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Neutral information?

But Gothic Inventor actually started the "cheating"

That is NOT neutral!

I took no action and engaged in no cheating, yet he insists on using such nomenclature.

So it depends on if you think just having the offer of cheating is bad enough. I believe it is

There is the truth of the matter. HE BELIEVES, in his own words, that cheating took place, so he is offering his BIASED view of it.

Neutral? Like hell!

I'm sure Gothic will post the last word, and then try to stop anyone else from replying

I suppose you think that is neutral as well?

It is neutral when you take a NEW MEMBER who has joined after all this took place and then present a biased viewpoint on something that happened long ago?

Why did he have to post anything at all?

Why doesn't BBW post about the BrainRook membership I paid for and gave to somebody else?

Why doesn't BBW post about my Gothic Chess After School program which had me nominated for one of the Mayor's Awards for 2003?

Why doesn't BBW mention that I actually am running the only tournament on BrainKing where the winner will receive money that I personally donated to the prize fund?

Oh, that's right, that might upset the "neutral" posting.

BBW has no interest in Gothic Chess at all.

He came here to post something negative as the opportunity presented itself.

The fact that others, such as yourself are here at this exact moment indicates he is directing you here to read and post on a matter that has nothing to do with Gothic Chess.

I have had to delete about a dozen posts from grievers who have nothing better to do than to sling mud.

If BBW, or anyone else, wants to bring up the past, they can send me a message.

This board is not for what you are doing right now.

Ted,

I created a bulletin board to deal with this person who was named danoschek. People were airing out their problems with him in great numbers.

I also knew he had "friends" who participated in that private bulletin board, so I set a trap.

I posted a message where I offered to help EVERYONE in EVERY ONE of his 200+ active games to beat him.

This got back to danoschek, and he went even crazier than before. This helped in getting him banned, which was my goal.

As you see from his rantings to you in private messages, he really is mentally unstable.

Now BBW is one of the people who actually believes I was sending 200+ moves to all of his opponents. Either that or he thinks the mere offer of helping others win is cheating.

It is a good thing BBW lacks the intelligence to understand my plan, even though I have explained it about a dozen times already. You see, he keeps saying the same thing over and over again, and people just ignore him and tune him out. Notice he has not posted on here in a great long while, but now as he has the opportunity to dredge up the past again, he does so.

I wonder why.

Now, this was not part of my original plan because I did not realize that people were that moronic. But, it works out well. He continues to stand on his little soapbox, which nobody cares about, beating his drum, calling attention to something so silly, which is a strong indication that his "real life" must be rather bleak, unfullfulling, and dull.

So, just ignore him, as I do, and many others do as well.

There was a problem with the server accidentally causing games to time out prematurely ted, so Fencer "put the timer on pause" temporarily to resolve the problem.

When the site gets back to normal, you will collect your wins.

And, by the way, Hokuriku is also the same person who has been harassing you Ted. He is also taurec, who was banned, and danoschek, who was banned.

I suggest you ignore Hokuriku.

And as for Big Bad Wolf, he is just a "griever".

He complains about stuff that nobody cares about, so just ignore him too.

Well ted, welcome aboard! I produced the Gothic Chess Review magazine, so I know it well. I am winding up the last details on the December 2003 Special Edition, which is 84 pages. Lots of cool stuff in this one.

You will enjoy this site very much. There is a wide range of Gothic Chess talent out there. If you are a Class B chess player you will rise to the over 2000 mark here very soon.

Hello Ted,

First, take a look at this link: click here

It demonstrates some castling blunders, particularly on the queenside.

The most dangerous piece you need to worry about when executing a Queenside castle is the Archbishop. Even umoved from its start in the g-file, it can perform a solo checkmate under the right circumstances (namely, your own Knight not on c3 for white or c6 for black).

The Chancellor is less of a threat to a queenside castled position because it takes longer to infiltrate with an abundance of pawns still on the board (usually true when one has castled.) So, you only really have to be weary of one Gothic piece, and not need to neutralize both, as you have mentioned.

A typical motiff in chess is to play Kb1/Kb8 after 0-0-0 as well, so in this case it is not unique to Gothic Chess.

Where have you played your 250 games? Do you have your own Gothic Chess set?

From the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church, there are Bishops, Archbishops, and 'special Archbishops' that are candidates for becoming the next Pope called Cardinals. You can be an Archbishop and still not be a Cardinal, but all Cardinals are at least Archbishops.

I am not sure if that adds clarity or confusion.

A Chancellor should be easier to translate into German, since that is an official Title of State. A Chancellor in American lingo can also be someone of Academic importance at a University.

Yeah it is unusual to have the Chancellor so active early in the game. It is something I only have a chance to do against the weakest of players, and he surely goes to the top of my list in that regard.

