Nasmichael: you can get a zillions of games implementation of american chess. if you look at chessvariants.org there is a page for american chess. i also wrote an application which facilitates email play but has no ai for play against the computer. the 'look' of the pieces in zillions was taken from the pbem prototype. you can see a screen shot at chessvariants.org or at http://americanchess.tripod.com

Walter Montego: If you click on the site on available pieces and then on exchess set 2, you see that it is available as wooden piece, so the site will mention it.

Lambik: In fact that site doesn't even mention the Emperor!

Lambik: The www.superchess.nl link worked fine. I went there, but it doesn't really have much in the way of how the game is played aside from saying you play it just like regular Chess after the pieces are set up during the prelude. Nor does it mention the Emperor being a second piece to have to threaten, nor any of these other powers you guys have been talking about. It just mentions adding some pieces at the begininng of the game and playing it just like regular Chess from there. It sounds as if this Superchess has been evolving on its own elsewhere. Deciding which pieces are allowed is half the game as far as playing it is concerned. IT also only mentions playing on a 8 × 8 board, but I see no reason that a different sized board couldn't be used.

As for playing on this site. Fencer's plan of having the creator make the game and then the person wanting to play would accept the set up and rules or not play will work, though it will eliminate negotiation for a tournament. It will have negotiation for games between to individuals though. As the invitee won't accept and start the game until some of his wants are addressed. This will force either player to create a new game and again have it reviewed and accepted by the other.

Walter Montego: You win a game of superchess by checkmating the king or emperor. If they are both in the game, you can give a doublecheck, which means that both are in check. The only way to uncheck your emperor AND king is by eliminating the piece(s) power that give check. There are some possibilities for it: capturing, freezing or protecting your royals with a protecting piece as the Nymf and the Angel.

I think board size is negiotable, but maybe Fencer will add four variants: 8x8, 10x8, 8x10 and 10x10. The set of pieces is pure negotiable. But here I think, the creator of a game chooses the set and if you agree with that, you play the game.

Link: www.superchess.nl or if it does not work, www.superschaak.nl and click on the english flag, because that site is mostly in dutch.

Nasmichael: I thought it was a simple question, but no one has told me how to win a game of Superchess.
So checkmating the King doesn't win the game? Or does it? And why should I care about the Emperor? What's this royal business? It sounds like this game adds new powers and restrictions besides the new pieces. From what I've seen posted it appears you get to choose your initial set of pieces from a catalog of pieces that you and your opponent agree to before the game starts. What size is the board? Is that negotiable too? Is there a link to the rules and description of this game?

What do you think about the Joker.

The Joker imitates the last move piece of your opponent. It could never be royal, nor it has the properties of the special pieces. It can be changed as a crypto-spy and you can change a Prince to a Joker. But the move is very tourh I think, because every move it could be different....

A strange set-up of superchess could be
Rook (R), Knight (N), Bishop (B), Emperor (Er), King (K), Counsellor (Cn), Veteran (V), Rook (R) on white's first row. With the same rules for castlingas in standards chess, you can castle with emperor and king. It is only possible to castle with both pieces, if the emperor and king castles "short", so
Castling with the emperor: Emperor to b1, Rook to c1 and with the king as usual.

manchildstein: A canon like in chines chess, could be very intersting, but I do not think that the creator will add pieces in the near future. Only some strange pieces which can only move or block other pieces are added and other pawns are added as all diagonal forms of the 6 pawns mentioned. By the way, also the clown is a piece like the squirrel. In fact it is the same as the baron,. but as all crypto-spies you can change them for one of the spies. That could be very inetersting, specially when your crypto-spy is on the seventh row. Note that all spies are allowed to promote.

manchildstein: It's called the Baron in Superchess. It is a very tough piece. Henk van Haeringen has written a book of laws and piece movements to codify the movements--check at his site. Thanks for your message about "American Chess"--have you made it possible to play at chessvariants.org?

Lambik: say, if you don't already have a 2,0 2,1 2,2 jumper, may i suggest the 'squirrel' addition to 'short range strong pieces?'... this piece is also known as the 'colonel' in 'american chess'... basically, jumps two in any direction... 16 possible squares to jump to (if it's not situated within 2 of the edge of the board)... i find it to be like a more-powerful knight... very versatile, but on the larger boards... limited range...

for long range/strong, my favorite is probably the pao/vao combination... a cannon with orthogonal/diagonal capabilities combined... anyway, superchess sounds like it will be a lot of fun... i can only hope american chess one day finds similar appeal... in any event i will have to play a game or two of superchess, once fencer gets it programmed...

Walter Montego: ...Or, if both monarchs are on the board, you have a game similar to Vernon Rylands Parton's "Twin King Chess".

