of course it is customary to resign after moving your king next to the opponents king! So i haven't actually had the pleasure of making the capture.

Indeed a king can take a king. Quite amusing it is as well! :)

So one King could take another?

There is no stalemate. Draws are only achieved by agreement. Even King against King can be played out if the players wish.

I'm pretty sure black would be allowed to move, and white would therefore (hopefully) win by taking the king next move. Considering there's no check or checkmate in dark chess, there is likely no stalemate as well.

Is stalemate possible in Dark Chess? For example, assume White has a King on h1, Queen on g6, Black King on h8. Black to move. In chess it would be a draw because of stalemate. However in Dark Chess it is legal to move a King into check so it is look like Black have to make a move and will lose. Does anybody knows how this situation is really handled on this site?

Would a position like white king a8, black Kb8 + pawns a7 b7
be a stalemate if it is white turn?

Did this already happened?

Do you know some "atomic" chess problems you could post here?

Regards
M.

SHOULD B MY MOVE

well, a coupl of unnecessary clicks and page refreshes.

So I would suggest there is no glitch here!

promoted and removed. So effectively it didn't matter.

Grenv ... did you get the piece or was it promoted and then removed?

I only just started playing. Mainly it's just becuase I just enjoy the explosions.
But obviousily there are numererous glitches in the programming.
But what the site managers partly appear to be trying to do here is to overcome the awful technical problem of setting up this kind of site.
No one has been able to do it yet. All the game sites, even the most established, constantly crash or otherwise scew up.
Personally, I am taking these people at face value - that they are trying to do their best - and that if they keep trying to do it long enough, it could work.

Funny thing is I captured a piece on the 8th rank with my pawn (thus destroying the pawn) and i was still asked which piece I wanted to promote to. :)

Hi, Whisperz. Thanks.

Yes, pawn promotion is just as in normal chess ... you can choose between Q, R, B or N.

I can't find it in the rules, but I assume you can Queen a pawn. Can anybody help? Thanks.

There are many games where I hope for a draw ... bit like playing you in Tablut, but that is more a dream LOL :)

Shogi is much more aggresive than chess and yes you read correctly. I've been playing shogi for more than 20 years but I've never had a draw.

Ug, did i read it right that the checker loses in perpetual check? Interesting thoughts are provoked by this ... is Shogi more aggressive in play?

In fact the full story with shogi is that a draw by repetition only occurs if it doesn't involve continuous checks, perpetual check loses for the checker because the draw isn't by mutual intent.

Ug, I was not aware of the Shogi precedent, but without it I think the logic still stands. It may well be (as we both point out) that the original intention was to avoid a perpetually repeated situation but, as with a lot of rules, there is sometimes a sting and with loop chess I think this is a good sting which places the emphasis on the attacker to avoid the draw. Maybe this is a working out of my Australian nature to support the underdog :)

In chess the situation is resolved after three repetitions of position with the same side to move, in effect this is a way of avoiding the situation continuing indefinitely. In this case in loop chess the situation will not continue indefinitely so there would be no logic to call such a case a draw. Shogi re-uses captured pieces and has done so for 400 years, this gives shogi a species of seniority for these kind of cases, in shogi the number of pieces must also repeat.

Interesting because the primary intention of the repeated positions x 3 draw is to resolve a perpetual check where one player may not want to agree a draw. But the opportunity also exists to have the same postition repeated 3 times by other means, even by accident. I once played a game where the situation arose where my King was being chased around the board. I was able to manufacture the same postiion 3 times with about 10-15 moves between each occurance ... when I pointed this out my opponent he was not happy but had to accept the draw (in fact he was real mad as he was 2 minor pieces up!) ... a fluke, yes, legitimate, also yes, played for again, yes! So, what were my opponent's choices, maybe to move differently and avoid the situation if he thought he could win, if not, good play on may part.

I think the same applies here. If a player wants to win then do something different or else accept that there will be a draw. A person in a losing position can use this tactically to better their lot, if you don't like it do something else. A perpetual check may be able to be instigated by someone in a losing position but if you are winning and don't avoid it then you have been tactically defeated (drawn?!).

My vote is that it should be a draw, 3 repeated positions, irrespective of the pieces available for placement.

That's right.

A draw that reduces the number of re-usable pieces doesn't make sense.

No draw is created automatically. If you think that some draw rule should be applied to your game, give me its ID and I will declare a draw.

A game is drawn if a position is repeated 3 times. Does "the position" include the pieces that are available for placement?

For example, the white king is on b2, and a black night is on a4 giving check. Do the following moves create a draw?

K-b1 N-c3+
K-a1 P@b2+ (placed pawn)
Kxb2 N-a4+
K-b1 N-c3+
K-a1 P@b2+ (placed pawn)
Kxb2 N-a4+
K-b1 N-c3+
K-a1 P@b2+ (placed pawn)
Kxb2 N-a4+
If the pieces available for placing are considered, no position has been repeated. But if they aren't, this is a draw by repetition

This isn't a perpetual check, since black will eventually run out of pieces to place at the b2 square.

