http://www.seirawanchess.com would have the rules. Not really that different from regular 8x8 chess except for the entering pieces.

Anybody like to try it the old fashioned way with notion by email or email on this site? I have not played a complete game although had seen a few games scores that were posted by Bruce Harper.

Anybody have a chance to try out Seirawan chess? I know it is an 8x8 variant technically, but it does use the B+N and R+N movers found more frequently in 10x8 or 10x10 variants.

Paladin is another name for a B+N mover at least according the the http://chessvariants.org website. Having a R+N mover at the edge or close to the edge of the board would avoid having a couple of pawns unprotected at the beginning of the game, which is one criticism that Janus chess and some other 10x8 variants recieve.

I think the chess variants site also has in the zillions of games engine a big board variant that does use two R+N movers, but I can't remember its name. I think traditionally it has been more typical to mix the two pieces like in Embassy or Gothic Chess rather than having two of the same. Carrera's original 1617 suggestion contained an array similar to Janus chess, but had the R+N mover on the same side of the board as the king. More recently Aberg's variant of Capablanca Chess has used a similar arrangement, but with free castling. (The king and rook can interchange with each other anywhere along their castling path.) However Janus chess seems to work pretty well and maybe a variant with two R+N movers would as well.

Changing the subject slightly, In my view variants the 10x8 variants that move the minor pieces in closer to the middle of the board have sharper and more concrete opening play. Where the minors are further from the center like in Embassy or Gothic chess you often have to spend another move to have them properly developed, which slows the opening play down somewhat.

Marfitalu: An approximate value that I always liked to use was 9 for the queen 8.25 for the Marshall 7 for the Cardinal 5 for the Rook 3.25 for the bishop and 2.75 for a Knight. These weren't mathematically calculated values, but just what I felt from the 20 odd games I played on the mindsports site when they ran their cyber world championship events. Also in Grand Chess you might keep in mind that the above values might be modified somewhat since the pawns might be worth a little more in that game since they can queen faster. Maybe a premium of 1.15.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the nimble Cardinal probably outshines the Marshall at the beginning of this game, even though the latter is theoretically the stronger piece.

Walter Montego:
Actually even if it is the wrong discussion group, I still think it is Fischer Random he is discussing. Because of the mainline servers it would be easier to set up a speed chess game than say on the Gothic website.

Walter Montego:
Walter,
I think MRC is an abbreviation for My (Fischer) Random Chess. Play could be arranged on something like ICC (Internet Chess Club) or any other main-line classical chess server that offers Random chess.

10-2 would be a fair time limit as Grandmasters will play even strong amateurs at 5-1 in classical chess with live pieces and a clock. Taking into account how good you are at mouse clicking as well as fun things like fighting bifocals, 10-2 may be more reasonable and equivalent way to give such odds on a computer.

I like speed chess and generally think I can play quicker with the real pieces, however even a reasonably respectable amateur like myself (I was a 2300 rated player) would go down to Fischer in practically every game if not every game even at these odds!

Caissus:
Yes, I would agree, I have two Gothic sets now and use those interchangably whether I am analysing Gothic, Embassy, Janus or Grand Chess games. The collector in me thought it would be kind of cool to have an actual Janus chess set designed as such. I also have Grand Chess pieces, and although they are a nice smaller wood set, it is nice to have the larger pieces that Ed produces for analysis or actual play.

Caissus:
Thanks for the address, I should have looked at your profile first since I think I had visited your site briefly before using the link in the profile when we were playing our embassy chess games. Again a nice assortment of games and a fascinating ending with the Janus and pawns against the two rooks with Ed Trice. The rest of the game had nice tactical turns and twists as well. Looks like you had a good chance to revenge the defeat in the other game when it was broken off.

By the way did you ever have any luck finding out whether that Janus chess set was still available for sale in Germany?

Caissus:
Thanks for the link and it was also interesting to see your other games. How do you get to the rest of your website? When I tried www.caissus.gmxhome.de I received an error message. Nice to be told to have fun on the Internet in German along with the error message. :-)

SMIRF Engine:
You beat me to it. I was about to sit down and do a translation after eating breakfast. However lucky I checked again before starting the task! :-)

JinkyOng:
Actually a nice conclusion especially for a game nearing the end of a 3-0 speed chess time control. Also surprisingly not too bad to follow in Descriptive notation, although 20...P-R5 probably should have been 20...P-R4. I am one of those players old enough to have first learned with that type of notation. Has Ed been keeping the record of games up to date? It doesn't seem like anything more recent than March is on the link that Caissus supplied below.

Walter Montego:

Returning to that gambit and this time thinking Embassy Chess. :-) After 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 c5 3.dc5 d4 maybe 4.Md2 putting a little pressure on the advance pawn. If 4...Nc6 5.g3 g6 6.Nb5 Qa5 black may hold things together as perhaps would the more natural/risky(?) 6...Md7 7.Bxc6 bc6 8.Cf3 cb5 9.Cxa8 Bb7.

