Khan Chess sounds interesting. Every once in awhile I'll see if I can touch each side of the board with my King in a game of Dark Chess.

I have wondered if playing Embassy Chess with Dark Chess's darkness and rules would work as a game as well as Dark Chess itself does. Or just playing a tournament such as yours playing Dark Chess.

tangram: The Joker sounds like the Chameleon in Ultima. Does the Joker capture the piece that it is capturing in the manner of that piece's movement? The Magician sounds like the Immobilizer. If it keeps a piece from moving just by being next to it, that's what the Immobilizer is. Very strong piece and it cannot capture.

I've never heard of Khan Chess or Super Chess. That does seem like a fast time control for a tournament, especially with even more pieces and larger board size.

tangram: Congratulations!
Are there any games of interest to check out? Did you play various games, or just one type?

Bwild: Was there not a time when Fencer was thinking of making some of the games play live? Dark Chess would be a great game to play live. Short time limits would be crazy. Longer time limits would make for a good game.

I've been hoping that the people that program all of these games would add many of the variants, but it seems that all they know is regular Chess. Sure the programs let you play regular Chess against the machine for solitary play, but I am more interested in using the programs to play games with people. It'd be nice to have a way to hook up monitors to one computer, or some sort of interface for the various devices that could keep track of different players for many games, such as Battleship, Dominoes, card games, and of course Dark Chess. Such a program or interface would be great for playing while traveling or where space or time are at a minimum. Imagine playing Dominoes, Dark Chess, or Cribbage with a friend while waiting for your bus or plane and just saving the game in progress to continue while on the plane. And with limited space without a table to play on, it'd easy to play with each of you holding your own device or monitor to keep your side from being seen by your opponent.

facteurix: I'd like to play Embassy Chess or Dark Chess live. Are there any sites that have them? Where can you play Grand Chess live?

P-G: The Marshall is a strong piece. Same piece as in Embassy Chess. I don't think of it as a clumsy piece. In Embassy Chess there's less room to maneuver, especially at the beginning of a game. The Marshall has to be developed carefully to avoid being harrassed by the minor pieces. The Cardinal is able to move diagonally. This gives it added mobility at the beginning of a game with all the Pawns mostly on the board. Grand Chess has lots of room behind the initial set up. With the Rooks being able to get right into the game and also, and this is often overlooked, the King has extra room to run to. This greatly reduces the tension of the game as compared to Embassy Chess where the King can be readily attacked and has no place to go. Sacrifices are always something to be on the look for. Defending against them, or initiating one of your own. Later in the game is when the Marshall shines. Crossing the board and getting in close. Very hard to defend against the Marshall, especially if you have a Bishop or other diagonal moving piece backing him up. Both the Marshall and the Cardinal are hard to stop when close to the action. The Knight movement part of them can't be blocked, so they essentually have twelve direct places to attack when up close as compared to the Queen's eight. Look at a 5 × 5 square on the board and you'll see the Queen, Marshall, and Cardinal all cover the same number of squares. Widen the field and the Queen covers more squares.

As for rules changes to Grand Chess. I think one I'd institute would be moving the Pawn promotion row to the ninth row, instead of the present eighth. Then they'd have to cross the same amount of squares as they do in regular Chess. The restricted promotion of which piece can be chosen is a different rule and seems OK by me, but it does take some planning if you happen to have a Pawn in position to promote when there haven't been any piece captures or just a few minor pieces.

I don't know about these Chinese Chess Cannons. Why not add a couple more Rooks if you like power on the board? Or a Marshall and another Cardinal? Yeah, throw in a Queen too. MIght as well have two of every piece except a King. The back row would also have the room to add the pieces used in Ultima. If you want excitement in your Grand Chess, that'd most certainly do it. An Immobilizer working with a Cardinal? Oh yeah. :) The Longleapers of Ultima are similar to Cannons I believe. The Coordinator is too. The Withdrawer is weak, so make it another Queen. And just imagine the Chameleon being able to attack with so many different pieces that they could copy their moves. Ultragrand Chess.

