I consider Andreas Kaufman the best positional player on this site in the game of Gothic Chess. He gives me more trouble than anyone else.

'you're a tactical player' (I'm not popier than the pope) but 'no positinal player' with
invalid phrases, although you oviously missed, 23)... Nf5 was highly positional.
- since you're crying for mods after asking for trouble I reckon you wish to be hidden, ok. ~*~

danoschek: It is possible that I was wrong, perhaps you are a "positional" player. (but in what sense?). I have seen your games, and played you some time ago, you are not what people generally refer to as "positional". You use tactical means more often, which makes you a "tactical" player (who doesn't play positional when they have to? I was refering to those "given a choice" situations). I think you should seriously reassess starting an argument, that isn't what I was trying to do (and the moderators should take notice of this for future reference).

but you do not have the required judging skills which would grant you to use phrases
like 'obviously' in any context regarding me - as your assuming is not even close to what
I have been saying - I suggest you read it again, perhaps strategically this time ... ~*~

danoschek: I assume you mean that when one side is playing poorly the game becomes boring (much more boring than, say, a 60+ move draw?). obviously you are not a positional player. Many times I have lost in a positional battle because I tried to make it interesting instead of the dead draw, needless to say I am fast becoming tactical.

but we should stay serious. what's "tendencially drawish" anyway, french exchange ?
both games are well balanced as far as I could claim a gothic overview - actually it's the
'undrawish games' that have problems to be interesting if one side has huge advantage ~*~

Chessmaster1000: I agree in reference to extinction chess but I still think Gothic has helped me at 8x8 chess. In the interest of not insighting a riot I think that it can be agreed that a healthy helping of both games can not hurt anyone . . . agreed?

you should not expect that programmers know what a check is.
it is actually a three and a half check chess or something else
of a rather comedian approach contradicting even simplest logic ... . ~*~

Grim Reaper: Again, everybody can, so there is some intersection of these two sets regarding skill.

I would replace "skill" in the above statement with "instant playability" or "ability to play instantly" if there is no such word(playability).

If the logic of your 3 statements was correct, then since any Chess player can learn in 7 seconds to play Extinction Chess, he would be good at it if he is good at Chess too, but this isn't happening, obviously. And this is general of course and doesn't occur only at Extinction Chess........

Grim Reaper: although a bit indifferent,
very well put. and my heart is warmed anyway for
all children of the world who enjoy it. . ~*~

Chessmaster1000:

The skill sets are transportable. What chess player needs to "start over" to learn Gothic? None: the initial representation and the new piece movement descriptions are all that are needed to get going.

What Gothic player cannot play on the less ornate tactical field of 8x8 chess?

Again, everybody can, so there is some intersection of these two sets regarding skill.

As I have stated previously, I believe overplaying one and not the other is the only way to have a diminished capacity in the underplayed game.

Playing a healthy balance of each will have positive benefits in each.

ColonelCrockett:
If you mean that your Chess strength imroved tremendously by playing Gothic Chess, then i much doubt about it..........

I clearly believe that someone by playing Gothic Chess, cannot by any way have a positive (nor a negative) profit at Chess in the strategical area.......

I also clearly believe that someone by playing Gothic Chess, can benefit from it only on a tiny (not even small) degree in the tactical area at Chess.....

Why? Because Gothic Chess is played on a different board with 2 different pieces............

The same exists for the Chess---->Gothic Chess direction...........

that message had some substance after all ... as mentioned I don't envy anbody to
have fun with that neat capablanca setup for edification and freeing up the spirit
for the real thing which is drawish for uninspired computerplayers only ... ~*~ .

my strength has improved tremendously just by starting to play gothic and beginning to move my mind in that direction. many people have told me recently that I must be a master, I've been studying harder than ever at my correspondence games and the results are good. (those who think I'm a master would faint to know that I'm only a class B OTB but I'm certainly creeping up on master level (or at least above expert) at correspondence.

