manchildstein: By the way. Long time ago I wrote a zillions application of superchess.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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 :-)))

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.

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....

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

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).

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

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.