After 8...Kf7 there is Cxh8+, taking the Bishop and forcing the black king to move again. 9...Kg7 attacks the Chancellor and white looks to be in danger with two pieces hanging (the bishop on g5 is also still being attacked by the black pawn on f6) but the whole point of this aggressive line was 10. Ch4! and now the black bishop is attacked. If 10...fxg5 then 11. Cxg4 leaves white with an easy win.

Actually, that person you mentioned, whose name I no longer bother to type, lost in 8 moves. Click here to see the loss in 8

And now here is the 5 to 1 lead in development where he said he was winning.

I don't think these games will go into the book. There is no need to showcase the very poor play made by him, I want the readers to see good games played by much better players.

With the completion of the 84 page issue of the "Best of Gothic Chess Review", I realize this is really a small book on Gothic Chess! A few players have been asking me to write a book for a while, and now, by default, it looks like I am more than 50% done.

I would like anyone who is inerested in having their best games published in this book to send me a message. I will only publish games actually played here on BrainKing.

If you want to "nominate" some other player's game for inclusion in this book, feel free to do so. If you have any games on here that are personal favorites that you have seen, send me the game IDs and I will take a look at them.

Yes Rob, I won that in 70 something moves, but as Cassias said, he knew he was lost about move 30 or so. The Chancellor and Pawn endings make Rook and Pawn endings look easy!

I am not sure why the other poster thinks Cassias won the game. I won the game clearly, as I have never lost on this game site.

OK everyone, the quote is back from the printer! We can make the "Best of Gothic" deck for not alot of money.

So all the champions can email me their photos, and I will get you into the deck.

Congratulations to the top 52!

Aces
GothicInventor
ChessCarpenter
strydor
juangrande

Kings
Dredger
HerculesBeast
Fencer
Savage

Queens
nstre
matthewhall
Whisperz
grillyx

Jacks
anticonformista
JAGR
tonyh
GKChesterton

Start thinking abour your mugshots, gentlemen :)

I see we have 34 active players who have completed at least 25 games of Gothic Chess on here. That is pretty close to 52, the number of cards in a deck.

So, the thought occurred to me, maybe we could make a deck of cards with everyone's pictures on them. Players 1-4 woud be the aces, 5-8 would be the Kings, etc.

Anyone interested?

At least you did not misspell misspell :) That would be an efficacious typo.

Matt,

I had to go back and revisit that game. I forgot about some of the peculiarities in that one!

The first was here like you mentioned. Things got interesting and it seemed like minor + R for the Arch was sufficient as it made white's positon a little more uncomfortable than mine.

The next interesting part is here where I let the Chancellor get caught in exchange for your Archbishop, which was more powerful than my piece in that position.

These were part strategical decisions, and I will have to dig up my notes to figure out exactly what I was thinking at the time!

The poor Chancellor. As pawns come off the board, it's rook aura gains power, but its knight component loses power.

Since the Knight is the weakest of the conventional pieces once migrated to the 10x8 board, and the Rook is the piece that losest the least amount of power on the 10x8 board, it is hard to tell the net effect of the Chancellor's power change.

One thing that i s pretty cool...Archbishops dominate in the opening, Chancellors are wicked in the middlegame, and Queens tear up the endgame.

The question is....where do you excel, and how bad would you risk beating your opponent in the given stage of the game where the pieces will help you most?

I discovered something over the course of playing about 2000 games of Gothic Chess. The new pieces have a "dimension" to them that is not observed in the domain of regular 8x8 chess. That being, the value of the pieces vary as does the pawn population.

Consider this. Place a White Archbishop on a8. Place a White King on a1. Place a Black King on j8.

White to move will win, but it will take a very long time! With no pawns on the board, the Archbishop has "decayed" to being less important than a Rook. A Rook on the empty board mates much more quickly than the Archbishop.

So, should not the strength of the pieces become a function of the pawn count? I think so.

On a crowded board we observe Archbishops tearing down the house. So, in these instances, we rate it much higher.

It takes some getting used to, but the "developing without moving" Bishop, by just pushing the d-pawn, is a weapon black can use to NOT be behind by one tempo as a result of moving second.

You notice on the stats page that black has actually won more games than white. I think in the long term scheme of things, some players have stumbled onto the notion of how to use the diagonals to their advantage as black.

If you can't fianchetto with a Bishop, you cannot create one of the essential "fortresses" common to chess. Getting a Bishop onto a long diagonal that is also in the same file as a castled king adds a great deal of stability to the game.

When I first started playing regular chess, the concept of the fianchetto seemed foreign to me. Look at the players who molded it into a strategic weapon, the hypermoderns of the early 1900's. I think, by default, we are all "classic era" players, and only learn the finer points of the game after a longer period of exposure to it.