Grim Reaper:In my case;I learned the concept of the windmill;and have had 4 or 5 instances where I have been able to set it up and win using this tactic. I am also quite sure other games I have won have been influenced by my experiences playing Gothic Chess. However,I still prefer Gothic to all other forms of chess; especially traditional drawish 8x8 chess. I also do not consider Gothic Chess to be a hybrid of Capablanca Chess;which I still think is to flawed. And I would like to thank Mr. Trice for such a totally magnificent invention as Gothic Chess;which I consider the greatest of all board games.

As before, I have said dialogue is important.

If the conversation does not lend itself to improvement of both sides, keep your piece to yourself, and keep it peaceful for the environment.

We are talking about excited youths playing a fun game (backfield starting positions notwithstanding) and improving board vision, whether in 8x8 or 8x10. That is all this line is discussing. Aspersions cast in either direction will not help this conversation. I know all involved are wellsprings of good information in the right circumstances; I ask that all involved pretend these are the right circumstances in which you each can give your best. I expect nothing else, so I am sure that the right spirit will come to this conversation.

The ability to weigh options you had not previously before considered is a great tool in this game. I saw many kids using the Gothic games as tactics warmups before their 8x8 games, and I had a few come back to me to say their decisions were different as to attacks after playing the Gothic. The idea that "boy, I had never considered that before" tactically means that it had an effect. That the kids felt the effect was positive means that it WAS positive. They were excited, they won their games, and the attacks they used were new means that the game became new to them. To me, that is a plus.

you do not know many chess players. ~*~

As an example... how many "chess players" with the white pieces would move their Queen which is under attack by the Black Knight in this position?

http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=821982&i=30

From seeing so many blatant assaults against the kingside work, I just let the Queen hang, then parked a Knight in front of a pawn on the next move, all for "positional compensation".

A very advanced topic, a very complex position, but one I would never have embarked upon without previous lessons learned.

ColonelCrockett:

That same question was asked during the chess.fm internet radio broadcast.

I think one of the positive benefits that Gothic Chess will impart to a regular chessplayer is an increase in your own "breadth of consideration" as you examine tactical possibilities. For example, Vortex has taught me that, on occasion, sacrificing a minor piece for only two pawns can be very disruptive to a kingside position. As a result of seeing such exchanges work, and some that fail, I refined my own definition of the plausible "kingside attack".

Adding this to my own human "pattern recognition database" has allowed me to see similar 8x8 attacking patterns that I would normally have pre-screened and not even considered. How many times when we are defeated by some shot do we say "I was not even considering that?" Gothic Chess can cure some of this, in my opinion.

There will be some negative impact on your chess skills if you play too much Gothic Chess and stay away from the 8x8 board. On more than one occasion, ChessCarpenter and I would play blindfold chess games as we would be going on road trips to places that would take a few hours to reach. Invariably, at some point in the game, I am thinking pieces are on their "Gothic Squares" and Rob would pounce on my inaccuracies.

There have been no long term studies, but it seems that:

1. Playing Gothic Chess will widen your horizons and help your tactical abilities.

2. There is probably little benefit in the area of "8x8 chess strategy" since the games are so different.

3. Too much of one and not the other will lead to a decline in your play of the under-utilized game.

ColonelCrockett: no, certainly viceversa though - naturally ... but that fairly
neat setup-adjustment to capablanca chess has no magic at all and isn't pure ... ~*~

ColonelCrockett: I think it can. And vice versa.

Is it true that playing Gothic chess can help improve your skill at regular chess?

Hi Michael,

Wish I could have been there, sounds like everyone had a great time. Maybe next year I can give a Gothic Chess simul or something like that?

Let me know!

I was a counselor at Emory's Castle Chess Camp in June, and I took my Gothic board and pieces with me. The kids LOVED the game, and it would often be played for hours after class. IMs Jon Schroer and Jim Mundy also had played (and enjoyed) the game. I played FM Andrew Whatley 3 blitz games; I "won" the first one -- he had played before, but he was getting his "gothic legs" back. The second game, he slaughtered me; but game 3 I played more aggressively, and though I lost on time, he admired the mate in 2 I had on the board.

