to AbigailII: You are not right with this. Chess960 is not Shuffle Chess, where mirrored positions of course were functionally identic. You will have noticed, that the positions after O-O and O-O-O are not symmetric. Thus the existence of castlings indeed makes mirrored starting positions belong to different games. The conclusion is, that of course 960 different situations are defined.

how come in the tourn."http://brainking.com/game/Tournaments?tri=
29371#1"
Section 1, i got the games all the same positions? why they not Random ??

Please excuse any impoliteness that might be implicit in the question but do you play shogi with/against a computer?

Caissus: AbigailII:
Thank you both for the links. It looks like I had most of the story right. It sounds like a saga now. I wonder what'll happen next to him? Moving to Iceland?! I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I really doubt that Bush will pardon him, but Bush could call off the dogs and let him move to Iceland.

to ughaibu: Currently Shogi is not that relevant for me. I have made a proposal to display Shogi positions in a more European look, see http://f51.parsimony.net/forum203932/messages/21.htm . But there has been no feed back. Thus I concentrated on Chess960 and 10x8 CRC. Second relevant for me is the game of Go. May be later I will write a program for Go after the SMIRF project will be completed.

Your link is a jungle to me. Generally I think the more European look is as difficult as playing chess with the pieces represented by letters. Go is interesting as it's a game without movement, I suspect it can be decided in reverse, from won positions. This doesn't mean I suggest anybody do this, my view is that computers should mind their own business and stop interferring with our games.

ustica: That's exactly what is being solved here on several last pages, if you read them :-D

"Arena" shows us,that the games in Sumerian`s tournement are started with position 647 !

Fencer: thanks

For the benefit of everyone:
http://frcec.tripod.com/FRC-Castling.htm

There is a variant on cowplay.com site which is called MetaChess(2).
It's a nice variant, and would be great if implemented here.

fariborz2: This one?

Fencer: It looks like the creator made a typo when describing where the Pawns get promoted to, unless he really means the "H" file!

Fencer: No, they said to inventor that he shouldn't choose a name like super,mega,meta,...

it's setup is like chess, every piece inherite the power of the same color,same file pieces power

on the first move it's possible to play pc2xh7 and now this pawn is also a rook(not a bishop anymore)
because of that there is a second variant of it with rook pawns on a3,h3,a6,h6
it's a very dynamic variant, every piece has the chance to be a queen, or even an amazon so matrial is less important.
object is checkmate, no en passant or castling

fariborz2: Is there a link to some official rules?

What do you think about it? With an additional rule of promoting pawns only to pieces which are already captured, in order to eliminate white's big advantage.

Fencer: Hm, looks like white has a forced win with this addtional rule: 1. Nb8-c6 Ng1-f3 2. Nc6-b4 (threatens 3. Nb4-d3++) Nf3-e5 3. Ng8-f6 N b1-c3 4. Nf6-g4! and white wins.

Just the help section of http://cowplay.com but it's not complete
the inventor is an active member there (chessteacher)

andreas: Aaaa, it's a pity, the game looked interesting to me.

andreas: >Hm, looks like white has a forced win with this addtional rule: 1. Nb8-c6 Ng1-f3 2. Nc6-b4 (threatens 3. Nb4-d3++) Nf3-e5 3. Ng8-f6 N b1-c3 4. Nf6-g4! and white wins.

Are you sure......? I would say that 4.Ng4?? is awful! It loses immediately after 4...Nb5

Chessmaster1000: Yes, you are right. It is not so easy for white to win. May be the game is a draw. I don't see how white can continue attack without bringing own King into danger.

Chessmaster1000: Good work, now the game can be implemented on BK :-D

Andreas.......:
He can't! It's a draw...................
After 1.Nc6 the 1...Nf3 is forced. After 2.Nb4 the 2...Ne5 is again forced. And then :

• 3.Rb8 Nc3 the 4.Nf6 is forced. And after 4...Nb5 Ne4 is again forced and then no Knight can move!
  
• 3.Nf6 Nc3 the 4.Rb8 is forced. And after 4...Nb5 Ne4 is again forced and then no Knight can move!

There are other similar variations (2.Rb8) that lead to the same result.............

So what's the conclusion, is the game playable?

Of course not! 3 reasons:

Main reason-1:Only Knight moves will occur in this game and also some fascinating Rook moves like Rb8,Rb1,Ra8,Ra1 that would give much excitement to the players!

Main reason-2:With white starting with 1.Nc6 black has to respond 1...Nf3, and if white plays 2.Nb4 then black has to respond 2...Ne5. HUGE disadvantage for a game to have such forced opening lines...........And after the 3d move of white if black plays 3...Nc3 white has again a force move. And then after 4...Nb5 the game is meaningless.......... 2 even not so good players will draw every time.

