hi Mike, I play only xiangqi but am in the process of learning changgi. I know the basics but am unsure of all the rules because I'm being taught in Korean in Korea and my Korean is a work in progress too. Let me ask about that rule...!! In xiangqi, the kings can't even oppose each other in the first place. I am good at xiangqi though, I learned it when I went to university in China and can beat the avg Chinese guy off the street. I can't say which is better, bc i'm such a novice at changgi. Interesting to note that even though Koreans COULD write changgi pieces in hangul (written Korean), they leave it in the original Chinese...that should be a lesson to us as well to keep the universality of the game. In Korea, i have yet to see any octagonal pieces!

I have very few sources available to me on changgi, and none authoritative: can you confirm the stalemate rule for changgi that I have seen described as occuring when one side has given up the right to win by using his king to check the opposing king across an open file? That is, if he actually succeeds and wins, it is no win because he had resorted to using the king in this way.

I infer that you play both xiangqi and changgi: do you think that the slightly weaker cannon of changgi but its greater pawn strength from the opening move and the lack of movements restricted by a river make it a bit more enjoyable than xiangqi? I confess that the elongated knight move of the changgi elephant is still a bit difficult for me to deploy effectively.

By the way, would you know why the commonly available changgi pieces are octagonal and the nicer, wooden ones are round -- ease of carving, aesthetics?

i am totally in favor of the original pieces for shogi and xiangqi and changgi. Xiangqi and changgi are the same 2 characters, the Koreans just pronounce Chinese characters differently than the Chinese do. If you need a legend graphic, maybe that would do the trick for those who find the characters unintelligible. THink about it, if you do enjoy this game on brainking and ever have the opportunity to play in real life, wouldn't it be a shame that you couldn't, because even if you knew the rules you wouldn't recognize the REAL pieces?? Korean and Chinese chess use the same pieces, so if we get one on BK, we will definitely get the other, very easy promgramming feat.

Here an example for a setup on a
11x8board

I have an idea for a chess variant. It has the regular chess pieces, chancellor, archbishop, queen, and amazon on a 11x8 board.

The rooks are on the a and k files and the king is on the f file, which gives 4 pieces inbetween the rook and king on each side.

Now, the other pieces set-up is random so long as the bishops are on different colors.

In castling you move the king 4 spaces on either side. Because the king and rooks always start on the same files there is not a problem having to implement difficult castling rules.

What do you think guys, would you like to see this on BK?

Amazon Chess, Berolina Chess and Cylinder Chess first ... :D thankies to Fencer ~*~

it is also a thought,that if many beginners are to try this as a new game.we might as well learn the original pices.but then we could also be open to both variations.but it might be wise not to compilicate it any more than needed.

are just slightly simplified and more recognizable as symbol ... about like
the step from kanji-scripture to hiragana, or take it egypt :) still 'flat' pieces as
it's due and contrary to caissus the geometrics are not the same, let go the river ~*~

Perhaps there is a solution if each opponent may choose how the game appears when he views it, i.e., traditional or Westernized? I have always treated the characters on the pieces as an identifying graphic, much like the shape of new pieces or a non-standard shape for a piece, to both of which one quickly accustoms himself.

In favor of the traditional pieces, may I mention that most of the literature on xiangqi or shogi that one would consult presumes a knowledge of these characters?

An intelligent internationalization of shogi and xiangqi pieces has already been made by the Shogi Association in the UK (George Hodge's lamentably defunct organization) and by the Asian Xiangqi Federation, respectively. I think that both of these international versions of the pieces are represented in the game fonts at http://www.partae.com/fonts/products/products.htm
l

More important, however, is to have these wonderful games available here on BrainKing. I am strongly in favor of shogi over xiangqi, if some priority must be established. Without wishing to complicate matters overmuch, dare I say that I think that Korean chess (changgi) might be a slightly more pleasing game to play than xiangqi?

That does sound good. We could switch to the Eastern after we get comfortable with the setup and game play.

Not absolutely.It should be only another suggestion to make this game playable for the players from the western world.I think would be enough if we could choose between the eastern and the western pieces.

