AbigailII: After thinking about it for about 60 seconds, my opinion is that I like the fact that it would not count towards the BKR rating. Yea it's a lose, but it seems kind of silly to lose ratings (or gain ratings) when you don't even get a chance to play. At least that is my opinion.

coan.net: Welcome to the world of "games of chance". If you lose you lose, what's the difference how if it's in the rules?

grenv: Oh - I was just saying that was my opinion - how it is done is up to Fencer or whoever - I was just giving my own opinion that I would rather play a game to win/lose rating points - not just show up to win/lose them. Again, just my opinion - not complaining or anything.

coan.net: as in any game where skill and chance are mixed, your stats and BKR has only meaning when a large number of games are played. you'll never have 99-1 results in backgammon, for example. if you have 60-40 it is already very significant.

coan.net: I disagree. Behemoth Chess is a quick game, and it can be over in a few moves. It's kind of silly to not count it if the game doesn't reach an arbitrary number of move. Even if that number is two.

And it's not just Behemoth Chess. One might get lucky in Logic as well, and guess the code in the first or second move. Should one denied a BKR change because of it?

AbigailII: But in Logic, it is a person using their mind to figure it out.  The player has control.  In Behemoth chess, the player does not have that control.

danheg: If a player guesses the opponents code on his first move, how did he use his mind to figure it out?

As for the luck factor in Behemoth Chess, the luck factor is quite high. Higher than in any other game on Brainking. But the luck factor isn't any less on the third move than it is on the second move. Yet BKR is awarded if luck decides to kill your king on the third move, but not if luck decides to kill your king on the second move.

IMO, that doesn't make any sense. Either one takes the stance that luck plays a too high factor and doesn't award any BKR on Behemoth Chess - or accepts the fact there are games with a high luck factor and awards BKR for games that have a regular finish before the end of move 2.

AbigailII: after the third move, you usually have the pieces out and developed like the queen and much more mobile.  You are capable of more startegy at that point.

AbigailII:

In this game, after 30...,Kxh6, the white player losed his king but the game didn´t finish in this moment because the Behemoth played to h8 from h7. In case of playing to h6 capturing the black king, the game had would be a draw. It´s not clear in the rules if this possibility is correct.
If the king is captured before of the movement of the Behemoth, could the Behemoth move too?, could it capture to the other king?

Kili: Yes. The Behemoth always finishes the move, even if a king has been captured by another piece.

Fencer: Ok, so there are not two movements, only one. The movement of the player and the movement of the Behemoth is indivisible.

Kili: Right.

How many games have ended in a real mate? I won a few games where my opponent left his/her king in a 'check', but most games have been ended by the behemoth snatching a king.

What kind of strategy do people use in Behemoth?

There's no real mate in Behemoth. Yes, players can put them self in mate but cannot be in checkmated.
I think one kind of strategy is to kill your player's king fast enough to win. There are so many ways to win and yet die also. This is mainly a 'lucky or unlucky' type of game.

SKA: I think one kind of strategy is to kill your player's king fast enough to win.

Right, as opposed as the strategy of say, Logic, where the strategy is not to be fast enough to win. Sorry, but "achieve the goal of the game fast enough to win" isn't strategy - that's what the game is about.

As whether or not Behemoth has a mate, that depends on your definition of mate. If you define mate as "a situation where the player is in check, and the player does not have a move to get out of check", then, sure, Behemoth does have a mate. I don't really know how else to define mate.

Could you care to elaborate on the There are so many ways to win? Person mention a handful?

SKA: Mainly lucky or unlucky...did you read that one too. Yes, I did. That isn't "many many ways to win" though.

Did you read the game rules carefully.
Yes, I did. It doesn't list "many ways to win".

What a strange conversation.

grenv: Isn't it.

AbigailII: I think SKA's main point is that "This is mainly a 'lucky or unlucky' type of game."

and I take "I think one kind of strategy is to kill your player's king fast enough to win. There are so many ways to win and yet die" as simply a way to express the lack of clear strategy when there's a tornado touching down at random on the board. All in all it's offering the opinion that your question probably has no satisfactory answer.

For me the best strategy to "win" this game would be to spend the time on a different game instead! ;-)

whirlybabe: Not sure what that statement about lucky and unlucky means....

is it meant to read "This is a game of luck"? What's with the wordiness? If so, yes... it's a game of luck. Might as well roll a dice.

Good Idea, DICE BEHEMOTH CHESS!!!! the most random game possible

Hello! I just want to say I completely fell in love with ambigouous chess.

gimli:

I'd say there's a minor fluke in the way offering a draw works in Behemoth chess, cause when you offer a draw, your opponent gets to accept it in a different situation (with more information) which kinda makes offering a draw quite a bad idea, even in equal positions. (I'd say in about every other game, your opponent has to accept or decline the offer in the same situation as it has been issued.)