Walter Montego: The Emperor is a royal piece (it can be substituted for the queen during the setup phase of the game, prior to piece movement phase); it has king movement plus the ability to move 2 squares vertically. Visualize the king castling in the standard game--it moves 2 squares horizontally. During the Italian domination of the old game, up until the late 1800s, the castling rules were more flexible, allowing the king to move several squares in combination with the rook. Prior to this, the king could move independently of the rook once in a game 2 squares horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, and take the rook with him as a personal guard. This Emperor is imitative of an earlier rule. In this particular case, the "King" can move vertically 2 squares as well as horizontally 2 squares, in the case of castling. That is a salute to the game in a more original, earlier form. Making this kind of substitution in the prelude phase allows for a tandem-ruler game with more than one target, or a switching of a targeted side, so as to reverse the weak-pawn from kingside to queenside. Tactically, you may want to hand your opponent a mental jab--"now let's see if you can adjust your pattern recognition to attack me on this side".

Lambik: So you checkmate the King to win? What's that got to do with the Emperor?

The Rook is a special piece in superchess. This is because it is allowed to castle with a rook and King/Emperor or both. Yes indeed if you have King AND Emperor and two rooks, you can castle twice. You can only castle with the rook, not with any other of the non royal pieces.

This message and the preceeding are based on the book: "Schaak en Superschaak"by Henk van Haeringen, the creator of the game.

In Superchess, there are a couple of categories:

Royal pieces (King and Emperor)
Power pieces (Amazon, Grand Duke, Maharaja, Minister)
Main pieces (Queen, Empress, Marshall)
Short distance strong pieces (Baron, General, Elephant, Veteran, Guard)
Long distance strong pieces (Counsellor, Countess, Duchess, Marquis, Princess, Siege Tower)
Light pieces (Archer, Bishop, Giraffe, Herald, Knight, Watch Tower)
Special Pieces (Angel, Ambassador, Femme Fatale, Joker, Magician, Nymph, Prince, Rook(!!))
Reserve pieces (Commando, Parachute)
Spies (Spy, Spy Catcher, Secret Agent, Infiltrator)
Crypto-spies (Clown, Dancing Girl, Dragon, Treasurer)
Pawns (normal pawn, q-pawn, t-pawn, rapid pawn, superpawn, mobilization pawn)

superchess looks very interesting. thanks for bringing the idea, Cubs93!!

Cubs93, Fencer: 1. Superchess is the name of the game. Exchess is the nmae used for the wooden sets of pieces.
2. Only the name of superchess is protected in Europe, so no problems.
3. A list of pieces exist in the books written by H. van Haeringen.

Walter Montego: Winning a game of superchess: Just remove "super" from superchess and you know the answer :-)) Simple by checkmating the king, emperor of placing both in irreversible check.

Lambik: How do you win a game of this Superchess?

The Immobilizer sounds just like this Wizard you've described. In Ultima the Immobilizer, in fact all the pieces except the King and Pawns, move as a Queen moves in regular Chess. The difference is how they capture. In regular Chess the pieces all move differently but all capture in the same manner. They capture by occupying the square held by the opponent's piece. I've heard this called, "Displacement". In Ultima, the pieces all move the same, but capture in different methods. The Immobilizer can't even capture at all. I will argue that it is a stronger piece than the chess Queen though. This Joker you've described is similiar to a Chameleon in Ultima. The Chameleon captures the piece that it is capturing in the manner that that piece captures! Longleapers are like the flying Kings I've seen in some of the Checker variants played on this site. The Coordinator is unique and can be hard to stop. He only guards two squares at a time, but threatens plenty just sitting around. The Withdrawer is a weak piece. After seeing how an Amazon works, I wouldn't mind trying Ultima with an Amazon in the place of the Withdrawer. The Pawns in Ultima move like Rooks. The capture by trapping an enemy piece between themselves and a friendly piece or Pawn.
There's no promotion in Ultima. A stalemate is a victory for the side that moved last. Checkmate is still what the object is. The King is the same as in regular Chess. You may also suicide your own piece if it's immobilized. This counts as a turn.

Superchess on brainking would be very nice! already tournaments have been held during the famous Corus tournament. To be recommended.

Fencer: 1: there isn't; 2 and 3: i don't know...

Lambik: Wow! Lots of good talk about a great game--I am pleased.

A pawn in superchess is defined as piece that only move forward and promotes to a promotion piece. By the way a king or emperor is a promotion piece :-)

normal pawn moves as in normal chess including en-passant

t-pawn moves one square forward or JUMPS two squares forward. It captures horizontal.

running pawn: This pawn has always the move possibility of two steps forward. It can also capture a piece that is two squares diagonal away. NO En-passant.

Mobilisation pawn: MMoves ones, two or three squares forward or captures one, two, three squares diagonal forward. No En-Passant. This pawn is a stock piece. It will never appear at a start positon. You can drop it on the first row (white row 1, black row 8) instead of a move.