As for the kids, a good many of them wanted to play--we decided 7 min/game with 3 sec/move delay would give them plenty of time, but would keep the board open to new players.

The thing I did not foresee was that the kids wanted to use my board as one of the boards for a bughouse game, with one 8x10 board, and one 8x8 board, with the gothic pieces dropping in and out of both boards as they were captured. They would scream in delight as the chancellor and archbishop changed hands. Other counselors came running at one point because they thought some kids were fighting, but they were yelling and screaming and laughing because of the predicaments the knighted-bishops and knighted-rooks were giving both teams. It was hilarious. One player, David M., age 10, said it was "the future of chess." Several kids agreed. I wanted two of the GMs to play one another, and they were for it--but classes ran so long, and we packed so much into the week, that I couldn't ever get them all together. But I wrote down your website several times for the kids and for the counselors too. I hope the exposure sends some business to some eager chess fans; the kids really loved the game, and some of the counselors suggested that I bring more boards next year to have a gothic tournament there. I figured I could be a bird on your windowsill, GM--had I known I was going to particpate in this camp earlier, I would have suggested it to the organizers this year. But it is held in June here in Atlanta, usually the first week.

Hope for the future.

I took some pics with the kids playing on the gothic board.

Ed and 8x10 fans, I wish you could have seen the "Gothic bughouse". Never have I seen kids have such a good time. I played a couple of times -- it made my head hurt. ;-)

But fun it was indeed.

Good job, Ed. Your work made a lot of kids happy 2 weeks ago.

Well done, sir.

It should be noted that I was guest of chess.fm because of the request to have me on the show by those same listeners. When NM Dan Heisman contacted me originally he said "Do you think there is enough interest to sustain 20 minutes worth of questions?" and I really was not sure.

After 30 minutes of "Gothic Chess only", Tony Rook signalled that we should take a break. During the break commercials from sponsors were aired and they went over the tabulation of chess-specific questions to Gothic Chess-specific ones. The margin was heavily in favor of continuing, as there were about 50 unanswered questions in pipeline.

I honestly did not expect it to run the whole hour, but we went down to the wire with questions coming in down to the last second.

Dan issued the commentary to let people know Gothic Chess had not "taken over" chess.fm, that this was one week out of 52 that was dedicated to this variant. After the show, Tony and Dan both disclosed that this was one of the most active question & answer sessions that they had experienced with an "unknown" player (me) and they both thought it was very worthwhile.

I'd like to thank all of those who submitted some of those very interesting questions, and if you have any more, you know how to reach me.

andreas: I heard most of it this morning before heading off to work. It was mostly e-mail questions by the chess.fm public, who were obviously curious about Gothic Chess :) In the end, the presenter put it appropriately: "We can only have this kind of topic once a year, as most of our listeners are interested in standard chess." (or something along those lines)

The listeners seemed to ask plenty of varying questions, mentioning "why not 10x10?" or "what about making it like FRC?" or "what differences to Bird/Capablanca?" etc.

Ed was guite thorough, even quoting specific endgame URLs from his website :)

Grim Reaper: Is the broadcast available anywhere to download and hear it offline?

I plugged BrainKing.com a few times tonight on http://www.chess.fm if anyone caught the show. It will be rebroadcast during the week. Look for the "Renaissance Man" feature with Dan Heisman, and just turn on your speakers.

Oh....... My reason is that more extra features/abilities should not be given at Pawns, since they would have one reason more to become a Knight or Rook.......
By giving to Pawns the ability to participate quickly in new tournaments, then the difference between a paying membership and a non-paying membership becomes a lot closer, yet there is a huge difference of course.......

Pawns are important for this site and perhaps they are the soul of Brainking, but without Rooks and Knights.............?!?!?!??!?

Chessmaster1000: I think the main reason it does not happen automaticaly now is that it would take extra server processing to do the extra processing.... and least that is the reason I remember hearing when it was suggested before.

This is not very convenient and it should be automaticaly happen. But that belongs to feature requests! Since i don't have this problem and i believe that it should not be fixed (for the obvious reason......) i will not report it.......

