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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Clandestine 1: lol poor Ed.

incredibly recently. Interesting

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

This may seem like a trivial thing to bring up but I've recently printed a page showing the final position and score of a game of Embassy Chess. For some reason, the squares and the outline of the board did not print out. The pieces were there, the notation around the edge of the board was there; all of the flags down the side were there in bright colour...
When I printed out the current position of a game of go I am playing (5743518) The board printed out with the grid and pieces and everything.
As I mentioned previously, this is a trivial matter; what I've got is sufficient for my purposes, and I could draw the squareas on myself if it was that important... but if anyone has any advice on this issue I would welcome it. :)
P.S. I only want the game score to study and am in no way challenging the copright, intellectual property of either Brain King or the players involved. :D
Sometimes it's handy to be able to study a position away from a computer screen, and more importantly I want to find a good move before my time limit rather than being compelled to make a wrong move to avoid timing out...

btw you can play anytime Grand Chess online at http://www.iggamecenter.com/info/en/main.html
Playing it fast looks more interesting, although there still are few players to compete with.

Thanks for great contribution on youtube. It really seems like hearing GMs comments about chess games. Very instructive.

I have analyzed 3 Embassy Chess games and put them on video on youtube. Perhaps some will try them useful or interesting.

Perhaps someone will know other interesting games also for me to have a look. I'm always interested in seeing nice games. I have found some other nice games that i will try to analyze. But brainking has thousands of games so perhaps someone had played a really nice game so it would be good to give it for us to see it.

The first one, is between me and a very very good player Shaboo.
GAME: Embassy Chess: Atrotos-Shaboo
VIDEO: Atrotos-Shaboo

The second game is between 2 of the best players of this site:
GAME: Embassy Chess: panzerschiff-tenuki
VIDEO: panzerschiff-tenuki

And the last one is between me and Tenuki again.
GAME: Embassy Chess: Atrotos-tenuki
VIDEO: Atrotos-Tenuki

I looked into grand chess but i didn't like it more than embassy as the initial piece placement is unattractive, there is no castle and 10 ranks are too much. promotion scheme is interesting but doesn't compensate for the odd and somewhat bad initial piece setup.

I agree with Atrotos, Embassy looks more interesting. Grand Chess likewise, but the setup somewhat artificial.

Atrotos: The old abbreviation for Knight was Kt, but that faded away many years ago.

Obviously the abbreviation K i use below, means the knight piece. I should have wrote it N and not K that denotes the King.

Janus Chess is the one with the devil looking K+B piece right?

I never played it and it seems an interesting game but having to choose between a game with a wider variety of pieces like Embassy Chess that has a K+B piece as also a R+N piece i think it's a better choice than having just one piece like in Janus.
It creates more interesting concepts inside the game. More different tactics, more difficult choices, e.g when to trade K+R for a K+B or a queen etc.

The "short" castle of Janus game is also a bit of a big journey for the King. :) Doesn't seem natural.

Lightbug: In my preferences, it is:
1) Embassy
2) Grand Chess (because of the early promotion)
3) Janus

I've been watching some games played between top players, and realize that the game has more merit than I was led to believe at first. Since I am not that good at it (1600 or so), it often frustrates me, but a game needs to be judged by how the strong players play it, and the number of strategies I see being used with the 2 new pieces creates a very different game that not all of your 8x8 Chess skills can account for. The outward push of the bishop, knight, and rook also require different thinking, and I still see regular knights being used very effectively in 10x8. They look pushed out further, but if you know how to use those things, they can still be pretty effective.

I just viewed one game played by the #1 rated player, and he essentially defeated black with just his RN (Marshall) by threatening a fork of his opponent's king and queen. He didn't castle and sacrificed his rook just before his opponenet resigned.

Chess has far more active players on this site, but Embassy has shown to me at least that it has a great deal of value, but the majority of the chess playing public has a hard time opening itself up to an expansion of Chess.

Janus Chess is probably the easier game to play between the 2, but I've found that it's a little too easy for the Janus piece to attack the queen and king right from the start. There's not as much need to come up with a specific plan in that game.

I believe that with more promotion, 10x8 Chess with the RN and BN can make a difference in the chess world. At the height of its complexity, it is about as complex as Shogi but requires far less moves than Shogi which is a good direction for Chess.

Lightbug: I like both games, but I prefer Embassy Chess.

Why? I like the structure of Embassy Chess.It is very regular Chess like in appearance. But even familiar looking openings are a completely new game. Though regular Chess often has amazing subtleties in slight differences in openings it often transposes into the same game or the difference matters little, and of course it has been studied for centuries. In Embassy Chess all this is true too, but even more so as it can very fast from the start. So far it seems to me that Embassy Chess is much more tactical in the beginning of the game which I'm sure is caused from having more pieces, and powerful ones at that, on the board while the King is still the same. The board is larger, but I think over all the power increase is more than the larger board dissipates as compared to the same pieces on the 10 × 10 of Grand Chess. Comparing those two games and a more or less harmless check in Grand Chess is often just a matter of moving the King back a square, whereas in Embassy Chess these checks can cause a major problem as the check often has to be blocked and you must be on guard for this.

Positional players will have a hard time against the tactical player, though I've played a few that play positionally. Unfortunately I am not a strong enough player to see if I'm right or not. I wish stronger players and regular Chess masters would take up Embassy Chess and give it some of the study they devote to regular Chess, but I suppose this can said of much variants.

Janus Chess is a good game. I don't play it as much as Embassy Chess. The power is almost the same as Embassy Chess, but the positioning of the pieces makes it play less like regular Chess. For those that like the random set ups, this might appeal to them. I think an interesting variant of Janus Chess would be to play it Extinction Chess style as it has the two Jauses and I'm sure this would add to the already wild tactical play of Extinction Chess.

Which one do you people prefer and why?

Great you also join nmchessknight :)

Mousetrap: Hi.. I'm up for an ice age tourny

January All Games over 1600

I joined this tournament and am hoping to get a few more Embassy Chess players into it to make it a good tournament.
It starts January 26th. 5 player maximum section, so at most it'll add four games to your list with a three day time control.
So sign up and let's play. :)

I've posted six Embassy Chess games in the waiting games area. Three of each color with a Fischer clock time bonus of 2 days 8 hours.
Anyone up for a game or two?
12-18-9 Edit-->One left, though if you'd like to play drop a line and I'll send a game or two your way.

1-7-10 Edit I posted nine games of Embassy Chess if anyone would like a game or two. Slightly faster Fischer Clock, but plenty of time after a few moves.

1-24-10 Edit I posted nine games of Embassy Chess.

At http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html there is a free SMIRF version to be downloaded, which might work also under Linux Wine or Mac Crossover. Maybe some are interested to get some experiences. Feedback at best to my email address.

happy hermit: I hadn't realized that we'd played before. An old alter-ego or account it would have to be. Embassy Chess coming next.

Walter Montego:

Thanks Walter. I'll try not to time-out this time. -Eric

happy hermit: Sure, I'll send you a few invitations.

Anyone interested in playing?

-Eric

I have read where Janus Chess is popular in Germany. I am told there are even tournaments for the game.

That being the case, can someone tell me where I can purchase a Janus Chess set? Preferable one with a vinyl board.

Cpaul_d2004

mahavrilla: Starting positions of the King and the Marshall are reversed.

I am trying to get an Ice Age Chess Team going in the GBU Fellowship. This is a fun and friendly Fellowship. I am not good at this game but I like it.
Pm me and ask for an invite if you are interested and available. Thanks very much.