Caissus: Sorry, didn't know that. I'm rather new to all this chessvariants. Didn't even know that there are so many! Well, looks like I'm not the only one who mixed that up:
http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/janus.html
"The extra pieces of this game, the Januses, look like knights with some extra `pin' put on their head, making them look a little like unicorns."

Uwe, I would have a questions for you just to satisfy my own interest. Who came up with standards like this Janus-look? Is there somethink like a Janus Chess Federation in place? Can you link me to some 'History of Janus Chess'?

Thanks,

Gotti

gotti2000: No gotti ,that is the official "Janus" piece.
BTW it is only important, that you have two additional pieces for your piecesset. Then you can use them as Janus,AB,Chancellor,Wizard,for the Chinese Chess or whatever

Caissus: That's an Einhorn (unicorn)!
http://homepages.compuserve.de/uwdacoma/JanusMarsh1.jpg

CardinalFlight: in will change the pieces soon

It works great, but the pieces are kind of hard to tell apart. The archbishop and chancellor look most similar.

new there at gothicchess.at:
- chapter with games (intro)
- first games (for testing java tool)
(all in german)

Link "Eroeffnungen" Maybe you wanna have a look if this is okay on your screen.

to Nasmichael:

That choice could be relevant not only for Gothic Chess alone but for the whole family of Capablanca extended piece set related variants.

Indeed it seems neither being simple nor to be skipped finding appropriate icons DISTINCT to existing and RELATED to the GAITS of the represented pieces. The solution Smirf provides for that problem thus avoids the usage of horse heads or bishop hats. And for newcomers additionally to those pictures it might be helpful also to use new and better names, where some already have been introduced here:

A=ARCHANGEL (ger. E=Erzengel, protecting the paradise with swords) instead of Archbishop or Janus
C=CENTAUR (ger. Z=Zentaur, because of its double nature, horse part below) instead of Chancellor

Sumerian: The choice of symbols are great and easy to explain to new players when I show them the board to share the game. Well done.

If you need names for E and Z then
Erzengel and Zentaur sounds good to me. Erzengel because of the reasons given by Sumerian (defending the paradise's entry by his sword) and Zentaur because of the half-horse thingy! However I'm by far not the person to establish German standards for GC this should be done officially by the Austrian and German GothicChess Federation. So I'm just doing some brainstorming here.

Well, i read the discussion here and in other fellowshipfs and set up v0.2 of the rules of gothic chess (in german) at gothicchess.at - i added some pics too.
and please send me links about gothic chess related sites to info@gothicchess.at - i will add them in my link list!

to Dresden:
For Janus Chess there seems to be a notation using J for the Janus. But we are discussing the original Capablanca extended piece set, thus we should not use the name Janus. Traditionally the English names for the new pieces are 'A' for Archbishop and 'C' for Chancellor. Because already a lot of game notations do exist, it will not make any sense to change the English piece letters 'A' and 'C', which name ever might be related to that letter.

In German language we have that problem of taking a first letter for "Kanzler", like in English for the "Knight". Just like that problem has been solved by taking an unused letter N from the word Knight, it will help to take the unused letter Z from Kanzler, which overmore would not conflict with the international English letters. When looking at a bilingual GUI it should be no problem to decide which piece is addressed by a letter. Z for Kanzler would solve this request.

A distinct second problem is to find good names for those pieces corresponding to the already used letters (A+C English, E+Z German). But they should of course be highly related to those actually used.

C for Chancellor (German: Kanzler), A for Archbishop, German: kArdinal, Erzbischoff or jAnus.

to Caissus:
Look on the gait of the Archbishop. It will remind me on two crossed swords. Thus I selected that symbol being for me more related to that piece than anything with a bishop. Thus A = Archangel or in German E = Erzengel (defending the paradise's entry by his sword) would be no bad idea. Also see at my symbols: http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachveri1_e.html

