fariborz2: I consider this as a GREAT idea, fariborz2. It would definitely exclude such game (it's name would have to be different from gothic chess, of course), from the patent, if exists.

fariborz2: it's a new game if it has different rules and is represented as a different game under a different name. That's how other games were circumvented on this site.

In all fairness, though, Ed Trice's $1 royalty is not too much to ask.

Trice told me he would investigate why is the application considered withdrawn. I asked him to give me any other evidence that proves the existence of his patent, he sent me a reply with about hundred of words but it was mostly about how much money he makes per day and his contracts with Hasbro and what everything he can do with this site. No evidence whatsoever.

What about a change in rules: you can't castle queen side if b1/b8 is under attack
A new game or it's under patent also?

chessmec: interesting. I wonder why he withdrew the application.

Pedro Martínez: Ok. Then this "patent" is such as a loo paper? ;-)

chessmec: That says that Trice's application for an int. patent is deemed to be withdrawn.

Pedro Martínez: Caissus showed me this - http://register.epoline.org/espacenet/regviewer?AP=EP20020250929&PN=&CY=ep&LG=en&DB=REG - thats interesting. but what does it mean??

Sumerian: I know that also. What is the number of his international patent?

to Pedro Martínez:

As far as I know it is an US patent #6,481,716 from Nov. 19th, 2002.

All international PCT patents (which Edward. A. Trice claims to have) can be found here:
http://www.wipo.int/ipdl/en/
and here:
http://register.epoline.org/espacenet/ep/en/srch-reg.htm

If somebody finds that the patent was awarded to Trice there, I will pay a life-time maharajah membership for him.

Caissus: In my opinion (after some research) nobody has to take care about this patent.

Chessmaster1000:I agree CM, but it is only Edtrice`s matter to let us play in peace and to be quiet about his patent,which makes trouble at this site incessently.We only want play our games in peace and you should perhaps write your complains to someone other.If this is not possible we should play perhaps better a variant,which lets one or two pawns unprotected,but we can play without trouble,"Aberg-variation" or "CRC" for example.

I am becoming a Gothic chess fan too! Also Janus. I am trying to organize a Gothic chess tournament at my school. Do I need Ed's permission for that?

Hmm, again the same situation. It's very dissapointing to see all these meaningless conversations again...........

The important is to KEEP GOTHIC CHESS AND ED TRICE HERE at BRAINKING! Gothic Chess is one of my favourite games here and i'm not the only one, and i will not be simply unhappy if it will be removed from here, but i will lose much of my interest for Brainking............Gothic Chess is popular here and i don't understand the reasons people have suggesting to remove it. You put ideas of Fencer head and make the situation even more difficult.

And why do you care about the patent????? You just have to enjoy G.C but no. You will never satisfy! And what if Ed and G.C leave? What thing you will have for fighting.........? I'm sure you will find something..............

I'm sure Fencer will do the obvious........He is clever and he is not influenced by your voices........

Pedro Martínez: He didn't delete them this time. I've banned and hid him. I'm not going to let what happened the last time he started this stuff happen again. He said he would leave this site, and that hasn't happened. He said he would never post to this board as long as I remained moderator, and as you can see he is posting here. He has repeatedly deleted or altered his posts in such a way that it makes a mishmash of other people's posts that had replied and even has the gall to say that you did it to your post just now! And let us not forget the rumors and innuendo started with accussation of Stevie sending it back on January 23rd. I don't like that being done, and I am in a position to do something about it. Fencer doesn't appear happy with Ed either and I don't want to be in middle of them when it comes to a head. The patent business has never been resolved to my satisfaction and that's just the way it is. I did go to Ed's posts on the Chess Variant's page and he was very even handed and informative in his recent posts there. Why he carries on the way he does here is beyond me. As for your Pond bets, made or not made through his advice, it seems like we should be talking about that on the "Run Around the Pond" discussion board. I did like the conversation there about it, unfortunately the moderators there tired of it and it forced a group Pond players to split off and form their own fellowship to have different moderators and culture of posting. Which is what Ed did in this discussion board too. I wonder why he came back here? Perhaps his fellowships aren't working out as he planned?
In any case, that's how it is right now, and I'll wait for awhile to see what happens next. The way this sites' boards and oversight is done now has changed from when I become moderator here, plus March is only a few weeks away and I have the feeling that things will be lots different here when April rolls around.

I am unhiding Ed with this modification, but the ban will stand. Let his posts speak for themselves. Least ways, those that remain.

Oh yeah, better delete all your posts.