If so, and you'd like an Anti-Chess game, please invite me. If I have a free slot, I'll be happy to take your game. :-)

The 2 games I posted, I posted as 2 game matches. I don't think I'd ever post a single game...then of course a win (white) draw (black) results in a win overall. I'll admit...I did not notice that there had only been 12 draws, so I see that this change would have very little effect.

If you checkout the Horde Chess rules section you will see that there has only been 12 draws from nearly 500 games, about 2.5%, whereas black has won about 25% and white the rest. This would not have a dramatic effect on the balance.

I guess I am a bit of a bunny as I have played 17 games with only 3 as white, but I (he says puffing out his chest) won 8 and only lost 6 of the black games, a little better than the average stats.

Perhaps another option is that this variant is only ever played in pairs of games. Maharajah Chess is even more one sided as black can force mate from the first move.

W.

Is black at such a disadvantage that a draw could be considered a win for black? Some Pente rules allow for the player going 2nd to record a win if the board becomes filled because going 2nd places them at such a huge disadvantage (with no move restrictions) Why not apply this rule to this game?

Comments?

Thank u Fencer, i think u know my mentor Jestone. Again thank u very much.

truckman: Try, for example, this tournament.

Simply go to the tournament page, click on "Loop Chess", and click the link above the currently signed-up players list that says "Sign me up for this tournament". Then you should see your name in that tournament. If there isn't a link and there is a message instead, that means you are ineligible to enter the tournament (membership level, rating, etc) and that message will tell you why.

I would like to participate in to a loop chess trnmt, but i don`t know how to apply, please i need some help.

Last time it was a trio of horses working together to achieve the goal. This time it might be called the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, with some help of the lowliest of the lowly, a pawn, to deliver the coup de grace.

Let's pick up the action around Move 20.

(In all fairness to my worthy opponent, he returned the favor in our 2nd game in the tourney. Ya' win some and ya' lose some, right?)

This has been suggested before, and Fencer does not want to have the system perform any automatic moves. There are two reasons he told me.

1. He wants both players to be able to send a message with each move, regardless of if they move a piece or not.

2. In certain games, multiple forced moves in a row (sometimes many) are possible (Backgammon, reversi, etc). This could be confusing to new players if the board was suddenly way different from when they last saw it.

Do you think Anti Chess would be better if when you can only make one move the computer automatically makes that move for you?

A couple things... first, I want this first one to be Atomic Chess related... It should be labeled "First Atomic Team Fellowship Tournament!".

Secondly, Fencer does not yet have support for playing team fellowship games on here, so I am doing it by hand, which means making the tournaments invite only and manually populating the sections, if I can manage to do it.

If you have any questions, just ask!

Zucan

I am going to run the first ever Fellowship Team Tournament. So, a couple things need to be considered... I found 14 teams that support Atomic Chess. Out of those 14, only 8 teams have people in them. Out of those 8, only 5 teams have more than 2 people in them.

The question is how can we run a tournament with such a wide variance on the number of players currently signed up for Fellowship teams. Maybe we should just say that only 4 player teams are allowed to play. The tourney would then have 4 sections, one for each board. The highest rated player of each team would be in the first section, the second highest rated player of each team would be in the second section, etc.

Do we want this to be the only round? Or should we then take the winners of each section and run the tournament again with just them? We could keep doing this until only one team stands and we have a team champion.

Anyways, I need suggestions on what you all would like to see... I think I would like to start it by the end of September. That way, we can get the word out to all the atomic team players and maybe we can get more people to sign up on the teams. It will also give a chance for players to move around to the teams they want to be on before the tournament starts.

Zucan

I think you did win. It's done it to me before where it takes a while for it to realize i've won. So probably (hopefully) if you wait a while it'll realize you have won.

Or, if you don't want to wait, you can message Fencer about it and see what he says.

Why have I not won? I cannot make a move.

Interesting, and that would seem a natural outgrowth of this variant concept, as opposed to trying to keep track of which piece used to be a pawn, etc., if not captured right away.

OK, thanks for the input!

The reason being that at the end of your turn you have captured his piece (whcih you get to keep) and exchanged your pawn for another piece. In his turn he will be able to take the piece which now occupies your eighth rank, whatever it is, except that it won't be a pawn or a king.

The piece you promote to.

This is NOT covered in the rules!?:

I have a pawn on my seventh rank. If I capture a piece with that pawn, and promote it, then my opponent immediately takes it, does he get a pawn in hand or does he get the piece I promoted to?

If you want to play me, send me an invite. I'll play you here or on Goldtoken, if you like.

hey people that message was for kevin only not anyone else the one about about the reply to stalemate only not the anti-chess one!!!!!!!!

i challenge you to a game of chess just reply to me [snip W.]