Walter Montego: The plan is already to make white first use King, and black use Queen. I've played it that was a few times as a "test", and found that white no longer gets blown out of the water. I was still able to win as black during those test, but that did not take into consideration the other changes to the game about what space scores what - so it should be a lot closer doing that.

The connect6 type of moving - that is also a interesting idea. Just looking at it, without making black use his queen early - I would still say Black would have an advantage because on their next to last move, a rook & queen places could attack a lot of the board that white would not be able to block with just one piece..... but I would have to play it to know for sure.

Walter Montego: That sounds like it might be a solvable problem ... maybe one of the programmers could put some thought to it ... I expect standard chess would be the same if the piece movement order was pre-ordained.

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

Luke Skywalker: Things are changing too fast for me to keep up.

kaluza:
1) the diagram is wrong
2) the rules are wrong
3) read this: http://brainking.com/en/News?tp=93

I have a question about the diagram in the cheversi rules. Why is it that the square with the black knight is higlighted but the square with the black queen is not? They are both being attacked by white.

Yeh, i get you now, i agree it's pointless to take away the scoring.

furbster: That is what I was getting at - there is no point in hidding the points since if someone "really" wants to know how many point there is, they can sit there for 3 minutes and figure it out. When I play, I try to play and move on so hiding the score would only slow down game play.

Basicly it's how many spaces your pieces are attacking. So on the first move, if you put a rook in a corner space, you would have 14 points (for "attacking" 7 in each direction). If then the player places a piece right next to your rook, they would take away 7 points from you since you are no longer attacking in that direction.

I just read a rules update. But that does nothing about Black's advantage!

BIG BAD WOLF: "since anyone can sit there and count up how many squares are being attacked."

I might be acting dumb, but i don't entirely get the scoring. I probably wouldn't play if i had to add up the points as well.

BIG BAD WOLF: Give black some penalty points (say -5.5) then a draw can't occur too.

Marfitalu: Having the score hidden would just take extra time since anyone can sit there and count up how many squares are being attacked.

I had 2 ideas about it so far.

1. Make black use his queen in the first 3 moves of the game instead of keeping it until the end.

2. Possible make some sort of handicap points for white to start out with to make the match more even.

joshi tm: Huge.

Does black have an advantage for having the last turn?

Endorfin: Because of the fact, that a Chess960 (FRC) starting position is created just immediately before the first move has to be made, theoretically existing advantages of one side do not at all have that value as in traditional chess, where the positions have been analysed for centuries. Thus there is no need to change the basic chess rules at all. Regards - Reinhard.

bobwhoosta:
Hello, thanks for your opinions about FRC. I agree with you in most cases. Yes openings are destroying chess at the highest level but beginers dont feel that. You also claimed that all starting positions are equal. I must correct you - they are not equal at all (use Fritz 10). In some positions white has quite big advantage (unluckily it is also classical chess position). So there is a rule how to make the game absolutely balanced: as a white I make first move and then you decide which colour you want to play. So one has to be very careful in making first move. Eg. 1.e4 is very strong move so most players should take it - but if you make b3, c3 - the game is very fairplay.
This should be widely applied in FRC - the perfect game of chess is created...
With regards ---Endorfin

Here are some fairly fast variants to play in a tournament setting...
Rated only, <1801 BKR

Loop Chess Tournament, with Brains Entery Fee.  Those interested are welcome to join.

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.

Matarilevich:Oh thanks man.  I really appreciate it. 

grenv:  I thank you too.  Let me see what I can do.