Now stop lying Ed. I changed my post for a typo and as you can see, 25 seconds after the original post. What radical change could I make in 25 seconds?

You stopped sending me your bets several rounds ago. I don't know why, I never told you anything about not wanting you to do that.

Since Pedro Martinez has changed his post so radically, I will do everyone a big favor by not renewing the license.

And I guess Pedro does not want me to send him any more Pond bets anymore, so I will stop doing that as well.

For those interested

http://www.gothicchess.org/auction.html

Looks like the staff there deleted some of the posts. If you have any questions you can always ask the people who run CowPlay.

The International Patent was awarded 6 months ago.

CowPlay.com was in non-compliance with their license, having until December 31, 2004 to send me $1. I had filed for the international infringement case on December 30, "just in case". Gothic Chess was pulled from their site and they were fined $275 per day of non-compliance.

This lit up the discussion board at ChessVariants.org for a while

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/listcomments.php?itemid=GothicChess

WhiteTower: Unlike here, where it's weathered just about everything thrown at it and keeps on ticking. :) I imagine the game will be here in its present form, one way or the other. Seems to have a lot of lives.
What is cowplay, and what happened to the game there?

BuilderQ: no, and it looks like a stupid discussion board issue was to blame...

The cost to have the game here was $1. It is here for everyone's enjoyment and benevolence. Let us rest this patent argument.

In reality it all depends on how strong enforcement is in the Czech Republic and the European Union. However, the rights conferred to the holder of the patent and the conditions under which the patent can be used without licensing are all given in Section 5 of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Article 1 of the TRIPS Agreement gives the member countries the ability to determine how the agreement will be enforced within their own legal systems. At this point it is where we reach the grey area. If a member country has made no provisions for enforcing the TRIPS Agreement, then patents and other forms of intellectual property can be left dangling in the air. There are examples in the Interpretations of the Agreement for cases where disputes have arisen but generally these involve countries rather than individuals. At least on paper member countries are supposed to enforce the agreement. Whether it happens in practice is a different story.

Oh come on, Cerebro. You either don't know what you're talking about or you're a very bad lawyer. You say that any WTO member country has to respect any patents registered in other member countries??? That is such a nonsense. I have already recommended to Fencer not to renew the "license". It seems you have troubles differentiating between intellectual property law and patent law. I'd wish Trice sued Fencer, I would represent Fencer for free, if he wanted me.

Is Gothic Chess still at cowplay.com?

This issue of patent rights was discussed last year. You have to realize that any country that is part of the World Trade Organization is bound by the agreement to respect patent rights in other countries. All countries in the European Union are part of the WTO; therefore, the Gothic Chess patent is legally binding in those countries. In other words, the BK website has to renew the license before it can continue offering Gothic Chess to its members. Until we don't hear officially from the owners of the website, we cannot tell whether the license will be renewed or not. Speculating on the matter is of no use to anyone.

Thad: Until a holder of any American patent registers his/her patent at the European Patent Office or the Czech Patent Office, the subject of this patent can be used no matter whether the holder of the patent agrees with such usage or not. I.e., there's no agreement between Fencer and EdTrice needed so that Gothic Chess could be played here.

At present there are many tournaments open to sign up on BrainKing that include Gothic Chess, see http://brainking.com/game/Tournaments?trnst=0&tp=41&submit=Show

For official Gothic Chess Federation tournaments, see http://www.gothicchess.org/tournaments.html

As for the name "Gothic", it is intented to span generation gaps; Ed Trice once explained: "Younger people are familiar with the Gothic lifestyle (the wearing of dark colors, staying up extremely late, etc) and older people are familiar with Gothic architecture. So, in a very real sense, 'Gothic' could register as "something new" or "something old" depending on the focus group."

At BrainKing, Gothic Chess games have a drawing percentage of 2.39 %.

How do I sign up for a gothic chess tournament? What is the name for the current one?

I was wondering why this chess variant is called gothic chess? Why the term "gothic?"

Also, I am intrigued by it. Does anybody know the drawing percentages at these tournaments? Also, how many players on average play in them?

One last question. In standrd chess, opening theory is out of control. Shuffling the bank rank helps alleviate this. I am wondering if gothic chess will experinace this same fate since its bank rank is the same for each game? I do not believe so because the 2 added pieces makes it too complex. What are people's thoughts here?

Regards,
Mark Havrilla

End of March. Not up to me.

I have heard a rumor that this game will be leaving this site due to the fact that Fencer and the guy who holds the patent rights in the US will not be renewing their agreement. Does anyone know if this is true and when their current agreement ends?

