain information from one of your pieces before it's captured if it is captured the next move. As for their version that doesn't allow you to move in check or leave your King in check, I haven't played it. In my opinion those two versions are very inferior to BrainKing's and It's Your Turn's versions. The only difference I know of between here and IYT is how Promoted Pawns and Extra pieces are shown. Here nothing is shown, on IYT they show the Pawn taken off the board and the promoted piece if it makes a second Queen or extra piece.

Though I will on occasion have one Pawn on the fifth row from me, it's unusual to have many more than that during a game. Often times I'll have the squares to either side of such a Pawn covered and will know if my opponent has tried to sneak by my advanced Pawn. Or I'll know there is no Pawn in the file to one or both sides in which case I don't concern myself with the possibility of missing a passing Pawn.

You guys do point out a problem about what to do when my opponent could slide a Pawn by unbeknownst to me. I deal with it as Reza suggests, or I overlook it and my opponent has tricked me. Thems the breaks. It doesn't happen very often in a game and I think it is a good part of the game having it work the way it does here. In the few instances when it is a possibility, I take care. It's just a click on the Pawn. If it moves forward, you know there's no in passing on the turn. If it stays in place then you just hover the cursor to one of the squares or the only square if you have one side covered and see what happens. Same thing if you have a possibilty of more than one capture with this same Pawn. If the Pawn is blocked from moving straight ahead by another piece, it's even easier. Just move the cursor to it and a hand will appear if it can make the in passing capture. And if there's an addition possible capture, it's still just a click away.
*Writing this has me thinking that you have a point about it automatically showing the possibilty of a passing Pawn capture. It would certainly be consistant with the rest of how the game goes having it shown. I guess either way is OK with me. At least playing on a turn based site where I have the time to check. A live version of Dark Chess would be better to have the passed Pawn shown.

And I use dial up. You guys with the high speed connections are trying my patience. :)

Has anybody found a place or a program that will allow me to play Dark Chess at home? One computer hooked to two monitors placed back to back would be the easy way. With only one monitor it'd be too much of a hassle to play and it'd be too easy to spoil the game by inadvertantly seeing your opponent's view. More monitors would allow kibitzers to see all three views of the game while it's being played. I'd certainly like such a program and would be willing to pay the going rate for a video game of similar complexity. What's that between, $7 and $20? I asked Yahoo! to add Dark Chess to their live games site, but all I got back was some form letter that didn't make me feel like they even read my e-mail to them. Dark Chess live would be lots of fun. With a clock running it'd really make for panic near the end of a speed chess or blitz game. Longer timed games would be very challenging.

joshi tm: It's the name of a game invented in the early sixties. It's played on a regular Chess board. The King is the same and the object is to checkmate him or stalemate him to win the game. The other pieces are different. In regular Chess the pieces all move differently, but capture the same way, displacement. You know, occupying the square of the captured piece. In Ultima, all the pieces move the same way, but capture in different ways. I always used a regular Chess set to play Ultima, though I have thought of some different styled pieces that would be good to play Ultima with. There's seven different pieces as compared to regular Chess' six, so you need to mark one of the pieces. We did this by putting a bottle cap on one of the Rooks. You can also just turn a Rook upside down or put a rubber band around it.

http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/ultima.html
http://www.chessvariants.org/other.dir/ultimapieces.html
The first links has the rules and a breif history of the game. The second shows how the pieces move, though it uses the pictorial pieces instead of Chess pieces.

Ray Garrison: Yes, I'd like to see Ultima here. The original rules with unlimited movement is how I like to play it. I learned the game with Abbott's updated rules from the late sixties and those of us that played the game threw out the restricted move version and without realizing it re-invented the first version of Ultima. The first version is the one that got popular. It's a fun game, and you have to watch out for the dread Immobilizer. It'd take me a few games to remember the plans and play as it's been many years since I last played Ultima.

joshi tm: I like the border as it is. The name of the type of game that you're playing is right next to the border.

Why not have it so each of us can choose the color of the border that we want for each game? Just like how we can choose the size of the pieces or the type of them in some games, such as Shogi?

Cubs93: I would take a look at it, but you have the game as private. One of many reasons not to do so.

Fencer might be able to help you out.

tbart: Perhaps the Maharajah could be replaced with Chu Shogi's Lion? It can only move one or two squares, but its capturing power is pretty strong. It'd be a real challenge to trap a Lion instead of the methodical way the Maharajah can be tracked down by anyone that knows what they're doing with the Chess set pieces. Hmm, maybe it'd be too strong? It'd be worth a try anyways.

Pythagoras: Why not have castling? You click the square two squares from the King, your opponent will either make the castle or move the Rook there or any other piece that can move there. I don't see what the problem is if castling was allowed. So why isn't it allowed as an option? As long as it doesn't move the King into check it should be OK to have it. IS there a problem I haven't considered with having castling that makes the game unplayable or unfair in some way? Like castling out of check? There's no check in this game, so that would make for some decision to how the rules are worded if one attempts to castle when his King is under attack. Are you allowed to leave your King in check?

Fencer: Filip, my boards have gone back to the borderless style. Now that I've a had chance to see both, I like it this borderless way. I've never had a problem knowing which game is which. Two reasons come to mind for me. One, I don't play regular Chess. Two, you have the name of the type of Chess I'm playing next to the board. It says "Extinction Chess" in bold letters under the left hand corner of the board. Hard to miss that. Ka-boom, eh?