The Auerswald-tool uses for the standard pieces the German abbreviations and for the AB the "A" for the chancellor the "C".Even so we can speak in German about "Kanzler" and "Kardinal".I don`t like the "Erzbischof".
Example: http://caissus.gmxhome.de/Partieen/caissusgothic.htm

to andreas:
Smirf's GUI is switchable from English to German. In German it is translating the move notation using 'Z' for Kanzler and 'E' for Erzbischof. Smirf is able to read even strange notations when proceeded by an appropriate FEN string, regardless whether they are written down in English or German. That ability would be affected when chosing a letter for the Kanzler which could be regarded as an English one meaning a different piece.

see: http://www.chessbox.de/_tmp/SmirfPrototyp.png

Sumerian: So, what notation are you currently using in Smirf, say when you need to save a game in German notation?

gotti2000: if you want to stick to tradition, pick any name but translations for "cardinal" and "archbishop". after all, in german, all the piece names (except king) are different from the english equivalents. the same goes for french, by the way.

I repeat a posting from another discussion board here:

Today Smirf is able to read even strange game notations in German and English because of its piece letters could be distinguished or are identical like K for King. Thus selecting A for Kanzler instead for Z would be a not so good selection conflicting with A for Archbishop. When viewing a game notation or a simple move notation that could lead to avoidable misunderstandings. Additionally letters C and Z are more related.

andreas: Nice idea but all existing German notations are derived off the first letter of the piece name. I'm not an expert in chess history to find the reason for this but I think we should comply in some way with the traditional system. At the moment this is not an issue as there are no official German Tournaments running and to be honest in traditional chess I'm more familiar with the English notation than the German anyway. Ideal would be piece names having 'A' and 'C' as their first letter I think. This would satisfy everyone I guess except professional translators of course :-)

Or Kardinal with the "C" (Cardinal) and for the chancellor the often used "Marschall" (Marshall) with the "M".

gotti2000: How about:
Chancellor -> "Kanzler" and use "Z" for notation;
Archbishop -> "Kardinal" and use "A" for notation.

schachmdmt: I was thinking over the translation again. It's not that easy to resolve. You are right that for some historical reason German notation takes its abbreviations off the first letter of the official german name of pieces where in English they don't by the way (eg. kNight). Literal translation doesn't seem the best approach to comply with the current piece naming. It's more a search for names which have a unique first letter (eg. Queen vs Dame [=Lady] instead of Königin [lit. translation]).
So 'Erzbischof' for Archbishop seems to be ok. But I can't find a proper translation for the Chancellor having using this thesis. Kanzler would violate with King. Präsident would be nice but having a President and a King at the same board doesn't look that good. There must be a better term. Probably our German colleagues could help us out here ...

Dresden: i took the basic text from the chess rules of wikipedia - and i started to change it and to add the gc rules. well, the text is not individual yet, there will be some corrections and i will add some pics (diagrams and so on)
and of course i will link to other gc related sites! please wait!

gotti2000: Yes, it must be Archbishop ... but in general i am not sure if i should translate these words. teh english words are looking "cooler", but anyway, i will add these translations of course. but in any case i would say, that the notation should be A and C.
in austria i only know you and me playing gc, and at the vienna university of technology some interested, but at the moment non playing. where are you from exactly? please mail me at president@gothicchess.at

yes, a bit Austrian or Vienna accent would be cool if this was possible some way on some phrases, but you must know yourself off course. You will be linked soon.

schachmdmt: Nice look. Viennse dialect would be cool though ;-) One spelling mistake I found was: 'Arcbishop' instead of Archbishop.
By the way does anybody know the correct translation of an Archbishop. Is it 'Erzbischof' or 'Kardinal'. I think different confessions have different definitions of those. Anyway, Chancellor would be 'Kanzler', no doubt.

Markus, do you know of any Austrians playing GC besides you and me?

Gotti

schachmdmt: I have seen the site. It is really gorgeous! I don't know any German, but the look seems beats this already ;) The overall structure looks quite sound. The growth of contents or the information should be very well mannered too.
Well done schachmdmt! All the best !

At gothicchess.at - section "Regeln" (rules) I wrote the first version of the rules for gothic chess, of course in german (gothicchess.at will be mainly a german speaking site).
in the next days i will add some pics there. german-speaking people here - please correct me if you see errors!
http://www.gothicchess.at/ started yesterday - so the rules are the first content in it (and some links)

I hope you guys take some pictures and keep the good games to post on the site.