You just need to be careful and in each case moving the pawns or more rightly The knights to h3 or c3 for White and h6 or c6 for Black usually will eliminate this bad play from happening. But even in regular chess bad mooves can lead to very Quick mates;or lost games. However in Gothic you can sometimes overcome these moves because of the extra pieces. Whereas in regular chess recovery is next to impossible.

Thad: I don't see that as much of a problem. It's caused from the board being rectangular instead of square. In Janus Chess the Bishops can do that too, though it's the Rook Pawns that they attack without moving and the diagonal isn't good as the one in Gothic Chess. Plus moving them Pawn isn't always a good thing to do early, especially moving them both. Try a few games and see.

In regualr chess, you must move a piece to use it in an attack. In Gothic, you can attack with the bishop without ever moving it, you only have to unblock it by moving a pawn. I suppose at the higher levels, this is just an annoyance, rather than a flaw, but for novices, I see this as a weakness in the layout.

Thad: I'm not sure what flaw it is that you're talking about. Do you mean a particular game that you're playing or Gothic Chess in general? In Janus Chess to Pawns are unguarded at the start of the game, but it's not a flaw at all. Janus Chess is a tough challenging game. Very simular to Gothic Chess. You get two Januses and the set up is like regular Chess. A Janus is the same piece as the Archbishop. Having two of them makes for trouble. They work together in ways that a Chancellor and Archbishop cannot. For some reason, it's taking me a long time to get better at Janus Chess than Gothic Chess, though that might be because I've played and lost a lot of games to Sumerian's Smirf program. I have a tough end game going with it right now. I'm learning. It's Bishop, Rook, and Pawns against Janus and Pawns.

Thad: I'm not sure what you're saying is a flaw. The B pawn can be protected, surely? Could you elaborate?

Walter Montego: Is that an inside joke? Does Janus chess have the same flaw? I've never played it. ;-)

Thad: In that case Thad, may I invite you to a couple of games of Janus Chess? :)

Well, my current games will be my last. I just gave away my B pawn (and my rook will follow) again.

I do not like this setup because when an opponent advances a pawn, it exposes a direct threat to my pieces. Chess does not have this flaw.

Chessmaster1000:
Thanks for prize and the nice brain exercise

Fariborz2 you succedded in answering all questions correctly. I have communicated with Fencer to add a one year membership on you.......

The only semi-correct question was Q-2 since the line you gave was far from optimal for white (he could mate at the ending position much easier) and ESPECIALLY for black (he could delay mate MUCH longer, there were many more tricks he could do to just delay it...), but your whole idea-combination was correct so.......

Thanks to chessmaster I discovered that I like extinction chess
Now I should sleep :-)

Q1:
part1:
1.e3 j5 2. Cd3 Rj6 3. Qf3 Rg6 4. Cf4 h6 5. Cxg6#

part2:
1. f3 a5 2. Cd3 Ra6 3. Cf4 Rg6 4. Ad4 h6 5. Ab3 f6 6. Cxg6#

----------------------------------------
----------------------------------
Q2:
1.Bb1 f5 2.Ka4 h5 3.Ka3 h4 4.Ka2 f4 5.Ka1 h2 6.Ba2 h3 7.Kb1 f5 8.Kc1 Ka8 9.Kd1 Kb7 10.Bb1 Ka8 11.Ke1 Kb7 12.Kf1 Ka8 13.Kf2 Kb7 14.Ke1 (the point is to make a triangle to lose a turn) Ka8 15.Kd1 Kb7 16.Kc1 Ka8 17.Ba2 Kb7 18.Kb1 Ka8 19.Ka1 Kb7 20.Bb1 Ka8 21.Ka2 Kb7 22.Ka3 Ka8 23.Ka4 Kb7 24.Ka5 Kc8 (24..,Ka8 25.Ka6 any 26.b7#) 25.Ka6 f2 26.b7+ Kd7 27.b8Q f1Q 28.Qxe5
I hope that black is in a mate trap eg: 28..,Qxh1 29.Qxf5+ Ke8 30.Qg6+ Kd8 31.Bb6+ Ke7 32.Bc5+ Kd8 33.Qd6+ Kc8 34.Qe6+ Kb8 35.Bd6+ Ka8 36.Qg8#
----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------
Q3:
1.Rd6
A)1..,Bxd6 2.exd6 (threat:3.Bxc5 and double attack to queen and king)
a1) 2..,Kd7 3.f5 Bh7 (or Bxf5) 4.Bxf7 Nf6 5.Bg5 (and 6.capturesN)
a2)2..,Qa7 (or Qd8) 3.f5 Bxf5(or Bh7 ) 4.Bxf7 Kxf7 5.Qc4 (and black loses king or knight or bishop in next move)
a3)2..,Qc6 3.Bb5
a4)2..Kd8 same as a1 but in last move it’s possible to play 5..,Nd7 6.BxK
a5)2..Kf8 3.f5 Bxf5 [3..,Bh7 4.Qxh5 5.QxB(or N)] 4.Bxf7 Nf6 (or Kxf7) 5.Qf3 and 6.QxB(or K or N)
a6)2..,Be4 3.Bxc5

