To all -

Dmitri King previously mentioned that I had suggested a way to even up this game by having 2 'Queen' Maharajah's (able to be captured) and 1 'KING' Maharajah (must be checkmated like a King to win). Here are some more particulars on that.

I think that it SHOULD be obvious to ALL experienced players that Black should win by force in less than 30 moves with the current rules in Maharajah Chess. (Forced mate in 30 or less.) The fact that black could simply FORCE a minimum of a draw by moving a Knight back and forth while white wonders around aimlessly is also a telling factor. But of course, it would not make sense for black to settle for a draw. It is just a BIG tipoff to black's advantage.

Here's a simplified analysis of the value of pieces to make this into a reasonably even game for both sides. In regular chess, the pieces are assigned the following point values: Queen 9 points, Rook 5 points, Bishop & Knight 3 points, and Pawns 1 point.

In my opinion, a piece that can move like a queen and knight all by itself is somewhat more valueable than a queen and knight separately, simply because all alone, it covers ALL areas of a 5x5 zone if it is 2 spaces away from an edge and could quickly and easily mate a king even with a couple of other minor pieces around. So if a Queen and Knight separately are worth 12 points, I'll assign the regular Maharajah piece a value of 14 points. BUT...and a BIG BUT, the fact that this piece is like a King and cannot be captured reduces his value quite a bit. I'll say by 3 points. So I would say that the white's current Majahara piece is worth about 11 points.

Now if you add up the ENTIRE side of black's pieces, you come up with 40 points (counting the King as 1 point). Now I would say that you should reduce the value of each pawn by 1/2 point because they cannot promote to a queen or other piece. The reduction is 4 points there. So the total 'value' of black's pieces is 36 points.

So black is playing with a 36-11 piece value advantage. It's like playing over THREE queens down!!! NOW, you know why black has such an overwhelming advantage!!!!!

I have seen several suggestions here and NONE of them are enough to even up the sides. Some have said the following: give white the loop possibility, give him 4 pawns, give him 8 pawns, give him the Knight+ moves, or even give him ANOTHER Majahara! NONE of these is NEARLY enough. Even TWO Majahara's would be a BIG disadvantage. By BIG, I mean amongst experts (2000+ FIDE or USCF rating), black would win 95+% of the time. (Probably more like 99%+)

Here's an analysis of what I think that it would take to even the sides up. First I'll give some definitions:
Majahara Queen = Majahara piece that CAN be lost but still moves like a queen and knight. (As shown above, the value of this piece is ABOUT 14 points.)
Majahara King = Piece like now that CANNOT be lost or moved into check. (The current Maharajah piece valued above at about 11 points.)

Based on this, here is what should even up the sides. Have 2 'Queen' Maharajah pieces and 1 'King' Maharajah piece for white. The total value of these pieces would be: 14 + 14 + 11 = 39 points.

Now, black MUST be able to promote his pawns if he reaches the back rank so as to bring the value of his pieces back to the usual opening point value in regular chess of 40 points.

With a 40-39 point count on pieces, there should be some VERY interesting games where White could perhaps sacrifice one or two Queen Maharajah's to pick off a slew of black pieces and ultimately move in for a mate using the King Maharajah. Or black could maticulously and carefully march his pawns down to promote them so that he can fight off and capture the powerful Queen Maharajah's so that he can finally mate the King Maharajah. I foresee that black would need to queen 2 or even 3 or more pawns so that he could finally move in and trap the King Maharajah or pick off the Queen Maharajah's as needed.

THAT would be VERY interesting and I could see some VERY long and drawn out battles amongst high-level players, perhaps lasting 100 moves or more!!!

I'd be curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this.


Gary Barnes