We used to play Ultimamen versus Chessmen. That's an interesting variant of both games and allowing the Chameleon to move as a Knight against a Knight helps the Ultima side as it seems the Chessmen are very strong with having the form of capture that they have. Seeing how there's a few non-equal sided games on this site, it'd be cool to have this variant too, though I suppose we should first get regular Ultima added too.

le grenouille: Sure. I sent you a couple of invitations. I'll see you at the games. :)

Kipling: Cool. I'm not the strongest player, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I got to looking at it after finding it for you and I can see a few things that could been done instead of taking the Pawn. It did force the issue though. I'll let you know when the game is over.

Kipling: Link to it. Still going on. I have just taken the lead back in it. The link is to the move just before I moved the Pawn to the eighth row.
http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1117078&i=94
True, I could have promoted to a Marshall, but that wouldn'tve threatened his Cardinal. This forced him to take the Pawn instead of looking elsewhere for a move as I had every square covered that the Cardinal could move to.

I played a game recently where I purposely did not promote a Pawn for good reason. I've done it in a few other games, but it didn't make any difference. I've also had a couple of opponents not realize they could promote it on the eighth or hold off for a later move of the Pawn. In fact I believe that game is still on going. It's been a back and forth kind of game. He had to take the not promoted Pawn with his Cardinal. Had I promoted it, it would not have gone as well for me.

Nightstorm: Yep! Those are the pieces. I like how they look. If icons similiar to those could be used on the playing boards here, I think that'd be good too. Thanks Nightstorm. Looks like it'll cost $78 plus shipping to get a set, though I could make the board and get the pieces for $39. Then make an 8 × 10 board and use the pieces for that too.

cpaul_d2004: The guy that created Grand Chess used to have a web site that had a link to where the set could be bought. In Europe if I remember right. I'm not sure if he has the site up any more though. It seems like I wasn't able to visit it the last time I went looking. When I did see the site a few years back, the pictures of the pieces looked nice.

The pieces would take some time to make your own if you want them to look like one made together set. Obviously you could do as Ed did when he first made some sets and cut and paste some pieces together.
The boards are fairly easy to make. I've been thinking of a way to make a board have three or more sizes. Somehow have an edge slide out, but still be solid when set up for play. It'd be easy to have two game sizes on one board, one on each side. So maybe I'll make a 10 × 10 on one side and an 8 × 10 on the other and just lug a regular Chess board around that I could also attach something to the back of. It'd certainly be possible to make a game table, if one was good at wood working and then you could make lots of different sized boards and keep the unused pieces under the table in a compartment for them. Not to practical to carry a table down to the park for a game or two though.

cpaul_d2004: Are those the actual names that Capablanca used? I'm not sure why Richard decided to call it Capablanca Random Chess except maybe to honor Capablanca. Capablanca took Bird's Chess and re-arranged a few pieces (The Bishops, Guards and Equerries). I wasn't aware that he also renamed the Equerry and Guard, let alone named them the Archbishop and Chancellor. If he did, then it still doesn't affect the names of the pieces in Grand Chess.

In any case, the post of mine dealt with the notation of Grand Chess, not Capablanca Random Chess. Fencer said he'd fix it, so that's what I'm looking forward too.

Fwiffo: Though your idea of better might be different than mine, I'd still like to see them.

Fencer: Ah, Archbishop and Chancellor, A and C! Cool, here's to the Cardinal and Marshall. :)

I've noticed the A is used for the Cardinal and the C is used for the Marshall. Is this standard practice for this game, or could C and M be used for the game record?

It's kind of confusing to be looking back at the record and see C when I know I moved my Marshall and not the Cardinal.

Fencer: I've wanted to play this game since I read about it at the Chess variants website a couple years back. I'm glad you added it. Thanks.

I have some waiting games if anyone would like to play a game or two.