Entertaining, but maybe only for speed chess might be 3.Bf4 cd4 4.Qxd4 Me6 5.Cf3 Mxd4 6.Cxd4 with the threat of Cb5+, or in the real realm of jokes 3.dc5 d4 4.Bf4 dc3 5.Qxd8+ Kxd8 6.0-0

Also on the material discussion below, we chess players tend to be a little too materialistic. Those values are only guidelines and not absolutes and a piece's ultimate value is how well it is placed for the developing battle and how quickly it can be used. That was always the tricky part in computer programming, coming up with the proper algorithms for valuing space and time and many other intangibles. Anybody out there as old as I am remember how dumb and greedy those first chess playing computer were that you could buy? Fritz 9.0 has come a long way from that!

Sorry, Walter my brain really misfired on this one. I read embassy chess, but was still thinking in Janus! :-) This dawned on my as I was working out on my exercise bike after posting the message below. The Gambit looks like a good way to disrupt white's game in Embassy.

Walter, do you mean 1.f2-f4 f7-f5 2.Nh1-g3 g7-g5 3.f4xg5? This would be a queen pawn opening in Embassy Chess. One nice thing about having a Gothic Chess board it is gridded and makes it easier to adapt to the larger board. Otherwise I find myself wanting to use the 8x8 chess coordinates as well! I would think that white probably should develop instead of taking the Gambit, with 3.Bg1-d4 and an interesting variation might be 3...,Nh8-g6 (removing the attacked Knight with tempo) 4.Ji1-j3 (pinning the knight and placing pressure on black's center)4...,g5xf4? (Greed) 5.Ng3-h5 e7-e5 6.Bd4xe5 Ng6xe5 7.Nh5-g7++ although this is hardly forced.

Nice to get an analytical discussion going. I wonder if this would be a good spot to try to annotate games or the blog that Fencer suggested when I wrote to him when I first became a "Rook".

At least for castling you could use the terms "castle long" or "castle short". Referring to the board is more clumsy since you don't have the traditional Queen-side and King-side referral points. I guess we could borrow military terminology and use right or left flank.

Yes, thanks for looking into that. I can improvise a Janus Chess set from among my Gothic, Omega Chess or Grand Chess sets, but it would be nice to have an actual Janus set. One of my weaknesses is collecting things related to my hobbies, whether it is chess books, I own about 2400 of them, or wargames, two or three hundred are in my closet. I also like naval history, but fortunately for my wife I don't have so much clutter in that area!

In my view unless statistical results show that either white or black seems to have a big advantage, all the 10x8 variants are pretty much alike. Once past the opening phase the strategy and particularly the tactics of the games won't be all that different whether you play Gothic, Embassy or any other arrangement with the Marshall and Cardinal pieces. What variant a player prefers will probably just come down to their own personal tastes. Experienced Classical chess players may even prefer something like Janus chess or even Carrera's chess. They are very similar to good old chess and one's previous studies are easier to apply. Other more adventuresome types would probably like the more unique arrays found in Embassy, Gothic or even Grand Chess on a 10x10 board. In these variants you would have a harder time trying to apply variants of classical chess openings.

Some arrays of course will have flaws. One can picture trying to set up something even closer to classical chess like this array: CRNBQKBNRM. However the problem with this array is that when white play 1.f4 black's choices are already somewhat limited. Is he going to defend the a7 pawn which is undefended and already attacked on white' first move or try some other counterattacking idea? Regardless white seems to be already dictating the game. Change this array a little and say make it a game of Marshalls MRNBQKBNRM and maybe the array isn't so bad. The game in fact might be a lot like classical chess. Marshalls like Rooks don't have a big effect early in the game and the openings that develop might not be unlike those in classical chess just with the extra pieces and manouvering room.

It's hard to say if classical chess is quite ready to be supplanted yet, but it would be interesting to see more financial support of possible future alternatives. I guess Janus Chess had money behind it at least at one time and even attracted big name players to play in the events. Is this type of support still going on to any degree?

Anybody out there know an address or website that might sell Janus Chess sets? Since tournaments were run in the past, I would assume that there must have been a set available for purchase at one time?

Anybody out there ever try Carrera's original version of this type of variant? The arrangement with the minor pieces closer to the center always seems a little more logical and Janus chess does take that approach. For what it is worth ancient and medieval commanders tended to put there cavalry on the flank rather than in the middle of the army and classical chess reflects this. Variants with the R+N piece might also benefit from such an arrangement. Maybe Carrera's version might be another option to test on BrainKing?

Actually a very good idea, although giving up the crutch of 20-30 move opening preparation backed by computers would be difficult for many. Even if Grandmasters were willing to throw away all that tradition you would probably still need a sponsor like Jaap van Oosterman (sp?), the guy who sponsors the Melody Amber rapid chess and blindfold tournament, to finance a big board experiment like that. Do we have anybody really, really, really rich out there who would like to sponsor a chess variant tournament?