Superpawn: Move as many psoobile squares forward or captures as many possible squares diagonal forward. No en-passant. I think that this pawn is stronger than a rook.

Note about promotion: The collection of promotion pieces contains ONLY the agreed pieces if they are captured and the removed normal chess piecers including the king if this pieces has been changed by the emperor. You cannot promote to Amazon, Grand Duke, Maharadja, Minister or General.

By the way: The magician and the Femme Fatale cannot capture pieces or cannot give check.

Walter Montego: If I understand what an immobilizer is, yes it has such a piece. It is the magician (or wizard I do not know the exact English name). This piece freezes all pieces of your opponent adjacent to the piece itself. The piece of the opponent cannot move, give check or do every other special issues (some exceptions, but that are very special details and very rare circumstances). Another type is the Femme Fatale. All opponent's piece adjacent tot the FF cannot give check and cannot capture a piece. The pieces can move, but they have to retreat without giving check or without capturing something.

Does this game have an Immobilizer?

I still am waiting for Ultima to be added to the site. The search for this game is what brouught me to play on the internet in the first place. I've been directed to various sites because of precieved flaws to the original version of Ultima. Rococo and I forgot the name of the other one are "fixes" and seem like they might be good games. I would also like to play regular Chessmen against Ultimamen. Just to settle the which set is stronger argument.

redsales: Of course there are people who want to play with a lot of new pieces. This is also for me, but I think that some pieces are quite difficult to understand and also difficult to program. For example: the elephant. But if Fencer is able to program it, why not use many pieces if there are people are interested in. A second problem is, the number of different figures you need. In the book (written in Dutch!) there are very nice figures and they are available, but not immediately all at once. It should take some time to solve this problem. The creator thinks that it is better to use his figures because these are balanced.

it sounds fascinating. I'd rather have all available from the start, as others would too, being seasoned chess players. The popularity of Gothic and Janus has made "combo" pieces a distinct part of the chess vernacular, so people are more familiar with them.

Jumps mean that the piece can jump over other pieces. If jumping is not allowed and a knight-move is allowed, then both of the squares over which you jump must be free.
Pieces:
Herald: moves 1 square diagonal or jumps two squares diagonal. When reaching the last row, the herald can move one square orthogonal (to change colour of the squares where the herald is moving on).

Watch-tower: Move one square horizontal/vertical or jumps two square s horizontal/vertical.

Baron: Jums two squares, horizontal, vertical or diagonal or moves like a knight.

Guards: Moves like a combination of a Watch-tower and Herald.

General: Moves as Veteran or Guard (this is a VERY strong piece. in one move it can reach 24 squares).

Minister: As amazon, but the minister can NOT jump.

Grand duke: As queen, but it can also jump two squares horizontal, vertical or diagonal.

Elephant (one of the most annoying pieces). Moves one or two squares horizontal, vertical or diagonal. If the first square on the way of the elephant is occupied by an enemy piece, the elephant can take it and walk further to the second square. Yes indeed the elephant is able to take two pieces in the same move.

Marshall: Rook+Elephant (note that the elephant property is only allowed when doing the real elephant move: two squares)

Maharadja: Queen+Elephant.

This is for now.

Fencer: I can hardly wait until it is ready :-)))

Lambik: All right, it can start with a small number of pieces and more of them can be added later but to the same game, it will be just an add-on, not a new variant.

I talked with the creator and he thinks that it is better to start with a small number of pieces and during time, increase the number of pieces to the final number. Especially the pieces as Magician, Femme Fatale, Joker or Prince are very difficult to play with and (even more?) difficult to program. A joker for example, imitates the last move of the opponent, but it cannot have the special properties of other pieces, like promotion or royalness.

Lambik: That would be done by performing several special first moves. Similar to the swapping feature in the Swap Five in Line.

Fencer: Yes, of course, how simple can it be? Next point is, that when two players have an "agreement". the set-up has to be made, which means that the original pieces have to stay on their original places and the final set-up has to be symmetric. Furthermore, Black has the oportunity to change two superchess pieces in place when all agrred pieces are set-up. Note that this is a special rule for the corus variant, but we have played a topurnament in Leiden with six pieces and we used that rule there too. Maybe a check-box which a player can select?

In the booklet of the rules, also non-symmetric and even different sets of used pieces for black and white are discussed. The game is very extendable....

Lambik: That's easy, when a player creates a game invitation, he would select the pieces he wants to use in this game. The opponent, if agrees with the offered pieces, accepts the invitation and the game starts. That's all.

oops. continued . Wrong button.

Amazon (Q+N), Empress (R+N), Princess (B+N), Veteran (K+N), Duchess (R+K), Counsellor (B+K).