Even though I like how it is being the old style you might want to add something about the borders for the games in the "Settings" page for those that might want different colors for some reason.

Fencer: And without a border it was fine. I didn't even notice. The blue is something you notice. I don't see the reason for it, but it also doesn't matter. If I had the choice, I'd put it back as it was or choose a different color.

Besides, I've been playing Extinction Chess on your site for over two years now. It seems kind of strange to just change the look of the game now. What made it happen?

Fencer: It was fine the color it was, though the new color isn't so bad either. What difference does it make? Can it be made something that the player can set for himself? Just have default colors for each game and if someone wants a different color for some reason, they can change it themselves.

2006 Second Quarter Open Number 5 Dark Chess

3 day standard vacation. It's an open.

http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=13971&trnst=0&u=2644

grenv: I can think of a few others. :)

Time to restart the quarterly tournaments.
Starts January 20th, 2006.

Two games switched colors, open to all. Good luck.

I might add some other variants, but the announcements will depend on board size. Extinction Chess is likely (8 × 8). The tournament board will have them. Maybe in a few weeks.
A link,
http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=12781&trnst=0

redsales: I thought Bird put the game and game pieces in the public domain in 1874? :)

nabla: For Dark Chess games to be shown in a book, you might want to advise him to show all three looks of the board on certain moves. I wish we had that option here for reviewing a finished game. Sometimes with the whole board shown the moves look ridiculous and you have to remember that the players can't see the whole picture.

nabla: Come to think of it, I've played some very good Dark Chess games. Too bad I didn't put stars next to them so that I'd be able to find them. I also came across an Extinction Chess game played by two other people that I'm sure your friend would include in his book. It involved promoting a Pawn to a King to win the game when the obvious move of promting to a Queen won't work. I wish I could remember where I saw that game. I'd send it right over to you. Perhaps one of the players invovled will see this post and remember the game. I'd like to check it out again.

WhisperzQ: I did mean playing against another person. Ol' Pythagoras is the one that misunderstood me, not you. I want to play Dark Chess against another person, live right here at home, or even over the internet if a site has it. I'd really like a home version though. Playing it that way would be lots of fun and I'm sure I could get people to play it.

I remember trying to play Chess without looking at the board and letting my brother look at the board. I believe it is called Blindfold Chess and people have given demonstrations of it. We were doing it to see if it'd work. It did until my brother (the guy looking at the board!) moved one of my pieces wrong when I called out my move. He further compounded the problem by naming his move wrong and then I was thoroughly lost and just went over to look at the mess on the board. We were using the descriptive notation and he'd somehow switched the Kings and Queens! We didn't try it again. I've heard of people being able to play a game like this to its completion and some chessmasters have given demonstrations of being able to play more than one game at a time blindfold style.

WhisperzQ: How would you play using paper without using the services of a third person, just the two players? With a third person you could set up three Chess boards and the third person would see everything. It'd be similiar to how I've read kliegspeil is played. I think a computer set up just like Dark Chess is here except for being able to play the game live or time it however you wanted to would be a great game to have. A computer would make it a lot easier to play and you wouldn't need to worry about having a third person when you wanted to play. It'd take a real smart and careful third to person to assist, too.

Doerdich: In your game you can see that he moved P e2-e4 after you moved your Knight to f6. You are right that if your first move was P d7-d6 and he moves to e5 with his Pawn you'll just take the Pawn and be in good shape. The thing is, you didn't move there. If your opponent is a beginner maybe he didn't know enough not to do it. If your opponent is a good player, maybe he was up to something or thought it would work against you in particular. If he's somewhere in between, who can say? Not every bad move in Dark Chess will be answered with the correct good move. Just wait until the game is over and replay the game with the lights on. You'll probably see a few moves that would be so ridiculous in a regular Chess game that you wonder how the players could be so stupid. Regular Chess openings work a lot different in Dark Chess. Some of the good openings in regular Chess work very poorly in Dark Chess because they require you to know where your opponent's pieces are to respond to them. Plus, some people like to bluff or just play bold and it can really frustrate a conservative player to have his pieces disappear without a trace.

I've played a few games of Dark Chess where my opponent and I played almost as if we could see the board and know where our opponent had moved. When you play a game like that, you'll know it's a good game. For some reason I don't seem to play as well any more, or my opponents have gotten better, or both. Still, it's a great game and I really wish I had a home version of it. Two monitors and one computer hooked to them would work just fine. Anybody got a Dark Chess program I can have or buy?

Doerdich: You're whooping me in Extinction Chess and Grand Chess, but if you'd like a couple games of Dark Chess please drop a line. :)

As for his move, I don't see anything wrong with it. Even in regular Chess that opening is pretty famous. Taking a chance is sometimes winning strategy in Dark Chess. Losing strategy too, but that's a different story. d6 for the second move as Black is one of the worst moves you can make! That is unless you've blocked the diagonal to your King from the Queen throwing a check or moved your Queen's Rook Pawn to a5 to throw light on a4. If you're going to move your Queen's Pawn to d6 early in the game and don't want to chance White having placed his Queen on a4, you'd be wise to do it on your first move followed with B c8-d7 on your next move. A common Dark Chess opening and one that you never see in regular Chess. Remember, checks are not announced and your opponent can drape your King and the game is over.

Luke Skywalker Doerdich andreas: Differing views of this opening. That is why there's a tournament organized, right? :) I won't be playing in it, but you all have me curious about how it'll go. Let's put theory to test.