WhiteTower: You can send a message to Fencer when you are eliminated from a tourney, and he will fix it so you can join another.

.. Or buy a membership

WhiteTower: I wonder what you mean... Isn't it very logical, that "fast" tournament with 1 or 2 days per move ends up faster than 7 days per move tournament, thus making life for pawns easier?
Thats what I mean, of course you have to wait until others finish their games or you can ask Fencer to free you in case you have all your games completed and no chance to advance further.

fungame: "Ideal for pawns who don't like to spend years waiting for tournament to finish or for players who like to play fast."

You must be kidding or you don't remember when you were a pawn - if you ever were. Even when your tournament games as a pawn are over, you still have to wait until EVERYBODY ELSE has finished, NOT until YOU have finished and have either:

- won your group and, therefore, are happy to wait next round, or
- been eliminated and SHOULD be allowed to go and sign up to your next tournament, since you have no more contribution or influence on the present tournament.

I mean REALLY!!!

Join fast Janus chess tournament for advanced players
http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=9028&tri=44300&trnst=0

Ideal for pawns who don't like to spend years waiting for tournament to finish or for players who like to play fast.

I think they do occasional rebroadcasts as well, I will ask Dan.

Thanks, Abigail! I might have a listen if I'm still up!

harley: The UK is five hours ahead of EST/EDT (except for one or two weeks a year, as Europe and the US don't switch to/from daylight saving time on the same dates). So Thursday 9 PM EDT is Friday 2 AM BST.

What time is that for the UK?

Next Thurday night at 9 PM Eastern I will be the guest speaker on chess.fm radio.

If you go to http://www.chess.fm just turn on your computer's speakers, and you can hear the broadcast.

We have pictures taken from the Alexis Skye vs. Claude Jeruchim Gothic Chess games today. A very interesting match that drew a big crowd at the resteraunt at the bottom of the Empire State Building

Chessmaster1000: In the end, it not just the theoretical logic which makes a measurement system useful, it is the the way the base units reflect aspects of life ... and this is both a learned phenonenum (sp?) and a function of our environment. Something which is measured in inches can usually be (physically) grasped in the hand, items measured in centimeters and millimeters are generally too small.

But with that, nuff sed ... further comments on this will be deleted, please continue this conversation at General Chat.

WQ :)

Further posts about unit systems will be deleted unless you demonstrate some connection with 10x8 chess variants.

No, i didn't say that the systems are illogical BUT that the people who still use them are, because they are old and because all world except them uses another system(S.I).......
Of course it's none of my business to criticize what they should use or not, but i find it not so logical to still use the old unit-systems........

AbigailII: Well said. I pointed out some of these things to him in a private message.
The systems, both Metric and Standard, aren't illogical, they are arbitrary. Whether or not they are designed logically is a whole different debate.

Chessmaster1000: No logical European writes 2m08.

Oh, sure they do. Both in writing, and speech. Of course, there are variations in usuage between countries and languages. (Generalisation over all Europeans usually doesn't work out well).

Don't try to compare the "illogical" American and British way of writing the units with our international way.

Illogical is in the eye of the beholder. What's percieved as "logical" is just what one is used to.

I wonder why it's so difficult to the 2 aforementioned "illogical in this matter" countries to accept the S.I.

The UK has been metric for decades. But habits are hard to die. Europeans have the Euro for several years now, but in all countries, many people still use marks, franks, lires, guilders and pesatas in their heads. Not to mention that many European cookbooks still use 'cups' and 'teaspoons' for measurements.

Now back to chess variants please.

No logical European writes 2m08.............!

Don't try to compare the "illogical" American and British way of writing the units with our international way.........
I wonder why it's so difficult to the 2 aforementioned "illogical in this matter" countries to accept the S.I..............?

P.S: I don't have any problem OF COURSE with these countries, i just comment their unit system.......

Do you know, who invents FEET mesurements?

http://www.chessbox.de/Wissen/matheellemass2.html

(German language text)