King Reza:
(1) You must register -> "Registro gratuito" means "Register free"
(2) In red required: Nickname, Clave (password), Repetir clave (confirm password), Sexo (sex)
(3)You must connect -> "Usuario:" (Nickname:) , "Contraseña:" (Password) and click in "Entrar" (Come in)
(4) Click in "Jugar Ajedrez" (Play Chess)
(5) Now, a java applet will open in a new window
(6) You have basically 2 options:
[a]  Take a challenge
Click onto a challenge in the main window. If you put the mouse over one challenge then you´ll see the conditions:
Clasico (classic) -> standard chess
Tuerto (one-eyed) -> dark chess
Comepiezas (EatPieces) -> similar to antichess (there are checks and checkends)
Alocado (rash) -> like FRChess
PasaPiezas (PassPieces) -> Loop Chess
Atomico (Atomic) -> similar to Atomic but with checks
[b] Put a challenge
Click onto button "Desafiar" (Challenge)
Tiempo de la partida (Time per game)
Incremento por jugada (Increase per move)
Quien desconecta pierde QDP (If you disconnect then you´ll lose)
Permitir observadores (Let observers)
Partida con rating (Game for rating)
El servidor elige color (The server chooses the colour)
Quiero jugar con blancas/negras (I want to play with white/black colour)
Sin ordenadores (Without PCs)

Ok?

And in the first window "Cerrar sesión" means Logout

King Reza: lol

Jugar = to play
Ajedrez = chess

Should be just below the "Hola Reza" in the login box. :)

grenv:I joined too, as Reza, but I cannot read Spanish and therefore, i don't know where to go to start a new game!

tipau: Thanks, I joined (as grenv again)... but I'll need to wait till I get out from behind this firewall to play.

Walter, you need to join first, then a java applet is used to play. I suspect from there you can choose the game type.

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:
www.buho21.com is a spanish site which has live dark chess (they call it blind chess), i never really play it so I'm not sure what it does about the en passant rule or what sort of level the players there are. It also has atomic (with slightly different rules) and losers

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.

When I have fewer games, that is

grenv:You can always play it with me live!

Walter Montego: If you ever see a live dark chess site or game let me know!

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.

grenv: OK, I didn't know. No problem with me, I like it with en passant too. But with visible pawns, of course !

nabla: But on every site I've played en passent is allowed, so I think these rules have possibly been superceded by usage.

grenv: Actually I checked the original rules on http://www.chessvariants.org/incinf.dir/darkness.html and it says that en passant is not allowed in Dark Chess. So what we have here may even qualify as a bug.

danheg:No problem.

King Reza: thank you

danheg:A Queen.

King Reza: ok, I get it after re-reading. lol. It depends which syllable you emphasize :)

grenv:By 'we' I meant Nabla and I

King Reza: I think it makes sense to show the pawn. Why force the players to try each move, it's a waste of time and achieves nothing.
By the way just because you call yourself King is no excuse for using the royal "we" :)

nabla:Well, we think differently!  I think since it's Dark Chess, it can be part of the strategy to choose whn you want to move your Pawn two squares thus giving your opponent an enpassant Pawn.  So if the opponent wants not to miss the oportunity, he has to 'suffer' these extra clickings.  But let the site owner decide!

King Reza: Thank you for the fast answer ! But I still think that it is a wrong implementation. It is the only case when you can't see the whole set of your legal moves by looking at your board, and it requires to do a lot of unnecessary clicks in order to gather an information which should be pushed to the player automatically.

nabla:It's allowed and no, the system doesn't show you that you have an enpassant Pawn.  It's worth clicking on the specific square every move, just in case you can move to it.  Personally, I think it's fine that it doesn't tell you it's available.

Is en passant allowed at Dark Chess ?
If not, all is perfectly fine.
If yes, one should see the pawn which one can take en passant. Otherwise, there would be no other way to know that an en passant is possible without trying all potentials en passant. And discovering it to be possible would give the same info as seeing the takeable pawn.
In both cases, the rules should say a little something about it.

lukulus: Yes, it is very confusing, but you can get used to it in the end.
Over a year ago I downloaded a trial copy of Zillions, which allowed me to play Ultima and claims to use Abbott's original rules. I had to play and lose several games while learning about tactics, but I did feel I was making some progress.
This site does not allow using a machine to help you with your moves, but training against software is surely allowed isn't it?
Does anyone think it is possible to get beyond simple tactics in Ultima and move on to strategy?

Walter Montego: It looks very confusing

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.

Walter Montego: What is Ultima??