Reason-3:If a player doesn't capture with its Knight any Pawn or piece of the opponent then he could not promote any piece! And if he captures a Knight he could promote only to a Knight again....

If you want to implement the game, a good idea is to add the Pawns on 6th rank for white and 3d for black. Then there are much more options and a better play........

Hmmm, and what about the rule of promoting pawns only to the piece of their start column? For example, A and H pawns can promote only to rooks, etc.

Chessmaster1000: It's not that bad that a pawn can only promote to a knight after capturing a knight. The mere fact it promotes means escape for a rook, a bishop and either the queen or the king.

Fencer: Two or three folks (in addition to myself) have mentioned Hostage Chess; I mean only to get a response--are you against adding it? Neither the others nor I have gotten a response either way. The game rules
clarify its advantages. I invite you again to look at it.

Nasmichael: I am not against but currently I don't have time for more complicated games.

Fencer: That's fine. Just Checking.

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I've seen it being played on chess-servers like freechess.org without any promoting restrictions

Luke Skywalker: But it doesn't have to mean the game is well balanced.

Fencer: I cannot see why this game should be not balanced,only because of one forced move sequence,which you must not choose.
Most chesservers like ICC,USCL,Chessnet have this game also.
But for myself I prefer chessvariants,where regular strong chessprograms cannot be used.And in this game you can use them.

Caissus: Like what, for example? [variants]

Fencer: Hm,interesting Fritz 7 gives White an advatage about +2,72. This is very much...

Chessvariants, where the strong computerprograms can not be used should have at least one fairy chess condition,a bigger board or a fairy piece or something.Another setup with the standard pieces and the standard board is not enough.
Chessvariants.com has many good ideas and I have suggested some of them in the past.
Will look if I can find them :-)

Caissus: So, some restrictions should be applied, I guess. Promoting pawns only to the piece of their start column would be interesting.

Fencer: yes, good idea !

Fencer: And the pawn on the e-file? Promote to a second king? ;-)

AbigailII: To a queen, of course :-)

A couple of year ago I played at FICS. One of the wild variants I fancied there had the traditional setup of an 8x8 board, 8 pawns on the 2nd row (7th for black), and 8 pieces on the first (8th) row. The pieces were not only randomly placed, but also randomly drawn - with the restriction of having exactly one king. Blacks setup mirrorred whites. So you could have a game with 3 rooks, 3 bishops, a knight and a king. Or a king and 7 queens, if you were (un)lucky enough.

AbigailII: Yes it is interesting too and playable also at ICC,USCL and Chessnet as "Wild 3":

"Style 3: In this variant the set of pieces is randomly chosen (subject to the constraint that there is one king of each color). It is quite possible to get more than the normal number of a given piece, such as three rooks or two queens. The pieces are placed on the first rank behind the pawns, the position of Black's pieces mirrors White's placement, and castling is not allowed."

i'd try that!

Me too Caissus !

In this FRC position Caissus Vs Me and IF i play 5...Bg7, then white can castle or not............?
Caissus believes that yes but i believe that no.

Since the following is valid:
To make a castle:

The king would not cross a square that is being attacked by an opponent's piece or it would not finish its move on such square.

And the King should pass across e1 that is being attacked by my Rook, in order to go on g1, then i find it reasonable that white CAN'T castle.........
But Caissus is an experienced player and perhaps knows better. Can anyone tell me what is the truth before i start playing again FRC............?

to Chessmaster1000: Castling is not allowed then, because the Rook e8 is threatening. Be aware that the King is always moving *ON* the board because castling is an iterated King's move, where the involved Rook is invisible. You can compare that situation to an e.p. capture move, where a Pawn is allowed to answer each of the iterated double Pawn steps. Because check would be applicatable to each of the King's iterated steps during castling, it would be allowed to capture the King. Thus castling is forbidden there, even when the threatened square is filled with the involved Rook.

Interesting, I have tried out it with "Arena" and "Compochess".Both programs allow the castling in this position.

to Caissus: SMIRF does not. I already have seen Chess960/FRC engines, which offer castlings, where third pieces would illegaly be overjumped. Arena is the leading FRC aware GUI, but obviously still not without minor defects.

Chessmaster1000: Nope, white can't castle.

This position doesn't meet one of the requirements for castling:

Unattacked: All of the squares between the king's initial and final squares (including the initial and final squares) must not be under attack by any opposing piece.

Check FRCEC's Castling Page with rules and examples at:
http://frcec.chess960.info/FRC-Castling.htm

Now, your question has given me an idea! In our Castling page we only provide examples of positions where castling is legal.

I'm going to add a section of positions where castling is illegal! and I'll start with your example.

Thanks for the idea!

Jose Carrillo-Muniz
FRCEC Moderator
http://frcec.chess960.info/

Caissus: I have tried out it with "Arena" and "Compochess".Both programs allow the castling in this position.

It's a bug in the code.