Would there be a benefit to such a change, Caissus? Seems like it would be more confusing than anything, to us beginners.

I think it could be played as the same game except that the intersections are replaced by fields as adaptation to the western boardgames.

it not the same without the chinese board,if u knows the game.
but the western interpreted pices are a g00d idea.

Here are some examples about Chinese chess with
western pieces and with western board

have published a book about chinese chess
and suggested european figurines, too ...
selectable like for gomoku gfx, perfect ~*~ :)

The Japanese pieces, too. I've been learning Shogi (managed to find a commercial copy in the store), and that game has about a gazillion different depictions for the pieces.

I don't know how I'm managing to learn 'em, but I recognize the basic pieces now. I just have to memorize what their promoted counterparts look like. lol

Perhaps with eastern a n d with western (chess) pieces, because the chinese pieces are very complicated for us from the western world?

Sure, it's planned to be added as well.

I once played a very interesting gmae called chinese chess.it was quite different from chess.used a pice called the cannon.fencer,ever heard of it?

if its going to be amazons,how about a tall athlete well developed queen?
ok ok just kidding

oh god,another game varition idea.
this may sound nuts but it could be fun.
I thought about the possiblity of a multiplayer game of regular chess(that is chess for 4 or more players)
I envision 2 possibilities.
version 1...reg chess for 4,same rules as chess.
play area consists of 5 reg chess boards arranged with one in centre surrounded by the other board.thus approx.the shape of a cross.
4 sets of chess pieces,4 different colors.
this could be a good variation.board graphics & logics design...hard? yes no...not sure.
-
version 2...reg chess for 4,6 or 8,same rules as chess.
play area consists of 1 reg chinese checkers board.this would be easier to design than the board for ver1.
8 sets of chess pieces,8 different colors.
but this idea has just come to me.I must get & set up a chinese checkers board & see how it "feels" with the pieces.8 players may be a little too much.I think 6 might be a good limit.
just an idea..any comments.
in general,I love this site better than any other.unique games.nice operator.no criticisms.
would love to see more multi-opponet games..any comments?

Thanks Caissus.

Fencer, I will send to you some pics of the amazone as examples.

Okay, I have prepared Berolina Chess, Amazon Chess and Cylinder Chess. They will be released with the next batch of games.
Btw, does anybody know how the Amazon piece should look like? :-)

Dropping pieces makes shogi a very dynamic two-player game, and its play is much more satisfying, I think, than loop chess because of the balance of weakness and strength with piece movements.

If there are ever multiple-player games on BrainKing, there is a very entertaining 4-player version of shogi, yonin shogi. Effectively, you can play the game where two players act as team partners. Maybe that could be implemented even now on BrainKing without having to accomodate other multiple-player games?

Yes, I figured it would be too much of a pain to implement. Would be interesting, though.

I see. Unfortunatelly, BK doesn't support games for more than 2 players at the moment.

(from http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/bughouse.html)

Bughouse is a chess game for four players, played on two boards. Actually, it is two chess games played simultaneously in teams. The black player on board 1 is partnered with the white player on board 2, and vice versa. To win, a team must win on either of their boards.
The most notable difference from normal chess is that pieces captured on one board are handed to the partner on the other board. He can drop these pieces on his board for one of his turns.
***

Piece drops work pretty much like loop chess, except you get to drop the pieces your partner captures from his board, and you hand the pieces you capture over to him.

What is bughouse?

I would be interested to see bughouse implemented here. I usually suck at it at lightning speed, but maybe I won't screw it up too badly for my partner on a correspondence game.

lol

Shogi is very interesting!

I think that cylinder chess and berliner chess would be fun to try.

Amazonechess can be implemented in minutes because the amazone is an equivalent to maharajah of Maharajah chess :-)
But I'll read the rules of other mentioned variants first.

I want publish today 8 interesting chessvariants with regular set and board, but with some changed rules.
I hope we can play some of them on Brainking perhaps soon,if easy to implement :-).