Say there are only the kings left, and the Behemoth is not attacking any king, its quite an even position, but offering a draw gives a lot of advantage to your opponent, since he gets to see where the B. goes before deciding, and will decline if the B. attacks only your king and accept if it attacks only his king.
So with reasonable players, the draw feature is quite meaningless in such situations, even if both would prefer a draw.
Maybe it would be a consideration to relay draw offers in Behemoth chess before the Behemoth move is executed,
on the other hand this is probably just a minor incoherence not worth the bother, but it was annoying me once or twice when i would have liked to have a draw, but offering one would have been unwise.

dresali: You must be talking about offering a draw with your move. I believe you can also offer a draw without moving. (Of course if your opponent does not answer the draw, you will still need to make your move before the time expires.)

dresali: I do not like your suggestion, because when someone offers draw and I do not want draw, a natural way to decline is just to keep playing, and your way would enforce to answer a question "do you want draw" before continuing, and this I do not like. I hope you understand my concept about "playing one move implies declining draw offer"

Well, this is a luck game, so a K against K endgame is not draw

A simple solution is to play your move, and, after your move have been completed, if the behemoth position is not to favorable for you, offer draw at that time, which seems fair, am I wrong?
Regards

PS: it is possible to offer draw even when it is not your turn to play

mangue: The last suggestion would seem to be the answer here.

mangue / coan.net:

I gotta hang my head in shame ...
Honestly, I never figured you could offer a draw out of turn.
Thanks for clearing that up ;)

Superchess is a chess variant with many new pieces. More info on www.superchess.nl

There are some interesting tournaments with the pieces Amazon (=Q+N),Empress (=R+N),Veteran (=K+N) and Princess (=B+N).
If you are nearby:
1. 4th Open Championship of the Netherlands, Amersfoort september 9th 2007
2. 1st Open Championship of Belgium
Grimbergen, september 30th 2007

TANGRAM !!!!!!!: Wow, that is nice chess game. Indeed, chess is very great, but I also dislike the opening theory thing.

I would like to play on a dice chess team, anyone need me?

To make the game more interesting and to avoid fast losses in style Nc3-Nb5-Nc7-Nxe8, immortality for the king for let's say first 10 moves would be perhaps helpful.

Also a variant where pieces are more likely to be rolled if there are more possible moves with those pieces would be interesting, this was mentioned earlier, but it can be different named game, for example advanced dice chess .

May be some immortality in behemoth chess as well, but I didn't try this game.

WakeUpPeople: Immortality for kings? even limited? not likely to get a support from France!

what is wrong with short games?

mangue: At last, the voice of sanity. not that dice chess is a sane game at the best of times.

why should not be the game that short? it is not a forced move and it is not a bad move, why should it be prohibited? well, I like very short games, especially in atomic actually

wetware: That's the nature of games with a high random factor like Dice Chess or Behemoth Chess. Or even Logic, which you can also lose on the fourth (or even first) without doing anything 'wrong'.

There are lots of games you can play here where this cannot happen.

mangue: Short games in Atomic are a result of mistakes. How is that interesting?

grenv: maybe... I cannot tell, but I feel that surviving more than 10 moves with black is a performance (or a mistake of white). I just like quick games, but I am maybe insane

mangue: Not true. There is no forced win for white. In fact black has many opportunities to win. What line by white do you suppose is a force?

well, I cannot tell if there is a force win. Probably not, but white has a terrible advantage. In my opinion.

However, I see your point, if black plays correctly, he must survive.

mangue: I think you'll change your mind after playing some of the better players. I used to think white had a big advantage until i saw some of the counterattacking opportunities open to black in most lines.

grenv: the advantage of white still exists in my opinion and I believe it is bigger than in chess

mangue: I have to agree. While it might be true that the theoretical value of the best openings is not that bad for Black, the non-losing path is very, very narrow.
Even statistically speaking, White has so many dangerous lines that it is probable that one of them will be found to give him a big advantage. But maybe I am not versed enough in opening theory to speak.

nabla: I'm also not quite versed enough, it takes more of an expert than me. However I'd be interested in hearing what line you believe is so good for white and I'll try to refute it for black.

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. :)

Walter Montego: Yes, I played this game before. I like it very much. But, since I don't play (IYT) It's Your Turn anymore...I'm hoping it would be a nice addition and I agree with you that it's more a regular chess than the current Brainking's version. :-)