Just my opinion, of course, and each player's experience is undoubtedly different.

Between Capablanca chess and Gothic Chess.

But first, the concept of an 80 square board is not unique to Capablanca. Capa looked at it in 1924 or 1925, correcting the English Master Bird from 1874. Bird also was not the first, as he improved on Pietro Carrera's setup from 1617!

The patent and the setup for Gothic Chess is not claimed to have been the first try at an 80 square board. In fact, in the patent, we acknowledge the predecessors and had to prove our setup is very different.

There are 6 reasons why the Capablanca setup is bad.

1. The i-pawns were undefended. The starting position was therefore unstable, and kingside castling was usually suicidal since the castled king would reside in the file of the undefended pawn.


2. The bishops are "shifted" inward one file each, which changes the color on which they reside. They cannot reach the "long diagonal" like they can in regular chess, so many popular formations, such as the King's Indian or the Reti Opening had no counterparts in this variation.

3. On each side of the board, there are three diagonal pieces in a row, all aimed in the vicinity of the weak i-pawn. There is no symmetry, and there is too much attacking power focused on an unprotected sector of the board.


4. After Nh3 the knight covers the h-pawn, blocking the bishop in. The king's bishop could then only deploy in one direction, that being towards the opponent's Queenside after the f-pawn is pushed to free it. This cripples the range of the bishop over an important area of the board. This is bad.

5. Attempting to fix item #4 by playing the pawn to h3 instead of Nh3 does not solve the problem. White's King's Bishop would be free to head to the right after the h-pawn is pushed once, but where can the King's Knight land on its first move? Playing Nj3 then Nh2 after Bi3 costs a critical tempo, and Black's e-pawn can make one move to threaten the Bishop on i3, a potential loss of another tempo. Pushing the g-pawn then playing Ng2 looks more promising, but without pushing the e-pawn, Black has ...Ci6 to hit on the weakened i2 square. Of course ...Ci6 could be answered with Ch2, but this cuts off the Bishop's retreat path and invites either ...Ad6 or ...c6 and ...Bc7 to chase the Chancellor. This is bad.

6. Pushing the h-Pawn two squares in Capablanca Chess, seemingly freeing the King's Bishop, Knight, and Chancellor, allows a violent attack against h3 and i2 by the enemy Archbishop, Queen, and Bishop, by lining them up onthe c8-j1 diagonal. White can try to do the equivalent quick kingside castle in Capablanca Chess, but there is a positional detriment imposed. After 1. h4 d6 2. Nh3 e5 3. Bi3 (protecting the h-Pawn since the Black Bishop on d8 is now attacking it) 3...Nh6 4. Ch2 looks to allow 5. 0-0 without breaking a sweat. However, Black has Nj5, attacking the h-Pawn twice and the Bishop on i3, detracting from the merit of the position for White. After 4...Nj5 and 5...Nxi3, White's Pawn structure is ruined on the kingside since 6. jxi3 is needed to recapture the Knight that removed White's Bishop. White cannot play in this fashion without surrendering the iniative. This is very bad.

All of this, and more, is explained on the website at this link for those that are interested.

And everyone knows edge = danoschek, someone who was barred from this site.

I changed the Gothic Chess website around a bit. I finally got around to adding the Annotated Games section, by popular demand. The games there are posted in Word format, so you can download and print them, not just look at the html pages.

This is the link to that page. There are two cools games there currently, with more on the way.

Sure whenever you are ready. Choose your color as well.

I detect Litmus paper in the form of a Bernice post :)

You guys know there is no Archmoderator function right? I just made that up.

But this is too be expected, since the ArchModerator can move like a Moderator or a Knight on any turn.

...the ArchModerate function is stil a little buggy, occasionally producing some strange side effects.

Very funny Matthew (when I met Matt in Philadelphia this summer with ChessCarpenter, I told them how much I despise Omega Chess.)

:)

Yes I had to "hide" the person name "fraud". Whenever he posts, nobody will be able to see it except him, but the counter will increment.

LMFAO @ LMCAO :)

Most people are unaware that chess was not always the "packaged game" that it is today. It has already undergone countless changes over the centuries! The earliest form of the game, called chaturanga (Hindu for the four branches of the Indian army) bore little resemblence to the 64 square board shown above on the left. Depending on whether or not you subscribe to the belief that the ashtapada was used to play chaturanga, the earliest form of chess may have involved rolling dice! (Note: The Indian ashtapada was a general purpose playing surface which was used for many different recreational board games that almost invariably used dice to determine the course of play.)

It was because that chaturanga was so interesting that a great many people were enjoying it. The Hindu players took to adopting variations of the game, including making a four-player version of the game, both with and without dice. The diceless four-player game, which involves only eight pieces per side, is still played in 21st century India.