B)1..,Rc6 2.Rxg6 (threat:3.Bxf7 Kxf7 4.Qc4 Re6 5.Bxc5 and 6.captures Q or B)
b1)2..,Rxg6 3.Bxc5 and 4.captures Q or B)
b2)2..,Kd7(d8) 3.Bxf7 and 4.captures N

C)1..,Qc7 2.Rxg6 (two threats: 3.Rxg7 Nh6 4.Qxh5 and 3.Bxf7 Kxf7 4.Qc4)
c1)2..,Bd8 3.Rxg7 Ne7 4.Rd1 and 5.captures N or Q or B
c2)2..Bf8 3.Bxc5 and 4.captures N or Q or B or K
c3)2..Bh4 3.g3 Bd8 4.Rd1 Be7 5.Bxf7 Kxf7 6.Qc4 and 7.captures K or N (the longest line)

D)1..Qa7 same as (C) but black queen doesn’t defend f7 after Bishop’s moves so one of two threats win.
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
Q4:
1.Bc7 Qxc8 (1..,Nxc7 2.gxf7+ Kf8 3.Qxc7) 2.gxf7+ Kh8 (2..,Kf8 3.Bd6#) 3.Be5 (4.Ke7#) Qc5 [3..,h6(h5) 4.Kg6#; 3..,Qf8 4.Ke6+ Qg7 5.f8Q#; 3..,Qc6+ 4.Ke7+;3..Qb8 4.Bxb8; 3..Qd8+ 4.Ke6+ ; 3..Qa6 4.Ke7+; 3..,Qf5+ 4.Kxf5#]
4.Bb2 Nc7 5.Ba1 a4 6.Bb2 a3 7.Ba1 a2 8.Bb2 a1Q 9.Bxa1 Qa3 10.Kf5+ Qxa1 11.f8Q#

(9..,Qa5 10.f8Q#; 9..,h6(h5) 10.Kg6+ Qe5 11.Bxe5# ; 9..,Nd5+ 10.Ke6+ Nc3 11.Bxc3+ Qxc3 12.f8Q# ; 9..,Ne8+ 10.fxe8Q+ Qf8+ 11.Qxf8#; 9..,Qf2+ Ke7+ 10.Qf6 Bxf6#)

Chessmaster1000:

Well, then I use this way, I don't think I can solve Q3, but I work on Q2.
Thanks for Q4, it was very exciting.

------------------------------------

Q1:
part1:
1.e3 j5 2. Cd3 Rj6 3. Qf3 Rg6 4. Cf4 h6 5. Cxg6#

part2:
1. f3 a5 2. Cd3 Ra6 3. Cf4 Rg6 4. Ad4 h6 5. Ab3 f6 6. Cxg6#
------------------------------------------
----
Q4:
1.Bc7 Qxc8 (1..,Nxc7 2.gxf7+ Kf8 3.Qxc7) 2.gxf7+ Kh8 (2..,Kf8 3.Bd6#) 3.Be5 (4.Ke7#) Qc5 [3..,h6(h5) 4.Kg6#; 3..,Qf8 4.Ke6+ Qg7 5.f8Q#; 3..,Qc6+ 4.Ke7+;3..Qb8 4.Bxb8; 3..Qd8+ 4.Ke6+ ; 3..Qa6 4.Ke7+; 3..,Qf5+ 4.Kxf5#]
4.Bb2 Nc7 5.Ba1 a4 6.Bb2 a3 7.Ba1 a2 8.Bb2 a1Q 9.Bxa1 Qa3 10.Kf5+ Qxa1 11.f8Q#

(9..,Qa5 10.f8Q#; 9..,h6(h5) 10.Kg6+ Qe5 11.Bxe5# ; 9..,Nd5+ 10.Ke6+ Nc3 11.Bxc3+ Qxc3 12.f8Q# ; 9..,Ne8+ 10.fxe8Q+ Qf8+ 11.Qxf8#; 9..,Qf2+ Ke7+ 10.Qf6 Bxf6#)

Try http://www.gothicchess.at