1. Cylinderchess : The right and the left row are connected
www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/cylindrical.html

2. Amazonechess: Queen is replaced by an amazone (=Queen +knight)
www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/amazone.html

3. Benedictchess: At the end of a move the attacked pieces are changing their colours
www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/benedict.html

4. Biformchess: the pieces are moving and taking in a different way
www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/asymmetric.html

5. Cannibalchess: When a piece takes another piece, its gets the movement abilities of the piece it has taken.
www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/cannibal.html

6. Chameleonchess: In each turn the rank of the moved piece changes.
Figur www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/chameleonchess.html

7. Berliner Chess: Pawns are moving diagonally and are takeing by moving one square straight
www.chessvariants.com/dpieces.dir/berlin.html

8. Emperorchess. The king may move to any square but must have a defender.
http://play.chessvariants.com/erf/EmperorC.html

Thanks. I'll see what I can do

You could add two or three pawns to White or replace one queen by a rook on Black`s side or something,but I am not sure if this is interesting and originally enough for an own variant.

I have played 10 to 15 games over the board of grand chess being able to place your own pieces. It is very interesting. The pawns stay on the 3rd and 8th rows, while the pieces have NO restrictions, bishops can be on the same color. What is the most interesting is that you have 20 squares to place 10 pieces so there is much room for experimentation and variation.

How we play over the board is all the pawns are placed, then white and black alternate placing one piece at a time, white starting. This makes it very interesting because black has the advantage by seeing white's plan first, then being able to place his piece with a little more insight than white has. So being black and white both have their advantages-- white has the first move once the game starts, but has the disadvantage of having to place his pieces first.

Since the rooks and king can be anywhere on the 2 rows, it doesn't make that much sense to "castle" with the rook and king, so we play castling where the king can move 3 horizontal and 1 vertical move if he is not in check, not passing through check, and hasn't moved before, and not passing through any pieces. Also he cannot capture any pieces while doing the castling move. Castling is a much needed move which grand chess lacks because the king is often a sitting duck in the center.

I have played with promotion like in grand chess- which is one move sooner than usual, and the promotion behind the pawn rows. Some interesting positions have resulted from being able to promote early, but I have not played enough to know which is more balanced for the game.

It's really neat that part of the strategy and fun of the game happens placing the pieces. It's really nice to be able to come up with different setups of placing pieces. And it's a different game from the very beginning.

Oh, I see. Do you have any suggestions how we can possibly balance the starting position?

Reza, your suggested startposition is not balanced. "Fritz" sees Black with a big advantage:
- + 2,72 ,that means winposition for Black!
I addition to it,I would recommend to add such chessvariants,with those the very strong computerprograms cannot be used!
I will publish in the next time a list with interesting variations,with regular board and regular chesset but with a little bit changed rules.

Hey all. Here's a new type of chess:

The white player starts the game with the usual set of pieces.

Black, starts the game with a king, four queens and four pawns.

The king is located on its usual place at E8.
The queens are located at G8, F7, D7 and C8.
The pawns are on each queen. Ergo, we'll have the pawns at G7, F6, D6 and C7.

I would appreciate it if anyone could discuss the chances of both players. I think the players have almost the same chances of winning but the black player is a little bit more powerful if he/she can best benefit from the pieces.

Thanks to all

you can play it at Chessvariants.com...

Wonder what ever happened to this chess variant?

can now be played "live" or as "email" with the new version 0.8 of MAX (Misc./download).An engine for analyzing is included.

Antichess - this game seems to be very analyzed and many variants are determined.
How,if we could have a variant like "Shuffle-antichess"?
The rules could be the same with the difference, that the pieces on the 1th/8th row are placed randomly.

WhisperzQ,I have bought this chessset at Erwin Ortlauf (the inventor),it was the last one.:).At this time he has looked for a company,which wants produce the chesset and the board in series. But I don`t know if he has found one.

Caissus: So where did you get the pieces?

These chess-applets are not a good reference, Nasmichael.If you want to play against computer you can use much better "Zillions of games".There is a zrf-data file available.You can also play at the mailserver at "chessvariants.com" against other people.

Play a computer here at this link.. Thanks to programmer Ed Friedlander.

In our chessclub it was played sometimes as "tandem".Perhaps it could be interesting additionally to have such a teamvariant here in Brainking.