As chaturanga made its way further east, local customs, local fauna, and even "bad translations" had influenced the game. For example, the four branches of the Indian army from chaturanga had names that translate roughly to elephants, horses, chariots, and foot soldiers. As the game made its way into Arabia, the Hindu word for elephant was translated to al-fil. The Spanish still call this piece the alfil, but the Italians sought a phonetically similar word, which was alfiere, meaning "standard-bearer." We know that the traditional design for this piece featured a split mark at the top to signify the tusk of an elephant, but the English players had mistaken it to resemble the miter of a Bishop. The French also misinterpretted the context of the split mark, and believed the "hat" to be one that a "court jester" would wear. The modern day French player would call the Bishop fou which literally means "fool", but means "jester" to the players of the game.

As the game evolved, and the "bad translations" and other factors molded the game, one thing remained common across all cultures.

A game of shatranji, ajedrez, xadrez, scac, ... chess, could get rather long.

It was in the Middle Ages, believed during the 13th century, that the rules of the game of chess started to resemble the present day 64-square board. There was still some tinkering going on, however. The Bishop was only permitted to move two squares diagonally, but it could leap over a piece blocking its path! This is far different than the Bishop of today! If you could believe it, the Queen was even weaker. Originally called the Counselor, our modern day Queen could only move one square diagonally at a time. This means the Queen was actually weaker than a pawn at one point in time!

It was shortly after 1500 that the Bishop was given full reign over the diagonals as it does today. The Queen was likewise given the full power of horizontal and vertical Rook motion as well as the newly strengthened diagonal capabilities of the Bishop. The Rook and the Knight, the two strongest pieces from the Medieval era, were the only pieces that were never augmented in power.

With the added power of the Bishop and Queen, combined with the fact that pawns could now opt to promote to the compelling Matriarch, games were not requiring as many moves as the antiquated version of chess. The European adoption of the new rules was so rapid, that it surely proves that players welcomed brevity and profundity over exaggerated exercises in recalcitrance. But this new power came at a price: now the King needed some defense!

An entire mini-odyssey regarding the modern day castling manuever began to unfold. At first, the King was permitted to move to any two (or in some cases, three) squares during the course of one turn, placing the Rook leisurely at his side wherever he landed. The rules gradually become more restrictive in this regard, but the Italian School was still holding out for "freeform castling." The "freeformers" eventually gave in to the modern version of the rule regarding only the horizontal displacement of the King during castling. It should be noted that this debate was contested for decades.

The French had one last hand in the shaping of the contemporary rules of 8x8 chess, that being the strange en passant pawn capture. Depending on whose story you read, the French viewed the bypassing of an infiltration achieved by a pawn as an "act of cowardice." Basically, if you moved your pawn twice on the first move to get passed a pawn that was pressuring the pawn you moved, the French reserved the right to remove the "cowardly" pawn as if it had directly impaled itself by moving forward only once. This special capture, known as en passant, (on the passing) can only be made on the turn following the "cowardly advance." This peculiar rule was finally universally accepted by the 1880's, but it had been used widely for over 200 years prior to this.

OK, I get the "LM" and "AO" part, and I am used to seeing an "F" where there is a "C"...so will Scarlet please enlighten me as to what the "C" stands for?

In the historical framework, the en passant move was really the French's "pet peeve". Even while Paul Morphy was still playing, en passant was not universally agreed upon, although most players did play this way. Howard Staunton was instrumental in getting the rules and standards written down, and I think it was 1881 that the official description on en passant made its way into "chess law."

The most interesting evolution I think was that concerning castling. The Italian players wanted the king to move ANY two squares, with the ability to place the rook next to wherever the king landed! Now that would be confusing! I think it took 80 years for the "freeformers" to be tamed to just horizontal movements of the king.

Very well said! I was grappling for the concept in trying to stratify the Gothic and Suicide variants, but I just did not summarize it as well as you did.

Interesting to note that there are two forms of the #3 item. There are those variants that bloom and become a different stand alone game, and there are those that become so dominant that they took over and the previous iteration of the game withers and dies.

...and none disappeared, I think the problem is resolved. Thanks for all who participated.

I will volunteer.

Whisperz, what was your previous post about?

OK, you play soooooooooo lousy that you can force your opponent to accidentally checkmate you :)

Suicide is also "losing chess". You win when you get checkmated, so you play as lousy as you can.

Both Whisperz and I were editing some of ourposts then something funky happened, but not it looks like things are back to normal.

I think one post by ugh disappeared in the process too.

I see some changes taking place.

I just saw 4 of my posts disappear, then come back after I wen to the Main Page then returned.

I thought I just did a copy/past from the website