tedbarber: Alekhine hasn't been defeated since his death, has he?

tedbarber: "Since 1975 no one has beaten him for his Championship..." Since 1975, who has he beaten to retain his title? :) Is Alekhine still champion?

Grim Reaper: The text you want is here, is it not?

Is Gothic Chess still at cowplay.com?

At present there are many tournaments open to sign up on BrainKing that include Gothic Chess, see http://brainking.com/game/Tournaments?trnst=0&tp=41&submit=Show

For official Gothic Chess Federation tournaments, see http://www.gothicchess.org/tournaments.html

As for the name "Gothic", it is intented to span generation gaps; Ed Trice once explained: "Younger people are familiar with the Gothic lifestyle (the wearing of dark colors, staying up extremely late, etc) and older people are familiar with Gothic architecture. So, in a very real sense, 'Gothic' could register as "something new" or "something old" depending on the focus group."

At BrainKing, Gothic Chess games have a drawing percentage of 2.39 %.

Thad: I'm not sure what you're saying is a flaw. The B pawn can be protected, surely? Could you elaborate?

Yes, very interesting. It would be nice to see it annotated. :)

I had noticed that the BrainKing ratings on GothicChess.org had not been updated, but the current "Game of the Month" is September 2003, so at least it's more up to date than that. Surely some good games have been played since then?

Discussion about patents, lawsuits, and moderators. :)

OK, but the features you consider balanced resemble the features of Gothic Chess that GothicInventor listed on 16. September 2004.

So is 1.f4 in Gothic Chess as good as 1.e4 in regular chess?

You're quoting EdTrice, aren't you? Anyways, Gothic Chess is only perfect within the context of its creator's goals (Indian formations, protected pawns, shorter average game length, etc.). Some chess variants aim for different goals; players who prefer those goals will prefer those variants. No one variant will satisfy everyone.

Yes, Safe Check assumes that pawns retain the same value on all sizes of boards, while other pieces degrade in power. With a large enough board, pawns would be worth more than queens! But I guess for the Gothic or regular chess board, practical values are obtained.

Wouldn't the "safe check" procedure, if applied to a Pawn, Berolina Pawn, Ferz, Wazir, Man, etc., result in that piece having a value of zero?

Thanks danoschek, but I wanted to make sure EdTrice saw it. :)

I have been designing a new variant of Capablanca's Chess: RACK Chess. Click on the above link for all details or click here if you just want to see the opening setup. You might want to read the Gothic Chess long answer for comparison, if you have not already. Need I add that my variant will not be patented? :)

If the Omega Chess board makes the queen more powerful than in chess, why does the "safe check" procedure reduce the queen's value? Are you saying that larger boards make pieces more or less powerful?

The piece values in Omega Chess (Don't its claims about evolution sound similar to Gothic Chess's?), another large board variant, are given on this page. The values seem confusing, for example, the bishop is described as "4 points. This is a hard call since the size of the board increases the range and power of the bishop..." But in Gothic Chess, I thought the larger board was supposed to reduce the power of every piece? How were the Omega Chess values calculated?

I sometimes thought the knights were too far from the center in Gothic, but in Grotesque they look too close. Where would they develop to? Not in front of the center pawns, surely? But if they go the other way they seem to hinder development of the bishops.

A match counts for ratings as only one game. Winning a ten-wins match 10-0, for example, would result in no greater change in rating than winning 10-9.

Strange how black has a better winning percentage in both gothic and regular chess.

where knowing a person's true name is dangerous.

If I had played all my games of loop and gothic against ughaibu and Trice respectively I expect my winning percentages would be lower, without my skill being reduced.

As it happens, my games of 3 checks chess against ughaibu seem to have given me a high rating despite my losing both.

Redsales: If you're refering to your games in the "For the honest,and friendly,not cheating. (Atomic Chess)" tournament, observe its description: "Unrated games (no BKR will be affected by this tournament): yes"

Let's not confuse unrated games with the real problems with the rating system. :) And I don't see how simple win percentages reveal much about a player's skill.

Pocket-Monkey, another game site, mentions the following: "Elo ratings are not absolute, they are relative, and they're only applicable within a body of players." So I do not expect USCF and Bk ratings to match.

However, I agree there are other problems with the ratings, like draws not counting for enough, and a player's first few games being over-emphasized.

Ethori was also #1 once, briefly.

It would have been more impressive if he had said that before the game was over.

If gothic chess is to become the new standard, than it stands to reason that future variants would use it as their starting point, rather than FIDE chess. I'm not sure if the gothic patent would allow that, though?

I guess all these new posts are testament to gothic chess's continuing popularity, but maybe it's time I removed this from my favourite board list. I agree with Caissus's message that is buried somewhere hereabouts; I'm getting tired of reading unimportant things.

So, which game would be most likely to be longest, if it were played to checkmate:
Master vs. Master
Master vs. Beginner
Beginner vs. Beginner

By the way, does the Gothic Chess Federation give out titles like master or grandmaster?

Hmmm... another 11 move game.

Maybe we should be embarrassed that none of us can beat GothicInventor. :)

The figurine notation is international. In the Settings section you can change the notation to show standard English (or Czech) letters for pieces.

Oh, okay, I was just wondering if you had invented it too. :)

Is there any connection between Gothic Chess and Gothic Checkers?