Yes, anyone can enter! Entrace fee: $75 if received by January 8, $90 if received by January 15, $130 if received by January 29, $175 if received by February 5. No checks will be deposited after February 5. Late entrants of $225, cash only, will be accepted at the playing site. Plus $25 for a Gothic Chess set which you need to play in the tournament.

Open means anyone can enter. It's $75, and I think it costs $25 more for a gothic chess federation membership, so that's $100.

Who may enter? Do you need to join anything to enter and how much would that cost? I may or may not be able to play;so I would appreciate a helpful answer.

Caissus: I'm in there, let's rumble. :)

starts on o1.01.2005. Last chance to join in!

The Philadelphia Open will be played February 18-20, 2005 at the Wyndham Philadelphia Hotel! This tournament is a 7 round Swiss with a G75 + 5 sec delay. You can register here at http://www.gothicchess.org/register_philly_open.html

The top prize of $5000 U.S. for a $75 Entry Fee is a rarity...so mark this day in your calendar and come to Philly to play in a great tournament!

This messing up my playing boards on this site is getting rediculous.

Are there any other websites that also feature Gothic Chess that anyone knows about? I would also like to know how you would rate them;if there are. I know about gothicchess.org and gothicchess.com.

I checked out the gothicchess.de website. That game on there has a pretty interesting opening. It can be used as black and white. Its strength is on the wings. It is very flexible because the knights, bishops, archbishop and queen can come out. In the game there, instead of 7...Nd4, he should go to bishop g7. If black is allowed on the next move to go to Ng4, then the archbishop must go back to its starting location or get forked by the knight.

It is definitly an interesting opening.

I wonder has anyone had problems gettting online today; I have tried 3 times and could stay online only 10-15 minutes at a time. I have played the games I could but got cut off in the middle of moves everytime.

Dresden: but you can become the first German Champion in Gothic - at once!

This was to be seen as understatement, I mean we could have 70, but I prefer Gothic.

Dresden: We have in Germany 69 Grandmasters,205 International Masters and 623 Fidemasters (male and female). Only Fidechess without correspondence chess and problems!

www.gothicchess.de is already online, but not finished yet (and never will be really finished). It´s just there, to provide some infos in German also. Most players know the English language well enough, but it´s better to represent that the game is played in many countries, Germany has not many top chess players in 8x8, but chess in general is relatively popular. Gothic Chess as well. :-)

When do you estimate this new site will be available for use?

thank you schach! I look forward to more games, especially 3+(!!!), in the new year! Yes, it is my first ever brown xmas, i miss the snow. However, xmas here is not yet commercialized and it is a pleasant respite so far. So i don't really mind, my home is not set in stone!

best wishes to all! 圣诞快乐！ 성탄축하!

to noursix:
best wishes to you and of course to your wife too! i think i will not often in against you and her in gothic and janus!

to redsales:
Best wishes too! You stay far away from home over christmas?

to all:
A very merry xmas and a happy new year, lets hope it is a good one, without any fear!

to you as well noursix, i'm finding you a very challenging opponent in our game and I will be lucky to draw!

For everybody

to EdTrice:
This is not necessary in this special case, because you are supporting only a maximum of 10 files. Thus it would be sufficient to 'forget'/'undo' a proceeding '1' when reaching a '0' and keep the rest of the program as it has been. This approach then would also tolerate both forms using simply '0' or '10'.

to Caissus:
It is just developing. I had been very unsure about that from the beginning. Thus I enabled my tools to understand both forms. May be Uwe's tool has not been written similar tolerant. If I would have understood how it should to be used, I would have noticed that earlier and contacted him about that.

As I have told, there are approaches to standardize encodings also of fairychess forms in the FFEN approach. Some people convinced me that the "10" form used by current Smirf would be more flexible and conform. Also I have found a similar using of FEN by Michel Langeveld at http://www.xs4all.nl/~mlngveld/gothicchess/index.html . So I finally made that decision for Smirf.