Fencer: That is a very good idea. But how do you implement the "agreement" idea, so that players can negotiate on the number and type of the pieces. By the way, note that there are different pawns, droppable pieces included in the total collections. Even a droppable pawn is mentioned.

Here a couple of "simple" pieces, which means that they are real combinations of chess pieces:

Veteran

Lambik: What I want to avoid is a situation where people start to request more and more variants of this game, with different combinations of available pieces. Ideally, I would like to create only one game called Superchess and the creator would define a subset of valid pieces out of total 30 ones. But all such games would be marked with the same code, sharing the BKRs, stairs, etc. Just like backgammon matches with a doubling cube - no matter if you define it with 3 or 21 points to win, it's still the same game.

Fencer: Not precisely. Three years ago, they started to introduce it, but at that time, only Exchess set 1 was available and the amazon. (Exchess is only used for the name of the sets of real pieces). The organization of Corus Chess Tournament only agreed to introduce the game with the four pieces Amazon, Empress Princess, Veteran. Now three sets are available and still the organization of Corus does not want to change that. But to get more people interested, it is better to start with a small number of "simple" pieces.

Simultaneously, I started a tournament by correspondence via e-mail which have no limitations, only that there is an advice to use only the real available pieces.

All games are mentioned Superchess (or in Dutch Superschaak).

May be there is a possibility to create the corus variant (with the four pieces) first. You do not have the problem that players have to agree which pieces will be used.

Later, it is perhaps an idea to extend the possibilities, but then you need agreements of both players. For example I am playing a game with 6 different pieces: Veteran (N+K), Duchess (R+K), Counsellor (B+K), Herald (some type of limited bishop), Spy (really strange piece), Spy-catcher (even more strange) and emperor (King with extra possibilities). I am playing this game with karel12 (also playing here).

Lambik: Thank you, I'm just reading that.
So if I understand it right, there are 50 new pieces, but only 4 of them are used in Superchess?

That's great! On www.superchess.nl follow the link Dutch Championship, you find a the regulations, which are used at Corus (in English).

Lambik: Thank you. I definitely consider is as a hot candidate to implement here.

First of all, The difference between exchess and superchess is not there. Exchess is a variant of superchess. Do not ask me the details now, but I will find out in the book I bought about superchess, made by the creator.

The game is not (really) licensed, I know the creator of Superchess. He asked me half a year ago what possibilities are there to play superchess on the internet. I immediately answered that Brainking is probably the most interesting possibility. However I programmed some things in Zillions. Now, I am very happy that the discussion started and I will tell him about (The creator, H. van Haeringen, does not have a computer). If you want to introduce superchess on the internet, then I think that you can start with the pieces: amazon (Q+N), princess (B+N), empress (R+N) and Veteran (K+N). These pieces are also used at the famous Corus Chess tournament in the Netherlands, which will be held on saturady January 28.

There are 50 pieces, from which about 30 are available as real piece. The basic pieces, which not have special function like transforming, crowning, protecting, immunity and so on, are simple to understand. Most of the pieces are combinations of each other. If you want I will post here a complete list, but it takes a while to make it.

Cubs93: 1) What's the difference between Superchess and Exchess?
2) Isn't this game licenced? I don't like the ® next to its name.
3) Where is a list of all new pieces? I've found only a few of them.

Cubs93: I agree. The possibilities for tournament play are great. The choice of pieces are familiar, and the combinations are great. The setup phase of play is easy to include here, (I would guess in the same style as Screen Chess is played here, or the game that resembles "stratego", with an initial setup before play begins.) and some of the pieces are already in use here (chancellor, archbishop). The addition of the Veteran (moves like king & knight, non-royal) and the Guard (king & wazir) would be great additions to the chess army here. I hope Fencer could consider it.

i thinked, perhaps we can introduce on BrainKing the game Superchess... look at www.superschaak.nl for the rules (it is in Dutch, but there is a button for to see the site in English).

i have developed a new variant and someone at chessvariants.org was kind enough to write a zillions of games implementation for 'american chess'... http://americanchess.tripod.com ... thanks for your consideration

Fwiffo and Mikezilla, this "BodyGuard" (BG) looks impressive. I like the idea--it seems to be unique. If possible, I would like to see this game represented also.

<Mikezilla> The bodyguard looks like an amazing and creative piece, is this a good chess variant? I never heard of it before. Do you (or anyone) know it is still alive in mongolia?

On the site you mentioned there is talk of 3 variants of the bodyguards movements, the 3th looks the most interesting.
The horse as an exception (because it can jump) looks reasonable. Bigger boards tend to make horses weaker which is compensated by this rule. Also it makes the bodyguard less invulnarable. Still it looks too strong: the rule it must stay near the king looks good too.
If you can tell me more about your experience with this game I would appreciate it very much.
Maybe it's even worth having it here at brainking, like the other asian chess variants.